Chapter 6
Asher
I let a full day pass before trying to find Wilder to talk to him about going home.
It wasn’t that I thought he’d say no. In fact, I had no doubts he’d let me go without a problem once I mustered up the courage to actually ask. Wilder wasn’t unreasonable; he’d never been the type to hold anyone back from seeing their family.
But still, some weird, nagging feeling settled deep in my chest every time I rehearsed what I was going to say to him. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was something else entirely.
Not because I was leaving—I knew I deserved the time, knew that going back home wasn’t something I should have to justify to anyone, let alone my boss—but because I felt like I had to prove that I was coming back to begin with.
That this wasn’t me cutting myself loose after I’d finally grown tired of the work and the people.
Boone Ranch had the unfortunate problem of having a constantly revolving door when it came to hiring ranch hands. With it, came the lingering expectation that no one ever really stayed unless they had no other options.
The work was hard, the hours unforgiving some days, but all of it was so damn worth it in the end as long as you could get past your own ego. With that kind of history, though, it was easy to see why Wilder didn’t expect anyone to stick around for long. Especially, young people like me.
Three weeks off was a big ask, even if I had a valid reason for requesting it. We ran a small team, and every pair of hands counted. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that.
But at the same time... I hadn’t seen my brothers in nearly a year.
And that was starting to wear me down more than anything else.
Ever since my phone call with Greyson, things had started shifting in my head, showing me that not every waking moment had to be this ranch as much as I was desperate to make it that way.
Perspective was a funny thing in the end; it snuck up on you when you least expected it to.
I’d spent so much time working and throwing myself into day-to-day life here, taking on extra responsibilities wherever I could because I was obsessed with trying to prove myself—trying to be useful—that I hadn’t really stopped to consider what exactly I was putting on hold in the process.
Family wasn’t something you could just hit the pause button on.
You didn’t get the time you wasted back, regardless of how often you got down on your knees and prayed for it.
And as much as I loved this place—as much as I loved what I was doing here—I couldn’t keep pretending like it didn’t weigh on me that I’d spent nearly a year being away from the only two people in this world who I could properly call family.
None of that was fair.
Especially to Gage.
Our brother, who had given up everything for Greyson and I.
Who had worked himself to the bone to make sure we never went without.
The one who had taken on the impossible role of big brother and parent all at once, making sacrifices we’d been too young to fully understand at the time, but now, looking back, it made my chest ache with remorse for not appreciating him sooner.
He’d spent his entire young adult life making sure we had a future and never once asked us to stay when we were finally old enough to leave because he selfishly wanted to keep us around and locked in those familiar boxes of ‘baby brother’.
Instead, he’d pushed us both forward, encouraged us to spread our wings and to chase whatever dreams we had, no matter how deeply it probably killed him to do so.
The day I finally got on the bus to head to Texas, he hadn’t said a word; hadn’t begged me to stay, hadn’t told me how much he’d miss me or made some last-minute plea that might’ve guilt-tripped me into hesitating and second-guessing my decision, getting me to turn around and get right back in his car.
He’d just... let me go.
Instead of a teary farewell, I’d gotten a tight squeeze that left bruises in its wake.
The kind of hug that said everything he wasn’t going to put into words and never needed to in the first place.
Instead of a ‘please don’t leave’, I got a gruff ‘take care of yourself’ and a pointed hassle into promising I’d call the second I got settled.
And then, just like that, he sent me on my way and hopped on a plane to California for his own new experience.
No hesitation. No fanfare. No big speech.
Because that was Gage.
He loved quietly. Fiercely. Without ever making it feel like a leash.
And now?
Now it was my turn to show him that just because I’d left didn’t mean I was gone forever. Just like leaving Boone Ranch didn’t mean that, either.
I owed my family more than that.
I owed myself more than that, too.
I simply needed to keep reminding myself of that very thing every time the growing anxiety choked me with scenarios of Wilder banishing me from the property for good.
Stupid, of course, because who else was going to keep Henry, our bucking gelding, from trying to kick our quarterly farrier in the balls like last time?
“Watch it,” came a curt warning right before a shoulder slammed into me.
The impact was enough to send the bucket in my hands careening to the floor. A loud clang rang through the stables as the metal hit the ground, and within seconds, the pellets inside spilled out of it to scatter in every direction like marbles let loose.
What the actual fuck?
I stood there for a beat, annoyance curling tight in my chest as I stared down at what would not only take me ten minutes to sweep up, but was probably going to need to be dumped since this was a main walkway and we had no idea what shit we were tracking in with our shoes.
Feeding any potential hazard to the horses was absolutely against every ethical code we had.
Slowly, I turned my head, already knowing exactly who I’d find once I did so.
Carter.
He was hefting the saddle in his arms up onto one of the hooks, his movements effortless and irritatingly unbothered. Like he hadn’t just bodied me out of the way for whatever reason. Petty, I was sure, since that’s exactly what made him operate to begin with.
“Really?” I said, gesturing down to the mess at my feet.
He barely spared me a glance before responding, voice flat and completely disinterested. “I told you to watch it. Maybe you should pay more attention to your surroundings, Torres.”
Anger flared hot in me, tightening my chest even more. I took a step forward to level him with another glare. “I was paying attention. You’re the dumbass that decided to plow through me.”
Carter turned to face me fully, his shoulders squaring as his eyes locked onto mine. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I shot back. “Did that make you feel better? You get it out of your system?”
Carter moved fast.
Before I could shift away from him, his hand snapped out to grab a fistful of my shirt and hauled me closer in one rough yank.
I stumbled forward, barely had time to react before I was chest-to-chest with him.
His grip was tight, knuckles white where they twisted into the fabric, and up close, I could see the tension making his jaw clench so hard I half expected his teeth to crack from the force.
His shoulders were drawn up near his ears, coiled tight with something simmering just beneath the surface.
Carter and I were about the same height, but unfortunately for me, he didn’t lack the kind of muscle definition that I did.
And right now?
Every inch of that broad-shouldered, perpetually frowning pain in my ass was angry.
Angrier than usual, for some reason.
“You think you’re a hot shot around here, Torres?” he bit out. “Well, news flash—not all of us want to suck dick to get special privileges.”
I nearly choked. “What?”
For a solid second, my brain short-circuited.
Because fucking first of all, how dare he.
Second, as if Wilder would ever be remotely interested in someone literally half his damn age.
And third, special privileges?
What the hell was Carter even talking about?
What privileges?
Last time I checked, I was still mucking stalls and wrangling horses like everyone else around here. Still putting in the hours and getting my ass handed to me by the same grueling work we all did.
But even beyond all of that, the sheer audacity of this man standing here in the middle of the damn barn, throwing out accusations like we were in some kind of soap opera was fucking unbelievable.
I stared at him, then scoffed as a dry laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “You cannot be serious right now.”
But oh, he was.
Carter’s eyes burned with something hard, something resentful; like he’d been waiting for this moment, waiting to say something, waiting for any excuse to start this fight. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. Like you’re some doe-eyed princess waiting to get pulled out back and fucked.”
My mouth dropped open.
Of all the things I expected to come out of his mouth, that sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
For a second, all I could do was blink while my brain tried to process the sheer audacity of what the hell I’d just heard.
Up until this point, I’d been pretty privileged in life.
Growing up in a progressive part of Louisiana with a brother who wasn’t afraid to be out and proud before he even fully hit puberty had given Greyson and I plenty of space to come into our own. Forge our own path and explore our identities until we settled on what we felt was right.
We had options—freedom—and a chance to figure ourselves out without fear because Gage had made damn sure of it.
And yeah, maybe it was a little ironic that all three of us had turned out as gay as the day was long. Probably some genetic anomaly. Or some freak roll of the dice that none of us cared to look into.
But at the end of the day, who the fuck cared?
We never had to fight for it, never had to defend it to anyone, let alone ourselves; it had never felt like something to be ashamed of to begin with.