Page 14 of Wilder

We all had years on him. Even me, the second youngest, still had enough time under my belt to put some distance between us despite us both technically being in the same age bracket.

For all his enthusiasm and eagerness to prove himself, he was still trying to catch up.

And he wanted to.

Desperately.

If there was one thing the kid had going for him, it was how he never let himself fall too far behind. He worked twice as hard, pushed himself just as much as the rest of us, and didn’t quit until one of us was forced to drag him back to the bunkhouse for the night.

As inspiring as it was to watch him come into his own—or try to, at least—we also refused to stand around and let him run himself ragged.

What kind of mentors would we be?

He always took our teasing in stride, bore the ribbing that came with being the youngest, and never once let himself sulk over it for longer than a few hours. But there were still moments, like now, where it was painfully clear just how much younger he really was.

“Ugh. I hate all of you,” Dusty muttered.

Ryder moved over to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and tugging him close to his side. “Don’t lie. You love us.”

He merely got an eye roll in response.

I huffed out a laugh before pushing away from the wall. As fun as it was to watch my fellow ranch hands fuck around until Sully came down to scold us all for wasting time messing with the tack, standing around doing nothing was making me feel antsy.

Greyson used to tease me for it—my inability to sit still and how I always needed to be doing something before I was slowly driven insane.

A by-product, no doubt, of our older brother constantly shuffling us from one activity to the next just to keep us occupied while he worked. Back then it had been fun, every day packed with something new and exciting for our young pre-teen selves to experience.

But now?

Now that I was older, and those ingrained habits hadn’t settled like I kept expecting them to, it made relaxing feel less like a break and more like a damn chore.

Laken glanced over when I moved, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement. “Heading out?”

I shrugged. “For a bit. Wanted to check on the horses.”

His expression shifted, knowing. “You mean your horse.”

“The ranch’s horse,” I corrected, though we both knew it was a weak argument at best.

Laken hummed, unconvinced, but didn’t push the point. He didn’t have to when everyone on this damn ranch had teased me about the same thing since I’d first gotten her saddled and taken out on our first walk together. It didn’t matter how much I insisted otherwise, no one was buying it.

Not when I was the one who spent every spare second with her and the only one she trusted automatically and without question.

I’d worked damn hard to build a relationship with her. Day in and day out with no expectations other than to show her that not everyone in this world would hurt her. She’d shown me grace, slowly and painstakingly started to trust me. She’d given me plenty of chances when I thought I’d fucked up irreparably trying different methods to rehab her, and now...

Now, she was my best friend.

So far, none of this had made its way back to Wilder. As far as I knew, anyway.

While he’d given me plenty of side eyes after catching me out in the paddocks well past dinnertime or finding me at the stables before the sun had even begun to crest along the horizon. He never said much about it, never questioned it outright, but I could feel his attention lingering every time he caught me.

Still, he hadn’t banned me from working with her as of yet. Hadn’t redirected me toward more important duties or reminded me that I had other responsibilities to focus on that had nothing to do with horses at all.

If anything, he’d let it slide more often than I ever expected him to.

I tried not to think too deeply about it.

Not when my stupid crush had a bad habit of twisting things up in my own damn head, spinning ridiculous scenarios in order to justify my boss’s actions in ways I had absolutely no business reading into in the first place.