When it came time to saddle up, Cole called the group together. His instructions were clipped, professional, nothing like the warmth of the days before.
Cole's voice was all business. "Six hours to Glacier Meadows. Everything we've been working toward." He adjusted his hat, eyes fixed somewhere above their heads. "Trail's dry, should be no trouble if you don't fuck around. Stay single file. Watch the overhangs. When we reach the meadows—" his voice caught almost imperceptibly "—you'll see why this is the crown jewel of the whole pack trip. If you need to piss, call out and fall back."
Harper gave a half-salute. “You’re the boss, Walker.”
Cole ignored her. He mounted up, took the lead, and was halfway up the switchback before anyone else had even mounted.
Riley helped Ethan with his stirrup, voice low. “You okay?”
“Not even close,” Ethan said. “But thanks.”
They rode out single file. Ethan could feel the gap between him and the rest of the world—a thing that had always existed, but now was a chasm. Cole was ahead, a line of tension from head to toe, every inch screaming don’t fucking touch me.
Harper and Jack were a two-person comedy show, with Riley often playing the role of their reluctant audience.
Ethan was an afterthought, a shadow glued to the tail of the group.
He tried, once, to meet Cole’s eyes in a stretch of easy trail. But Cole looked straight past him, jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumped at the hinge.
Ethan let the silence eat him. He rode with his head down, counting the hoofbeats, listening to the slap of leather and the faraway caws of jays. The only warmth in the whole morning came from Riley, who would ride back now and then to offer water or a dumb story or just a look that said, “I see you. You’re not invisible. I’m here for you.”
But it was cold comfort. All that mattered was up ahead, and up ahead wanted nothing more to do with him.
When they broke for a short break, Ethan tied his horse and wandered to the edge of the clearing, far from the others. He thought about the night before, Riley’s warm, wet mouth, the taste of Jack’s cock, the way it had felt to lose control, to belong for a split-second to something new and lawless. He felt no remorse for the act itself; instead, it was the void left behind that gnawed at him—the connection with Cole, whatever it had been, now vanished like mist dissipating under the morning sun.
He turned back to watch Cole, who was staring at the horizon, hands folded on the pommel of his saddle.
Ethan looked, one last time, hoping to catch a flicker of the old warmth, the old possibility.
But there was nothing.
Only blue sky, and the cold, empty trail ahead.
With a sharp command from Cole, the group remounted and resumed the trail. The break had been short and the tension lingered like a thick fog.
The trail cut west, sharp and exposed, with only stunted pines and heat-blasted rock to mark the passage of time. Cole set a hard pace, never once glancing back, his silhouette always a horse-length ahead of the group. Ethan rode in silence, his own mount sensing the mood and moving slow, as if it, too, wanted to hang back and avoid the confrontation.
Riley sidled up alongside him for a moment, then fell in step, their horses' flanks brushing as the switchback narrowed.
"He's not mad at you," Riley whispered, soft as a secret. "He just… doesn't know how to forgive himself yet."
Ethan laughed, bitter. "That's not how it looks from here."
Riley shrugged. "Trust me. I've seen worse. Men like that—they want to burn it out of themselves, not anyone else."
Ahead, Harper pointed out a trickle of a waterfall, her voice echoing back as if calling from another dimension. "Isn't that wild? That's glacial melt. Hundreds of years in the making. We're drinking time."
By noon the light was hard and white, shadows collapsed to nothing. The landscape went flat, dry, all brittle grass and dust. They broke at a ridge to eat lunch, the view expanding to miles of alpine basin, the ridges stacked like old bones in the blue haze.
Ethan unwrapped his sandwich and chewed it slowly, watching Cole from the corner of his eye. Cole had moved off byhimself, sitting on a deadfall and staring down into the valley. His hat was pulled low; his hands were a knot in his lap.
Riley chewed an energy bar, then wiped his mouth. "Let it breathe," he said under his breath. "Sometimes that’s all you can do."
Jack tossed his lunch wrapper into the fire pit, then stretched, arms wide.
Ethan finished his food and packed up early, the act of motion easier than sitting still.
They set off again.
