Page 72 of Wilder

Once I was back in Texas, I’d find out if I’d completely ruined my life or if this was the beginning of something I had never dared to let myself hope for.

CHAPTER 18

Asher

Saying goodbye had never been this hard for me.

Since this vacation had come and gone, I’d learned some hard truths about myself and about my relationship with my brothers. No matter how far we went, or how much time passed, or even what paths we ended veering off to along the way, there was always going to be an unspoken certainty that at the end of it all we’d find our way back home to each other.

But this time, things felt different.

As I stood at the airport hugging Greyson and Gage in front of TSA before slinging an arm around Dexter and making him promise—seriously promise—to let me and Greyson take a tour of his college campus once he got settled in next summer, because there was no way he wasn’t going to that damn school, there was something about it that felt... heavier for some reason.

Maybe it was because, for the first time since leaving last year, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be back in Louisiana for a long while.

Not because I didn’t want to be, but because there was a possibility, however small, that by the time the holidays rolled around again, I’d actually want to stay at the ranch instead. To spend time with the people who were rapidly becoming another kind of family.

I tried not to think about that as I boarded my flight and settled into my seat.

This wasn’t about me choosing one family over another. I’d never abandon my brothers on a whim like that.

However, being away from the life I’d built, the one I’d painstakingly carved out for myself over the last year, and the one I’d started to hold on to like it actually meant something, was killing me. Much in the same way it had felt when I’d first come home to Baton Rouge, when I’d convinced myself I was being left behind and my brothers were moving on without me.

It wasn’t until after Greyson and I had talked that my view on our relationship had become a lot better. Clarity and a healthy slap of reality were a hell of a thing in hindsight. Knowing that neither of my brothers would forget about our family just because we were all starting our own journeys separate from each other comforted me.

It made it okay to accept that perhaps Baton Rouge wasn’t going to be my permanent home anymore.

For the entire flight, my mind raced, circling the same thoughts and worries I’d been stressing over since waking up on New Year’s Day. It was impossible to stop it.

Because every time I let my mind drift, it went straight back to him.

To Wilder.

To that goddamn conversation I’d drunkenly started and could no longer take back. Scenario after scenario flashed through my mind in rapid succession, each one worse than the last.

Grey had always accused me of being the king of disaster-itizing everything and at this rate, I was beginning to think he wasn’t wrong about it. I’d yet to tell him, or Gage, anything about what happened on New Year’s, so far keeping it to myself on the off chance all of this went south.

All I had to cling to now was the memory of Wilder’s calm, even tone when he told me we’d talk when I got back. And now that the day had come, I wasn’t sure I had the courage to face him at all.

By the time the plane touched down and I was making my way through the terminal, I had nearly worked myself into a full-blown panic attack, half-considering hopping onto the next flight back to Louisiana and leaving Texas behind forever.

I was probably going to be fired anyway.

What was the point of torturing myself by letting him do it face to face?

But then, I saw them: Laken and Dallas, standing by baggage claim, waiting for me.

The moment my gaze landed on them, all that dread and crippling anxiety took a step back, replaced by something warmer. I’d been running on a diet of no sleep and hours of nerves and overthinking, but the second I saw Laken and Dallas, it was like something in my chest finally loosened.

“There he is.” Laken grinned as I dropped my carry-on bag and pulled him into a hug. “Took you long enough to get down here.”

Dallas wasn’t much of a hugger, but I didn’t care. I grabbed him, too, ignoring the way he stiffened for all of two seconds before letting out a quiet snort and patting me awkwardly on the back.

It was the first real sense of relief I’d felt all day. “You guys didn’t have to come all the way here to pick me up.”

Laken looped the strap of my bag over his shoulder, hiking it up high. “We wanted to. Plus, Dallas won’t let me drive the truck.”

Dallas crossed his arms over his chest and muttered under his breath, “You don’t know how to drive stick.”