Page 59 of Wilder

He shrugged. “Fake ID.”

I rolled my eyes, bending down to scoop up the hose to the vacuum again. “Fucking typical.”

Confusion flickered across his features. “Ash⁠—”

I cut him off before he could finish. “Do you realize how shitty that is? This is supposed to be a family holiday. Since Gage is gone, you’re the only person I’ve got here. I thought we’d at least spend the rest of Christmas together. But no, you were too busy going out and getting laid.”

Greyson’s lips parted, his expression shifting from confusion to something else: guilt.

“Did you even miss me?” I asked.

His throat bobbed. “Of course I did. What kind of question is that?”

I hated the way my own tightened. “It’s been a whole year, Grey. A whole damn year since we’ve all been together. And instead of, I don’t know, actually wanting to be here, you’d rather go drink with some guys you barely even know.”

“Ash, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” I shot back. “Because from where I’m standing, it sure as hell feels like you don’t give a damn. This was your idea to come back for the holidays. The second Gage had to go, you ditched.”

The room hung heavy with silence, my words ringing louder than I intended. Since there was no buffer between us now, it was only us standing in the thick of it. No one to tell us when to quit, when to take a step back and walk away before we said something we couldn’t take back.

That had always been Gage’s job.

He was the one who kept us from digging in too deep, the one who knew exactly when to crack a joke or throw out some sage wisdom to make us roll our eyes and back off before things got ugly.

Without him here, Greyson and I were left to navigate this all on our own. The longer the silence stretched, the heavier it felt. Like neither of us knew where to go from here, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Greyson exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face. He hesitated for a beat, then let out another breath, this one slower, more measured.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I... Since coming back here, I’ve been struggling.”

I blinked, my irritation momentarily shifting to confusion.

That was not what I expected him to say. “With what?”

Greyson dropped his gaze, refusing to meet my eyes. “Everything. I— the military kind of flipped me upside down. Don’t get me wrong, I love it but... I feel like a stranger in this house now.”

My eyes grew wide.

I hadn’t considered maybe I wasn’t the only one struggling on this trip.

Stepping over the vacuum still sprawled across the floor, I closed the distance between us, moving slowly, deliberately, on the off chance he needed to back away and take a second to breathe.

I lifted my arms slightly as I reached him, folding him into a tight embrace when he didn’t pull back. I smoothed my hand over the back of his blunt hair, much in the same way I used to do when we were kids, when one of us had a nightmare and the world around us felt too damn big.

He let out a shaky, uneven breath.

“Want to talk about it?” I murmured.

He made a soft noise in his throat, a barely there sound. “Not yet. I will. Just...”

I didn’t make him finish, just squeezed him a little tighter. “I get it.”

Out of anyone, I probably understood that the most. Some things took time. Complicated conversations weren’t meant to be unpacked in the span of a few back-and-forths. Maybe Grey wasn’t sure how to put any of it into words yet, either.

I wasn’t about to force him to talk before he was ready, that wasn’t what he or I needed.

But I needed something other than whatever the hell this was.