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"Would you have ever told me you were the one who pulled me out?" he asked.
"No."
The simple denial hurt far worse than it should have. Aiden cleared his throat, trying to play off how short of breath he suddenly felt, wondering why neither of them moved to put some space between them. "Then I guess we're lucky that I've got both brains and beauty," he joked. "Now I can thank you properly."
Seth's eyes lingered on his injury briefly before flickering down to his mouth and then away. Something that looked almost like regret crossed his expression. "You don't owe me anything," he said gruffly.
“Ah-ah-ah.” Aiden ticked a finger at him, struggling to keep his voice steady and ignoring how his heart pounded. "No good deed goes unpunished. Let me take that saddle into town for you. It was your dad's, right?"
Seth nodded reluctantly.
"I knew I recognized it." Aiden's voice sounded loud and abrasive in the quiet barn. "Let me get it fixed up—my way of thanking you. Gus retired a few months ago, anyway. West Owens runs the place now and doesn't hold grudges."
Seth's expression was bemused. One corner of his mouth tugged up, just slightly, as if he wanted to smile but couldn't remember how. "You don't need to repay me for saving your life, Aiden. I guess it's just a habit from the old days."
Aiden laughed despite himself. "It's not about paying you back. Not really. It's about helping an old friend."
Seth's expression had been softening, and for a moment, he'd reminded Aiden of the boy he used to know—the one who hung the moon. But now the tension in his shoulders ratcheted up to max level. "I don't need your help," he spat, like chewing nails. "I might not be working for a fancy outfit like the Triple M, but I'm doing just fine alone."
"I wouldn't call it fancy—" Aiden began, but Seth interrupted.
"Whatever it is, it's none of my business—and I'm none of yours."
Aiden wasn't easily offended. The only time he was ever quick to anger was on behalf of someone else. But Seth's dismissive tone pricked at his ego, reopening wounds that had never quite healed. He understood that Seth had been grieving after his father's death, but the way he'd turned his back on Aiden had cut him to the core. It felt like Seth had taken a scalpel and surgically removed him from his life.
"Yeah," he shot back snidely. "You made that crystal clear a long time ago."
Seth's expression frosted over, growing remote, and he turned away from Aiden. Dismissed him. Like he was nothing. "You wanted to thank me," Seth said shortly. "You did. Now, it's time for you to head back down the mountain. I've got work to do."
Chapter Five
SETH
Seth couldn't punish Aiden, no matter how much he deserved it, so he took his frustration out on the busted feed truck instead, working until long after dark and getting nowhere. The sky had opened up, steadily filling his footsteps with soft flakes, and the night smelled of evergreen and distant wood smoke. Cold bit at his gloved fingers, and his breath hung like mist before his face. A rusted toolbox sat at his feet, half-buried in snow, as he pried at a stubborn bolt with a wrench that once belonged to his grandfather.
Sometimes, it felt like he was living in a ghost story, like Scrooge, except that the future never appeared. He was haunted by ghosts of might-have-been. The same turning points repeated in his head, over and over, playing out potential outcomes: the day his father died, his last memory of his mother, the first time he ever noticed a lanky freshman with blond curls tossing a football in the high school parking lot.
For better or worse, Aiden filled most of those moments: Aiden, duct-taping himself to a skateboard and hitching a tow rope to the back fender of an old Toyota; Aiden, blitzed out of his mind and taunting a half-grown black bear at a summer barbeque; Aiden, throwing his head back and clutching his stomach in a full-body laugh; Aiden, ashamed and trying to hide the dampness in his eyes the night his mother kicked him out.
That was the night Seth helped him pack his meager belongings in a few garbage bags and took him back to the ranch, the night they'd bedded down in the barn and matched each other ounce for ounce in whiskey. The night Seth had kissed him. They'd drunkenly completed their forgotten chores in the middle of the night, and they woke the next morning to churning stomachs, splitting headaches, and a herd of sick cattle. It took them a few days to realize what happened. Ionophores were a therapeutic feed supplement in small doses, but it was deadly when mixed in large quantities.
Everything changed after that.
Now, a new what-if had taken the first-place podium in his nightmares. No matter how hard he tried to shove it to the back of his mind, he couldn't shake the image of Aiden waltzing out onto Copper Lake, all by himself, while the ice cracked around him.
Seth hadn't been ice fishing in years; he rarely had time. If he hadn't chosen at a whim to head out that day, he'd never have been there to drag Aiden out from beneath the ice. Aiden would be dead now. He'd have drowned, all alone, trying to do something good and fucking it all up as usual. Seth wouldn't have even known what happened to him, not until the ice thawed and his body surfaced months later. It haunted him; how close he'd come to losing him—all for a rangy, half-weaned bull elk. Even after all these years, Aiden's big fucking heart was still getting him into trouble. He hadn't matured at all.
Even a recluse like Seth heard the stories. He couldn't avoid Sweetwater all the time. Gossip was still the main currency, and Aiden drew attention wherever he went. People gravitated to him. He was always the life of the party, laughing too hard and drinking too much. Everything was noisy and bright and fun when Aiden was around. Nobody ever wondered why Aiden lit up the room like a supernova whenever he entered, and they didn't notice how his shoulders slumped when their backs were turned. But Seth understood. He knew Aiden was only trying to keep the darkness at bay.
That recklessness got him into trouble. Seth greedily eavesdropped whenever he made a supply run to town, enough to hear all the stories in passing. He knew about the time Aiden fooled around with Cherilyn, a girl far too pretty and sweet for a playboy like him, and how Cherilyn's ex-boyfriend had dumped Aiden out on Pine Bluff Road buck-naked except for his boots. Folks laughed when they told the story, like it was just another quirky day in a small town, but Seth remembered how cold it had been that night. He knew how desolate that road was and how long it must have taken for Aiden to even cross paths with a passing vehicle willing to stop for him. He knew how easily a mean-spirited prank could have become a missing person report. It made his blood boil.
Seth had distanced himself for a good reason all those years ago. He'd finally seen how unhealthy their friendship was, how naively and greedily Aiden sucked up attention from Seth without ever realizing how much more Seth wanted from him. They both needed to do some growing up. Aiden's star was rising. He was happy and well-liked; he'd finally gotten out from beneath his manipulative mother's thumb, and a new ranch had picked him up almost immediately after he lost his job at the Double Jay. He didn't need Seth and a mire of grief and guilt dragging him down; he needed to learn how to rescue himself for once.
But that close call on the frozen lake had shaken Seth. Even after all these years, Seth couldn't quit simping for a man who had never once looked at him the way he wanted. It was pathetic.
He worked his frustration out in darkness and silence, clamping a mag-lite between his teeth while he struggled to remove the radiator with hands tingling from cold. The rusted frame was so frozen that his skin stuck to the metal whenever his shirt sleeves rode up, but he needed to see how bad the damage was. The truck was an old beast, and it always got temperamental in extreme weather, but he had a sinking feeling the problem was worse this time. Hundreds of dollars worse, most likely. That was the way his luck usually ran.
"Hunk of junk," he muttered around the mag-lite.
