Page 29 of Wilder

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been close to him before this. We worked side by side nearly every damn day since he arrived, moved in the same spaces, passed tools back and forth, stood shoulder to shoulder during feedings or when tending to the horses.

But this?

This was different. So, so much different.

Because we’d never been this close.

Neither of us had ever crossed that line, had never had contact outside of an accidental brushing of hands when passing things between us during a job.

And now⁠—

Now, he was wrapped around me, chest pressed tight against mine, his arms locked around my ribs. Desire rattled inside me, wanting me to stay here feeling the solid warmth of his body pressed against mine. To memorize the way he fit like he belonged here tangled up in me.

Shit.

Before I could even process that thought—before I could figure out what the fuck to do with it—he pulled back, bouncing away with all the energy of a damn firecracker.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

A shiver rolled up my spine, unpleasant and unwelcome, at the loss of his warmth. I hated it, too sharp and too sudden.

He didn’t seem to notice, thankfully. Just had that same sunshine-y grin, his deep brown eyes sparkling as he pivoted backward, walking away with that easy, weightless energy of his, like the moment hadn’t just cracked something inside him like it had me

“I’ll bring you back a souvenir!” he called, his voice teasing, playful. “All the way from Baton Rouge!”

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly tight. “Sure.”

It was pathetic, to have my entire axis thrown off by a simple hug. A brief moment of contact that was sure to haunt me long after he climbed into a cab to take him to the airport. Long after he boarded his flight back to Louisiana.

And long after he was finally gone, off spending Christmas with his family while I was stuck here, trying to pretend like none of it had absolutely shaken me to my core.

Fucking hell, I was in trouble.

I had three weeks.

Three weeks to get my bearings back. To shove these godforsaken feelings so deep into the ground that by the time Asher came back, they’d be buried for good.

Because there was absolutely no way I was going to keep dealing with this—with feelings—for a goddamn nineteen-year-old at my age.

No way in hell.

CHAPTER 8

Asher

The trip back home—and more importantly, the look on Gage’s face when we showed up unannounced at the fire station—had made the ungodly hour I’d been forced to wake up and catch my flight at entirely worth it.

The moment he spotted us, his eyes had gone wide, his mouth dropping open like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, and then, just like that, his tough, no-nonsense firefighter exterior cracked right down the middle.

The tears in his eyes had been an extra nice touch, honestly.

Not that he’d actually cried—Gage had too much pride for that—but the shine in them, the way his voice had wavered just slightly when he yanked Greyson and me into the strongest damn bear hug of our lives, had been more than enough.

He barely kept it together in front of the entire station, peppering us with a million questions in between squeezing the life out of us in the process: “When the hell did you guys get in?”, “When did you get time off?”, “I can’t believe you two little shits plotted this behind my back.”

Yes. Yes, we did.

Because, at the end of the day, we were pranksters at heart. And as much as we’d grown up, as much as life had separated us onto different paths, some things never changed.