Page 52 of Wilder

“Asher.” His voice cut through the static in my head. “What’s going on?”

I swallowed. “Nothing.”

“You sound upset.”

Fuck.

To me, I sounded completely normal. No hitch in my voice, no audible shake to my words that betrayed me, nothing to give me away. But somehow, he knew. He always fucking knew. Picking apart my tone with surgical precision, peeling back layers I hadn’t even realized I was letting slip in the first place.

I forced out a laugh, one I hoped sounded easy and casual. “Sorry, boss. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He hummed softly, a thoughtful sound.

“I’m not going to push you to talk about it.” His voice was soft, gentler than it needed to be. “But whatever it is, I hope you know people care about you, Asher.”

My breath hitched before I could stop it, betraying me the smallest way.

I didn’t know what to say. His words hit harder than they should have. A simple sentiment, one that anyone else might have shrugged off, but for me was anything but. It snagged on the raw, exposed part of me, the part that I had yet to figure out how to heal let alone go about expressing to the two people who it involved.

Because how did I even begin to reconcile with the fact that my life with my brothers was changing irrevocably?

That the foundation I’d built my world on was shifting beneath me while I’d been too stupid to realize it was happening in the first place?

I was a year fucking late to the party.

Wilder would never understand that.

I swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in my throat. “Okay. Thank you.”

“You have a good rest of your Christmas, all right?”

“Yeah.” The word slipped out before I could stop it, before I could rein it in and make it sound normal. Just a fraction too soft, a point he’d definitely pick up on immediately.

At this point, though, I was too tired to care.

I missed him.

I missed all of them.

“You too,” I murmured, pulling the phone away from my ear before I could hear his reply.

I tapped my thumb against the screen, ending the call.

With a sigh, I rolled and tossed my phone onto the bed next to me, watching as it bounced once before settling against the crumpled sheets.

Pretending like this distance wasn’t slowly and inevitably unraveling my sanity was ridiculous. It was eating away at me, bit by bit, no matter how hard I tried to push it down. No matter how many times I told myself it was only temporary.

Change was inevitable. That was how life worked. Facts like that had never scared me before. If anything, I had always welcomed them, embraced them. Change meant movement—it meant new opportunities, fresh starts, a chance to reshape things into something better.

So why was this different?

Why did this feel like something was slipping through my fingers, breaking apart in slow motion with no way to piece it back together?

I exhaled sharply, running a hand over my face.

As soon as Greyson got back from the bar, we were sitting down and having a long talk.

CHAPTER 13