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"Says you." But Aiden allowed Seth to steer him back inside with a gentle hand between his shoulder blades.
The shoddy warmth of the trailer was a welcome relief after standing half-naked in the snow. Aiden's hands and feet prickled as blood began to flow through his limbs again.
Seth rattled around in cabinets under the sink until he found a clean towel. "Sit," he commanded, pointing to the padded bench.
Aiden obeyed without protest. The shot of adrenaline from the confrontation dumped out of him all at once, leaving him bone weary.
Seth crouched in front of him and slipped a liniment bottle from his coat pocket. Aiden hesitated, then adjusted the drape of the towel in his lap to hide any inconvenient outlines. He wasn't self-conscious by nature, and his body was fit and strong, but he felt like a plucked chicken sitting mostly naked before a fully clothed Seth.
Seth paused, eyes unfocused but directed somewhere around the level of Aiden's navel, then he shook himself and poured a small amount of liniment into his palm.
"Now you'll be tasting garlic all night, too," Aiden warned when he rubbed his hands together to warm the liquid.
"Doesn't bother me." Seth placed one hand gently on Aiden's shoulder. Aiden hissed through his teeth but held still. He couldn't pull away even if he wanted; the strength of Seth's hands locked him in place while he began to work the liniment into Aiden's clenched muscles. His touch was methodical, knowing, and expert from a lifetime of doctoring livestock.
Aiden hadn't stopped shivering, but somewhere along the way, the cold had stopped being the reason. Delicious warmth seeped into his body through Seth's hands, easing the persistent ache of his shoulder but growing a new ache in his groin. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the scrape of Seth's calluses, but that only made it worse. Seth's hands moved lower, firmly kneading the bunched muscle between his shoulder blades, and Aiden's breath hitched. Heat began to pool in his belly. He hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut, praying for his cock to stop twitching.
"Seth," he whispered, voice barely audible.
Seth's hands went still. "Yeah?"
His voice was like gravel, and something low in Aiden's stomach gave a sharp tug in response. A dozen responses flitted through his brain. He wanted more, but he couldn't ask. He didn't even know what he'd say if he could. Maybe he should thank Seth for giving their friendship a second chance, apologize for his mother, or beg him to keep moving his hands lower—but what came out was worse than any of that.
"I missed you."
Sadness filled Seth's dark eyes, but after a beat of silence, his lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. "Me too."
Neither of them spoke after that. They just sat there looking at each other in the quiet. If Aiden turned his head slightly, his lips would brush against Seth's mouth. He almost did it, but the look in Seth's eyes said the moment had passed, and it wasn't likely to come again. The fear of rejection was too strong for Aiden to take the risk.
Seth was the one who broke the spell first. He sat back on his heels and wiped his hands on the towel, saying gruffly, "You should get some rest."
Aiden swallowed thickly, forcing a nod and reaching for a shirt from a nearby pile of unfolded laundry. "I know that I bit it out there this afternoon, but the next practice will go smoother," he said, forcing cheer into his tone. "You might as well start planning what you'll do with your share of the prize money."
Seth stood, large and looming, and scowled down at him. "I don't need the money."
"Bullshit."
Seth's eyes narrowed. He looked annoyed now. "I'm just trying to keep you from breaking your neck. Take the prize money and get Barbara off your back for a while."
Aiden laughed. "You know that'll never happen. Just like you understand why she's kept Bandit all these years instead of giving him to me. She hates that horse, but he's the juiciest bait she's got to keep me coming back."
"You've got to cut bait eventually," Seth said in a tone that surprised Aiden with its kindness. "Every good fisherman knows that."
Aiden’s skin was still warm and buttery from Seth's ministrations, but a knot of tension was beginning to tighten his forehead. He rubbed at it and sighed. "It's not that simple," he said.
Seth's smile was grim. "Nothing ever is."
Chapter Thirteen
AIDEN
Aiden was popping a breakfast of ibuprofen and Skittles when he pulled into his mother's neatly paved driveway the next morning.
His body was stiff and cranky, like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet, and not in a good way. The headache that had been brewing the night before had percolated into a potent cluster in the center of his forehead that made his left eye twitch.
It was another bright and clear winter day. Sunshine poured down over his childhood home, highlighting the warm peach tones of the fresh paint job he'd finished for his mother that summer. The property grew increasingly picture-perfect with each passing year, from the cobblestone path winding through the lush green lawn, both buried in snow this time of year, to the enormous wreath of red berries decorating the front door.
It wasn't much of a hobby farm. Other than a small stable and two-acre pasture for Bandit, there was a single chicken coop constructed in a style of quaint Americana. It sat behind the house, pristine, picturesque, and empty. Barbara Doyle wasn't the type of woman to allow chickens to make a mess of her landscaping. The place hadn't looked so much like a gingerbread house when Aiden was a kid. If it had, his mother wouldn't have had to kick him out. He'd have gone willingly.
