He stood, then crouched beside Ethan. “Let me see.”
Ethan hesitated, then turned his palms up, the skin already starting to swell. “Doesn’t hurt that bad,” he said, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him.
Cole unscrewed the cap and squeezed a line of cream along the worst of the burn. His fingers brushed Ethan’s. There was an intimacy in it—a way of touching that said I see you, I know you, even if we’re not allowed to talk about it. Cole worked in silence, smearing the medicine, then wrapped Ethan’s palm in a strip of clean cloth. Their knees touched, the press of bone through denim.
He finished, but didn’t move away. The smell of pine and sweat, the warmth radiating from Ethan’s body—it all made Cole dizzy.
“Thank you,” Ethan said, eyes locked on Cole’s, voice a low scrape.
Cole nodded, mouth too dry for words. He pulled his hand away, almost violently, and stalked to the other side of the fire.
For the next hour, the group just existed. They shared food, tried not to look at the sky for signs of weather, drank bourbon from the communal flask. Jack dozed, waking only when Harper shifted beside him. Riley took off his boots and flexed his toes in the dirt. Harper braided her hair with practiced hands.
As dusk thickened, the fire grew, and the five of them huddled closer, sharing a heat that felt more honest than any words could be. Cole felt the ache in his chest intensify, a hard pulse of want he didn’t have a name for. He forced his face blank, but inside, every part of him vibrated with the memory of Ethan’s hands and the promise of what they could do.
The night settled like a dare, the valley black and bottomless, the fire throwing wild shadows across the ground.
Cole knew it was only a matter of time before something else slipped, and this time, he wasn’t sure he could stop it from falling.
Jack broke the silence as he glanced at Cole, “What about you, Walker? You ever fuck up bad?”
Cole thought about lying, but it didn’t seem worth it. “Twelve years old. My brother and I were running cattle in the high summer, first time Dad let us do a drive alone. Rope got tangled in the brush—caught me full across the forearm, yanked me clean off the horse.” He traced the inside of his left arm, the skin paler and ridged. “Almost lost the hand. Dad didn’t say a word. Just poured whiskey on it and wrapped it tight. I cried for an hour, then never again.”
There was a silence after. The kind that wasn’t about the story, but about the things underneath it—being twelve, being scared, being made to feel small and learning to never show it again.
Ethan spoke next, though nobody prompted him. “Two years ago,” he said, voice flat but not empty. “I found out my wife was sleeping with someone else. Not because she told me, butbecause I walked in and saw it.” He didn’t look up. “She said it was my fault. That I made her feel lonely even when I was there.”
He flexed his hands, the bandages bright against his knuckles. “I stayed for six months after that. Like it was salvageable. You get used to pain. You think you can ignore it, or outlast it. But it just... waits for you. Always finds a way back in.”
The silence felt heavy but not uncomfortable. Harper leaned forward, her eyes soft in the firelight. "That kind of betrayal leaves scars deeper than rope burns," she said quietly.
Riley nodded, reaching across to briefly touch Ethan's shoulder. "You deserved better, man." Even Jack looked up, clearing his throat.
"I’m glad you finally walked away. There are a million fish in the sea. You deserve better Hayes." he offered, voice rough with unexpected sincerity.
Cole's eyes never left Ethan's face, his expression a mix of respect and something deeper, more personal. The fire crackled between them, illuminating five people no longer quite strangers.
Riley broke the tension, voice soft and genuine. “You did good today, both of you. Not everyone reacts in a crisis like that.”
Cole tried to make himself smaller, but Ethan only smiled, rueful, as if the pain had gotten lighter. “Wasn’t thinking,” Ethan said. “Just moved.”
Cole found himself grinning.
The group drifted, the conversation looping into other things—food, old TV, whether or not civilization would last another generation—but the intimacy lingered.
At some point, Jack stretched and groaned. “I’m sleeping till noon,” he announced, and wandered to his tent, Harper and Riley following soon after. It was dark now, real dark, and the wind had gone sharp.
Cole lingered at the fire, stoking it down to a low orange bed. Ethan stayed too, fingers idling along the rim of his cup.
They were alone. The silence got bigger.
After a while, Ethan said, “I lied earlier. About the pain not hurting that bad.” He flexed his hand, wincing as the skin pulled under the bandage. “Don’t know how I fucked up and caused so much damage to my hand.”
Cole shook his head. “You didn’t fuck up. Most people would’ve frozen or let go. You didn’t let go.”
Ethan looked up, and his eyes—caught in the dark—were honest and direct in a way that made Cole want to flinch. “You’re good at this,” Ethan said. “The ranch, the land, the people. Even when you don’t say much.”
Cole snorted. “Never saw the point in talking for the sake of it.”
