Page 68 of Wilder

Under any other normal circumstances, I’d let it go.

Drunk confessions were nothing more than the ramblings of someone who’d spent too much time staring at the bottom of a bottle, their thoughts unspooling in messy, half-formed and unfiltered fragments. They tended to not mean much once the liquor finally wore off as the sun rose, those familiar demons forced back into their boxes to hide for another day.

I’d heard enough of them over the years to recognize the pattern pretty well. Had my fair share myself from time to time when life got a little too complicated.

Add a holiday into the mix and stir in the high of a happy occasion, it made the perfect recipe for a confusing, volatile blend of feelings that didn’t always mean what they seemed to in the moment.

I knew that. I knew better than to read into any of this to begin with.

But despite all of that, despite knowing damn well that I should take his words with a grain of salt and shake this off like any other drunken late-night rambling, this didn’t feel like something I could dismiss so easily.

“Asher,” I said, keeping my tone firm. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

His breath hitched, soft and unintentional, followed with a soft noise at the end of it that sent heat licking down my spine, a curling restlessness gripping tight in my stomach.

“Me and Grey,” he sputtered, his words tripping over themselves. “We were talking after Gage got engaged. He was making fun of my crush, so the topic came up.”

His crush?

My mind latched onto that one word immediately.

Everything else he’d said blurred into the background, suddenly unimportant. The excitement surrounding the engagement, Greyson, the fire station noises, the commotion from the party I’d heard earlier—it all faded beneath the weight of that one damn word.

I barely recognized my own voice when I spoke next. “What crush?”

He let out another soft noise. “The one I’ve had on you since the day I started at the ranch.”

The world tilted.

I curled my arm up the siding of the house, resting it in front of my head where I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to it. A long, slow exhale left me while trying to focus on anything but the tightening of the front of my jeans.

Jesus Christ.

I needed to stay calm and be the responsible one here, the voice of reason, because Asher sure as hell wasn’t in the state to be.

I wanted to believe him—God, did I want to.

I wanted to let those words sink in, let them settle beneath my ribs and carve themselves into something permanent. I wanted to believe that this wasn’t a little too much nostalgia for missing this place wrapped up in misplaced affection.

What kind of boss would I be if I encouraged any of this?

Sully would ream me out if he ever found out. Hell, if Asher’s older brother ever caught wind of it, I was pretty sure he’d fly to Texas himself just to kill me.

But despite all of that and every logical reason to shut this down immediately, none of it was helping to settle the damn butterflies kicking up in my stomach.

And worse than that—it wasn’t enough to smother the grin threatening to take over my face, either.

Goddamn it.

I forced myself to take a few slow, even breaths, keeping my tone neutral when I spoke again.

“Tell you what,” I said, shifting my weight back in order to drag a hand over my face. “Once you’re back in Texas, we’ll have this conversation face-to-face. How does that sound?”

Asher hesitated. “When I’m... you mean Friday?”

For the first time since this call started, he sounded wary. That drunken confidence that had carried him through most of this conversation wavered, just slightly, enough for me to wonder if some part of him realized what he’d just admitted out loud and was suddenly regretting it all.

But then, he mumbled, “Okay.”