Knot Her Mountain Men (Big Sky Omegas)

Chapter 1

M y breath puffed out in clouds, the air crisp and the snow sparkling like diamond dust in the sun. The sled I pulled crunched along after me, weighed down by half of our supplies, my snowshoes keeping me from descending too deep. I followed behind Brandon, his own sled in tow.

He looked back at me with a grin. “We really lucked out on the weather.”

A little sunlight always made winter camping far more enjoyable.

“Let me know if there’s anything you want to film on the way in,” Brandon told me.

“Definitely.” We’d been going camping together since my college years, none of our friends into anything below glamping standards or day hikes. Brandon was my backcountry buddy, always willing to explore the path less traveled and also hold the camera when I needed to capture myself for my vlog.

This weekend I wanted to do some ice fishing videos. Omegas weren’t often encouraged into spaces and activities like this, and that was exactly why I’d started documenting my trips and showing the basics of outdoor skills. We deserved to be out here as much as alphas and betas.

I snapped a few photos of the sun lancing through the trees, lighting up the snow. Brandon photobombed one with a peace sign and his tongue out.

“Dork,” I said affectionately.

“Gotta add some memories to these things so it’s not nature being pretty by itself.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “How much farther?”

“Should be a valley somewhere around here,” he said. “We can set up camp there.”

I nodded, pausing to savor the quiet of the forest. Well, as quiet as a forest could get, anyway. Something was always moving around or the wind was rustling, but it was definitely preferable to town. Spruce grouse looked nervously upon us, clucking softly from the treetops, but the small birds weren’t on the menu tonight. This trip was for camping and ice fishing if we found a good spot. We’d brought enough food that it wouldn’t matter if we caught anything or not.

Brandon set a pace I struggled to keep up with. Sometimes I think he forgot he was an alpha and a foot taller than me. My legs were feeling the trek by the time we arrived somewhere he deemed suitable, and I was half-ready to collapse into a snowbank.

“You’ll feel better once we’re set up,” Brandon assured me. “Park it while I dig out some snow.”

I indulged myself in a few minutes of rest while he cleared a space for our hot tent. All too soon, the guilt of sitting while someone else worked became too strong and I started unpacking the tent supplies. We’d brought in some compressed wood blocks to get us started so we wouldn’t freeze our asses off and we could get some proper firewood drying. I’d tried to argue that a hot tent was basically glamping since you could be cozy the entire time you were inside, but my friends weren’t convinced.

It was quick work to set up the tent once the snow was cleared. Brandon and I must’ve done it a few dozen times together before, so the process was smooth by this point. He got the fire going and I gulped down some of our water supply. We would be getting most of it from whatever water source was nearest, but it would be beyond stupid to go into the woods without at least drinking water ready to go. I filled up his water bottle and passed it over, watching as he chugged it down.

“Is there a stream around here?”

“Should be no more than ten minutes up the trail,” he replied.

“Cool. I’m going to check it out and get us some more water. Wouldn’t say no to some hot coffee when I get back.”

“You got it, babe.”

I rolled my eyes as I hitched up the sled to myself again. I’d been asking him for years to stop calling me babe, but stubbornness ran deep in Brandon, so I had mostly given up. I only bothered to check it now when he said it around new people so they didn’t assume we were dating. He’d been asking me to, on and off since we’d become friends in high school, and I had firmly rejected a romantic relationship with him every single time. He always stayed friends with me, so I assumed he would eventually get the hint or, preferably, start pursuing something with someone who actually wanted to date him.

We were great partners for activities, but we would drive each other up the fucking wall if we had to spend the day-to-day together. He knew it and I knew it, but he still persisted. If any of my other friends liked doing the same activities, I might’ve pushed back even harder, but disappearing out into the woods for days at a time, while certainly possible, wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing alone. All it would take was one twisted ankle or a slip of the axe, and I’d be fucked six ways to Sunday.

My legs protested as I put my snowshoes back on and went in search of water. Further into the forest, bits of the creek were still uncovered, the fresh bubbling sound leading me right to it. I tested the edges of the ice, settling where I felt safe before taking my axe to the surrounding ice cover. The dappled sunlight turned my surroundings into a painting of golds and blues. Every time I was out in the forest, it somehow managed to be so beautiful it stole my breath. For a while, I simply lay there with my camera, recording the flow of water over rock, the sun dancing across the surface. It was as relaxing for me to get footage like this as it was for the people who watched it when I put it online. A lot of what I put up was educational content, but I’d learned long ago that you needed to pair learning with wonder if you wanted people to watch.

When I was happy with the footage, I filled up two of our jerry can water containers from the stream and began my walk back to camp. Smoke was puffing happily from the little chimney on our hot tent when I arrived, liquid bounty in tow.

“About time,” Brandon said with a laugh. “I was worried a bear got you.”

“Pretty sure they’re all hibernating, but you’d have heard my holler if I saw one.”

He hauled the water inside the tent so it would stay liquid instead of freezing into unusable ice blocks. “Your coffee is ready, milady.”

I stripped off the top half of my snowsuit, letting it hang by my waist, and accepted the coffee, sipping gratefully. “I still think the others are missing out not coming with us.”

“They’re all a bunch of chickenshits.” Brandon sat down on the edge of one of the cots he had set up. “Wouldn’t know fun if it bit ’em on the ass. At least we have more time for the two of us.”

I kept quiet, stirring a bit more sugar into my coffee before sitting down on the opposite cot. The air inside the tent was already pleasantly warm, but I didn’t intend to spend the rest of the evening in the tent. Firewood needed to be chopped and food had to be prepared before we could properly relax.

“There’s lots of downed trees for firewood. I’ll get started after my coffee.”

“I’ve got it,” Brandon insisted. “Gotta let my omega rest.”

“Brandon…”

“Off to chop wood!” He leapt to his feet and stepped out of the tent.

I wasn’t going to bring him back for an argument. He had odd ideas about omegas, mostly that we were a fragile bunch, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We were sturdy as hell, and had to be to get through the world with dumbasses thinking otherwise.

I sighed and took a long drink of my coffee. If Brandon was out there, he wasn’t in here with me. I always felt like a bit of a dick when he made comments like that and I couldn’t return the sentiment. For whatever reason, I’d never caught feelings for Brandon. He was handsome enough, adventurous, smart, but I didn’t vibe with him the way he wanted me to, and it didn’t matter how many times he brought it up, that had never changed.

Eventually, guilt and my empty cup drove me back outside to help with the firewood. I collected smaller pieces to use for tinder while Brandon focused on hacking a tree apart into larger chunks. He stripped his shirt off when he noticed me.

“You’re gonna get frostbite on your nips doing that.”

“Better than sweating all over my clothes. You can warm them up for me.”

“I think that job is better left for you.” I deliberately turned my back, but not before catching his scowl. All he had to do was not make it weird and these trips would be ten times more enjoyable, but I wasn’t going to let his remarks ruin camping for me.

“Denying me a warm-up hug after I’m doing all the hard work?”

“I offered to help,” I pointed out. I certainly didn’t want to let him do the physical labor if he was going to make it transactional. He was an alpha, and way bigger than me, so a certain amount of extra labor was understandable, but I’d push through hell and back if I had to so it would equalize.

Coyotes sang out from the hills. They weren’t likely to get very close to us, thankfully. As much as I admired the wildlife, I preferred it to be at a safe distance.

By the time all our chores were done for the day, I was thoroughly exhausted. I collapsed onto my cot in our cozy tent, listening to the rustle of the woods around us. My snowsuit was drying near the stove and I was down to some wool layers, stretched out on top of my sleeping bag with my feet in the air so my ankles didn’t swell up.

A dinner of chicken teriyaki rice was rehydrating near the stove while water for hot cocoa warmed. The moment the food was ready, I shoveled it into my mouth like I was starved. Certainly felt that way after our hike and trying to keep up with Brandon on the wood chopping.

“Slow down, tiger.” Brandon laughed. “You’re gonna choke.”

“Too hungry.” I stuffed another spoonful into my mouth. “Slow down later.”

I scarfed my way through my first serving and scooped myself some more, then polished off a couple of the muffins I had brought.

“I have some weed brownies,” Brandon offered.

“I’m good, thanks.” I didn’t need to be off my game in the wilderness in the middle of winter. “You go ahead, though.”

“It’s not fun being the only high one. Just have one.”

“I already said no,” I snapped. Our entire friend group was the same, asking on repeat to try wearing people down if they weren’t complying. “You know how I feel about having to repeat myself.”

“Fine, fine.” Brandon ate one himself, glaring at me the whole time.

I pulled out a deck of cards. “Crazy eights by firelight?”

“Sure, Morg.”

I beat him in two games, like usual. By the time his brownie kicked in, he looked ready to chuck the cards right into the stove.

“This game is stupid.”

“We could switch to go fish,” I offered.

He scrutinized me. “Is that a dig?”

“No. I figure it’ll be an easier game to play while you’re high,” I said simply.

“All the games would be fair if you were high with me.”

“I didn’t force you to eat that brownie.”

Brandon sighed and threw his cards to the tent floor. “I’m done. Tell me what’s new?”

“Actually, work has been really great. I got offered a new job.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“I got headhunted for a tourism company in Missoula. They found me through my photography blog.”

“You’re moving?” Brandon frowned, ignoring all the positive parts of my statement. “How can you be moving?”

“Did you think I was going to live in small town Montana forever?”

“I mean, yeah. Kind of a dick move to leave all your friends behind.”

It wasn’t the first time that sentiment had been echoed. Everyone had been up my ass when I’d decided to go to the University of Montana. It wasn’t even so far away that I couldn’t visit regularly, but the distance I had always felt with my friends had turned into a chasm during my time there. I’d never felt quite like a fit with all of them. My friendships were a lot more about proximity than actual compatibility, as I suspected was the case in a lot of small towns, and I was getting tired of it. Missoula wasn’t even big by city standards, but it was ten times the population of where I lived now and I figured the odds of finding people I fit with were better there than here. I had once given wild thoughts to New York or LA, but they were so big I didn’t think I’d be able to handle them. “I can still visit.”

“That’s not the same and you know it. How can you leave us again?”

“I think we both know no one’s going to miss me that much.”

Brandon got onto his hands and knees, crawling right up into my face. “ I’ll miss you.”

He tried to kiss me and I swerved, tucking low and planting my head against his throat so he couldn’t try it again. I’d chalk it up to the brownies, but I still didn’t want to deal with it. “You didn’t come visit me once when I was away for school,” I pointed out. None of them had.

“That’s ’cause I was pissed you left.”

“For school . There were no colleges in town. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not go,” he said like it was obvious. “None of the rest of us did and we’re fine.”

“I want to be more than just fine, Brandon. I can’t do what I want to do where we live.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s not fair. I stayed a lot longer than I was going to.”

He turned to press his lips to my throat and I froze like a rabbit who’d stumbled into a wolf’s path before recovering myself enough to push him away. “Brandon…”

“You know what? Let’s get some fucking sleep. I’m over this conversation.” He bolted to his feet, knocking me onto my ass.

“Fine by me.”