Page 3 of Creed (Rock Hard Mountain Men #3)

Hours later, I found myself lying on my bed, staring up at the dark ceiling of the guestroom. I was exhausted after a day of hard labor, but my thoughts were too chaotic to sleep.

“Alcohol,” I eventually declared aloud after checking the clock to see that it was nearly midnight. “Maybe alcohol will solve my problem.”

Getting drunk would at least be better than lying awake all night.

Leaving the guest bedroom behind, I headed down to the kitchen without turning on any lights. If I knew Brody, which I did, then there would be at least one bottle of quality whiskey or scotch hidden somewhere in his pantry.

As I passed near the master bedroom, I heard strange sounds coming through the door. I only paused for a moment to listen, before realizing the sounds were of an intimate nature, and quickly hurried on my way.

The alcohol wasn’t even hidden. It was displayed proudly on a custom wine rack where anyone could take it. Not even bothering to pour myself a drink, I grabbed an entire bottle of whiskey and turned to head back to my room. Then I realized that meant passing by the master bedroom again.

Not wanting to hear any more of Brody’s private life, I headed for the porch instead.

The night was overcast. I could still see the general outline of the moon, but it was hazy and ill-defined. Occasional stars peeked through gaps in the clouds, gone almost as soon as they appeared.

No one, not even the night sky, could judge me as I leaned back and drank straight from the bottle in my hand.

Sip by sip, the night slowly crept by. I couldn’t see enough of the bottle to know how much I’d drunk, but I could feel the alcohol heating my veins, so I knew it must have been a substantial amount.

Just as I was considering if I should go back inside and try to sleep again, my drunken daze was interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing.

I jumped, having completely forgotten that I’d brought the thing outside with me, and nearly dropped the bottle.

Who was calling me in the middle of the night?

I fumbled with the phone for a moment before finally looking at the screen. I recognized the number and immediately felt myself relax.

Hitting the answer button, I put the call on speaker so I wouldn’t have to worry about clumsily holding it up to my ear.

“Kayden? Why are you calling me so late?”

“Creed,” the familiar voice of my oldest friend answered. “Been awhile since I talked to you. I was just... wait. What do you mean late? Isn’t it the middle of the day where you are?”

Oh, right. I hadn’t told Kayden about my earlier retirement. As far as he knew, I was still serving overseas.

Well, at least that explained the odd time for the call.

“Actually, I’m back stateside.”

“What? Really?”

His voice was earnest, reminding me of the innocent excitement of childhood. Even now that we were in our forties, Kayden had never lost his upbeat personality.

“Yeah,” I said, grimacing when I heard how somber I sounded compared to him. “It’s... complicated. Some stuff happened, but I got to retire a few months early.”

“Stuff?” Kayden repeated. Just that one word, and I knew he’d already seen right through me.

We’d grown up as childhood friends, but life had taken us in different directions. Now, our friendship mostly consisted of phone calls and occasional video chats. I hadn’t actually seen the man face to face in years, yet he still had the uncanny ability to read me better than anyone.

“I take it you don’t want to talk about this ‘stuff’, so I’ll just ask, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, and immediately grimaced. I’d answered too quickly, and my voice was too high. There was no way Kayden wouldn’t notice.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kayden insisted.

Yep, he’d noticed.

The word “yes” was on the tip of my tongue. I’d already curled my lips around the syllable, but before I could breathe life into the word, I hesitated.

“No.” The admission slipped out of me like a prisoner making its escape from a poorly locked cell. Just two little letters, but once I said them out loud, I couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“Retirement isn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s not... Brody and Magnus have partners now, which is great for them, but also odd. We need money, so I should get a job, but I have no idea what to do. I just don’t seem to... fit anywhere.”

“I see,” Kayden said, and even through the phone I could hear the wide-eyed expression he must be wearing as he listened to my sudden rambling. “That sounds like a lot. So, your friends, Magnus and Brody, you said they have... partners now?”

Sighing, I set the half empty bottle of whiskey down on the floor by my feet and let my head fall against the back of my chair. “Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, Ellis and Trent seem great, and Mangus and Brody are both happy, but it’s just odd. The dynamic has changed, and I don’t know how to react.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, which was unusual. Kayden almost always knew what to say. As a travel writer, words were his livelihood.

The silence didn’t last too long, but when Kayden did find his voice again, it was more hesitant than normal. “Maybe I misheard, but your friends are gay?”

Hearing the word “gay” out loud caused my brain to stall for a second. I never really spoke about it, not even with Magnus and Brody. It was just one of those unspoken truths that hung between us. People either already knew, or they didn’t, and I never bothered to correct them either way.

Maybe it was time to change that.

So many other things about my life were already changing, what difference would one more change make?

“Yeah. They are.”

I instinctively reached for the whiskey bottle again, but then stopped myself.

“And you’re... okay with that?”

I snorted directly into the phone.

“I’d be a hypocrite if I wasn’t.”

There. I’d admitted it. Sort of. Sure, I hadn’t directly used the word “gay,” but the meaning was still clear. That had to count for something.

This time there was an even longer pause on the other end of the line. If it weren’t for the fact that I could hear the soft sound of a television playing in the background of Kayden’s call, I would have thought the line disconnected.

“I see.” His voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it, like the squeak of a distraught mouse.

Before I could think too much of it, however, he cleared his throat, and everything suddenly snapped back to normal.

“That’s gotta be a hard adjustment, but just give it time.

I’m sure it’ll get better. Did you also say something about needing money? ”

“Oh, yeah. That’s a long story.”

Stretching out my legs, I crossed my ankles over each other as I settled in to recite everything that had happened so far, leading up to the giant hole that now stood in the center of our property and needed to be fixed.

By the end of it, I wasn’t sure if I’d made any sense, but Kayden’s voice had returned to its usual upbeat tone.

“You know, if you need a job, I might be able to help with that. I’ve been traveling all over the world writing about different places, but my publisher has suggested that I focus on more domestic locations to balance things out.

I hadn’t planned anything yet, but a rustic camping trip through the mountains would be a great option.

I could hire you as my guide, if you wanted. ”

I sat up quickly in my chair, accidentally kicking the whiskey bottle and spilling its contents across the porch. “Would that really work?”

“Of course it would work. You can make some quick cash. I can keep my publisher happy. Everybody wins.”

I thought about the offer for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, but it was all in vain. I already knew I was going to accept. Guiding Kayden through the mountains was one of the only ways I could think of to earn money doing something I was good at.

Plus, it would be a great excuse to get some distance from Magnus and Brody. It felt horrible to admit such a thing, especially since I’d only just arrived, but I needed some time away from them to get my head on straight and adjust to our new situation.

“All right,” I agreed when there was no reason for me to delay any longer. “We’ll set up the details tomorrow. It’s late right now, and I’m a bit too drunk.”

I heard movement on the other end of the line, but it wasn’t enough to tell what Kayden was doing.

“Oh, yeah. It is late. You should totally go to bed. And sober up. I’ll talk to you later.”

After my own goodbye, the line went dead. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and fetched the whiskey bottle that had rolled across the porch. Only a swallow of liquid remained in the bottle, the rest of it either already in my stomach, or spilled across the porch floorboards.

There was no point in returning such a little amount back to Brody’s shelves. Raising the bottle to the sky, I toasted the moon where it was still hidden behind the clouds.

“Well, there’s one problem solved. Maybe now I can finally get a few hours of peaceful sleep.”

I downed the last bit of whiskey in one go.

It was even later than I thought when I returned to my room. As I passed the master bedroom, everything was silent. No passionate noises greeted me from the other side of the door, and I crossed the hall toward my own bedroom with a new spring in my step.