Page 113 of Wilder

However, as much as I trusted Laken to let me spill every ugly thought crawling around inside my head and not judge me for it, the idea of dumping this particular brand of mess into his lap felt unfair.

Especially, when I wasn’t even sure how the hell to untangle it myself.

I dragged my hands down my face in one long, tired motion until finally dropping them to rest limply between my knees.

“You heading out?” I asked.

He gave a quick nod as his gaze flicked down to my sweats and then back up with a pointed arch of his brow. “Are you?”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “No. I’m going to change and then I’ll be down. I’ll probably see you at the arena.”

Though, if I was being honest, skipping out on work today sounded a hell of a lot more appealing than actually trying to force myself to put on a front and pretend like everything was fine.

And honestly, I doubted Sully would even notice if I ghosted today. He’d probably be too busy shadowing Wilder, making sure neither of us had any opportunity to try and be alone together again.

I wouldn’t put it past him to try and keep us on opposite ends of the ranch for the rest of the damn season.

If he had his way, I’d never so much as breathe the same air as Wilder ever again.

“All right.” Laken leaned back from the doorway. “I’ll see you soon.”

He lingered for half a second longer but soon swung the door shut behind him without another word.

The second he was gone, I tipped backward, letting myself fall against the mattress again.

Maybe the quiet would be enough to numb me for a while. If I closed my eyes and let myself drift, I could sleep off the horrible foreboding doom I felt creeping in. Maybe pretend like everything would be going back to normal come tomorrow.

Chances were high I wouldn’t be getting any work done anyway with my head this much of a mess.

It was better than obsessively staring at my ceiling wondering if I’d ever get to see Wilder again.

CHAPTER 28

Asher

It took almost three entire days before I saw him again.

A mere sixty-two hours that felt like an entire lifetime. Time seemed to stretch out before me, each minute dragging by as I waited for something—anything—to change. For some break in the cycle to finally come, only to be disappointed each night as the sun fell and rose the next morning and everything continued to remain the same.

I told myself over and over that this was nothing more than a temporary thing. A blip in the radar that I’d look back at in a year and laugh about.

Sooner or later, Sully would calm down and eventually realize just how ridiculous it was to try and gatekeep two fully grown adults from each other like we were misbehaving teenagers instead of people who’d finally stopped lying to themselves.

Whatever apology he wanted to give me, I’d happily accept as long as by the end of it, he stayed the hell out of my and Wilder’s business.

Sadly, that moment never came.

By the time day three rolled around, it was getting painfully obvious this wasn’t something that would blow over in a couple of days like I’d hoped. I’d somehow stumbled into a full-blown standoff where every hour I was praying for a ceasefire.

The ranch kept moving, business as usual, with my fellow ranch hands none the wiser about the absolute mess of emotions I’d started to dissolve into.

I hadn’t seen Wilder once. Not from a distance or in passing. Not even a fleeting glimpse of his familiar hat disappearing around the corner of one of the buildings. Each day that ticked by felt like another layer of me was slowly being peeled from my body, torturously painful.

I was slowly being driven mad.

Having nothing but my own thoughts and emotions swallowing me whole, dragging me down into some dark pit I had no way of knowing how to crawl out of, I’d wanted to disappear into nothing the moment Sully had caught me, but now that I was drowning in that very void, I wanted nothing more than to be rescued by the one person who apparently was hell-bent on avoiding me.

I needed something—anything—to distract me from this endless waiting game.