Chapter 6 #2
But here Carter was now, shoving his own insecurities into my face while trying to twist something as simple as existing in Wilder’s general proximity into some wild, pathetic little fantasy he’d cooked up in his own head.
And the worst part?
It didn’t even hurt.
It was just fucking stupid.
“Get off me.” I shoved at him, putting more force behind it this time, but his fingers refused to budge.
He held firm, his grip twisting my shirt tighter until it was nearly choking me.
I could feel my pulse hammering against my ribs and had half a mind to just deck him to get this over with. Clearly, that was what he was looking for starting all of this.
Why else would he go out of his way to slam into me like some goddamn battering ram?
The problem was a physical altercation he could twist around, use it as an excuse to paint me as the aggressor. Something he could then take straight to Wilder, black eye and all, and say, ‘see? Look what Torres did’.
And who would Wilder believe?
Me or the guy standing there with a busted face?
I knew how this game worked.
Instead of actually letting my hand follow through with what I desperately wanted it to, I forced myself to stay still.
To breathe while heat crawling up my neck from the anger boiling inside of me.
If Carter thought for one damn second that I was about to let him get a rise out of me, he had another think coming.
“Bet that’s why you’ve been trying to cozy up to him.” A smirk twisted up his face. “I doubt he even swings that way, Torres. You’re probably barking up the wrong tree. Then again, guys like you never care anyway.”
Oh my god, I was actually going to go to fucking jail.
“Gentlemen. What’s going on here?”
Carter shoved me away from him, forcing me to stumble back and nearly trip over the fallen bucket of ruined pellets. Turning toward the voice, I spotted Sully just a few yards away, carrying a large sack over his shoulder while striding toward us.
His sharp eyes narrowed immediately on Carter, flitting to me only briefly—just long enough to make sure I was still standing—before locking back onto the other man. “Is there a reason you’re both dilly-dallying in here?”
When he swung the sack down off his shoulder, it made a loud ‘thump’ on the ground.
Carter, for all his previous bravado, stood a little straighter while refusing to look at me or Sully.
His jaw flexed a few times, the way it always did when he knew he was dangerously close to stepping out of line but holding back for the sake of not being sent packing like he’d been threatened to months ago.
“No,” he finally said.
“Best get moving, then,” Sully replied.
Carter kept his head down as he moved, finishing up hanging the tack he’d brought back with him, each motion a little stiffer than usual, like he was forcing himself to behave and not spin around and grab me again.
Grabbing his water bottle and hand warmers, he beelined it for the barn doors, shoving them open just enough to slip outside and slam them shut behind him.
The second he was gone, I breathed out a slow sigh, the tension in my shoulders finally easing.
What a fucking shit show.
Sully turned to me. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again.
Shit.
What the hell was I supposed to say?
Oh, nothing much, just Carter being a jealous, insecure asshole and trying to start shit for no reason because he’s delusional.
Yeah. No. That wasn’t a road I particularly wanted to go down—especially not with Sully, who had zero patience for petty drama and even less for bullshit excuses.
The absolute last thing I needed was to accidentally steer this into some weird hate-crime territory that might also be some bizarre jealous-by-proxy thing.
Because, honestly?
I still wasn’t entirely sure what the fuck Carter’s problem was.
Did he actually think I was getting special treatment?
Or was he really so pissed off that Wilder trusted me with responsibilities that he didn’t get?
Maybe this was all some repressed, cracked-out bullshit where he was jealous of something else entirely and simply needed to make it my problem.
Whatever it was, I doubted Carter had the balls to actually do anything about it.
I exhaled through my nose, schooling my expression before saying, “Nothing.”
Sully’s stare didn’t waver.
I could feel the weight of it, the way he was turning my words over in his head, deciding whether or not he was going to let that fly or call me out like he clearly wanted to. Sweat started to prickle at the back of my neck.
“Huh.” That was all he said.
Just a simple, unimpressed noise that carried a ton of weight to it. The kind that said ‘I don’t believe you, but I’m not going push it right now’.
Distraction time.
“Actually,” I said, straightening. “Do you know where Wilder is?”
Sully’s brow rose slightly. But to his credit, he let the subject drop. “Back at home with his mother for lunch. Why?”
“Great,” I said, scooping the bucket off the floor, kicking at some of the loose pellets with my toe. “Gotta talk to him about my vacation.”
“Vacation?” he repeated. “Where to?”
“Home. Just for a little while. My brother surprised me with a flight home for Christmas.”
He whistled low. “That’s a nice gesture.”
I shrugged, trying to downplay how much it actually meant to me because we really didn’t need to be getting into all of that at the moment. Not on the cusp of whatever that shit with Carter was. “Yeah, well... that’s my brother for you.”
Sully nodded, arms crossing over his chest as he popped a hip out to displace his weight. “I take it this is more than just a couple days off, then?”
I scratched the back of my neck. Time to rip the band-aid off. “About three weeks.”
His eyes widened “Three weeks?”
I winced. “Yeah.”
He let out another hum, his gaze flicking toward the barn doors like he was already doing the math in his head—figuring out how much ground would need to be covered in my absence, how the workload would shift, who’d have to step up. “Guess that would be a conversation you and Wilder have.”
I exhaled slowly, adjusting my grip on the bucket. “I’ll head up to the house, see if he’s got time to talk to me.”
Sully let out a low chuckle, shaking his head like I’d just said something hilarious. “Torres, that man always has time for you.”
My stomach flipped. Heat bloomed across my face instantly, my pulse suddenly too loud in my ears.
What the hell did that mean?
I stared at him for half a second too long, scrambling for a response, for anything that didn’t make me sound like a complete idiot, but Sully just smirked, uncrossing his arms and reaching over to snag the bucket from me.
“Better get going before he gets pulled into a project.” He gave a sharp nod to the barn doors.
I swallowed, my mouth snapping shut, still not entirely sure how to respond to any of that.
Instead of trying to figure it out, though, and risk embarrassing myself any further, I darted around Sully and made my way to the doors.
Hopefully, by the time I got up to the main house my face wouldn’t look so beet red.
And if it was?
Maybe I could blame it on the wind chill.
Yeah.
That sounded totally reasonable and not suspicious at all.