Page 8 of Creed (Rock Hard Mountain Men #3)

I shoved the phone back in my pocket before the pictures could catch his attention.

“There’s no cell service out here. I’ve got a satellite phone if we need to contact someone, but that’s only for emergencies.”

I handed over a portion of the trail rations, making sure he ate while he had the chance. It wouldn’t be good for him to get so distracted he forgot to eat and then passed out later while we’re walking.

Trail rations were meant to be nutritious, not necessarily taste good, but he ate them without complaint. He was halfway through his portion of the food when he suddenly spoke up again.

“But you want to talk to them.”

It was such a non sequitur that I didn’t understand what he meant at first.

“Your friends back home,” he said, and I realized he was continuing the conversation from earlier as if there hadn’t been any interruption.

“I know that you only just retired from service and haven’t been home very long.

I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before dragging you out here with me. You must miss them.”

I shrugged and took a sip of my water bottle to give my hands something to do.

Whenever I was nervous or lost in thought, I tended to doodle on any nearby piece of paper.

It was relaxing, and keeping my hands busy helped ease my mind, but out in the middle of the woods there was neither pen nor paper for me to use, so I had to make do.

“It’s fine. If anything, I’m glad for the excuse to get away. Like I told you earlier, they’ve both... they’ve both got partners now. They’ve already started building their lives and I don’t know how to fit into the new dynamic.”

An awkward air hung around Kayden. I couldn’t interpret it, and I didn’t want to ask, so I let silence fall between us.

The birds that Kayden had scared off earlier returned, twittering away like they intended to chase him away just with the sound of their voices.

Kayden sighed.

“I was hoping I could figure out a more tactful way to ask you this, but I can’t think of anything. So, I suppose I’ll just have to come out and ask it. What... um, what is your relationship with Magnus and Brody?”

“What do you mean? We’re friends.”

“I know,” Kayden quickly assured me, though he kept his gaze pointed out toward the lake rather than look me in the eye. “But, like, is it any more than that?”

I thought about it for a moment, and the answer was surprisingly obvious. “I suppose so. We’ve served together for years. They’ve saved my skin countless times, and I’ve saved them. At this point, we’re more than friends. They’re like my brothers.”

I felt confident about this response, but Kayden only sighed again like he was disappointed.

“Yes, I’m sure serving together is a special kind of bond on its own, but I mean... Creed, come on. Normal friends don’t build a home together. That implies something more intimate.”

We were already past the half hour I’d allotted for our break, but any thought of continuing our journey disappeared from my mind as I stared at him blankly.

“Are you... are you asking me if I’m in some sort of threesome with Magnus and Brody.”

Kayden grumbled under his breath. “Well, with their partners included it’d be more like a fivesome. Is that the right term? I don’t know, but you get what I mean.”

Unbidden, the image popped into my head. The image of me with Brody and Magnus was already disturbing. To me, Magnus and Brody were like my brothers, and the thought of sleeping with them felt a lot like incest.

Adding in Trent and Ellis to the mix, however, took the disturbing thought and turned it comical. At first, I expected to be angry over Kayden’s insinuation, but the image of all five of us trying to pile into the same bed was so ridiculous that I ended up laughing out loud.

“That’s not— No, it’s not like that. Brody, Magnus, and I are friends, but that’s it.

We decided to pool our money to buy a property together because the real estate market is fucked, and we could get a lot more together than we could apart.

Besides, none of us had any family worth returning to, so we were free to build our home anywhere. ”

Kayden’s voice was so small that I barely heard him when he said, “You could have come back to me.”

It was said so quietly that I wasn’t sure what he said at first, and by the time I processed his words, he was already standing up and reaching for his pack.

“Come on. You said we needed to reach the campsite before nightfall, right? We should get going.”

He started walking in the wrong direction, and I had to quickly grab my own pack and run after him to keep him from getting lost. Although I knew that we should discuss Kayden’s last remark, it was clear he wanted to move on and forget he’d said anything.

I had never been very good with conversation, even under the best circumstances.

So, I chose the coward’s way out and let the matter drop.

Our conversation eventually turned toward our plans once we made camp—where I had to explain exactly what that would entail—and it was as if Kayden’s questions by the lake never happened.

I was left with a mix of guilt and relief. Guilt that I had clearly upset my friend somehow, and relief that I didn’t have to navigate such a difficult conversation.

Facing down a swarm of armed combatants, or flying a rescue chopper through enemy airspace, no problem. I could charge forward without hesitation. Yet an emotional conversation had me running scared with my tail between my legs.

I would have slapped myself for my cowardice if I didn’t think it would make me look insane.

On a positive note, we made better progress in the second half of the day and managed to reach the planned campsite with half an hour of sunlight left.

The trees were very dense in this part of the forest. It would give us good shelter from the wind and keep the rain off us if the weather turned bad. There was a small area near the base of a stony cliff with just enough space for us to pitch a tent and make a fire.

“Are you sure you can handle the tent?” I asked Kayden as I started setting out stones to form a ring around the campfire to keep it contained.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he assured me. His voice was confident, but in the dim light of dusk I was just able to see uncertainty flash though his eyes.

I chose not to point it out and focused on collecting firewood. With so many trees nearby, I didn’t need to go far, but I took my time to give Kayden an opportunity to work on the tent without feeling like he was being watched.

It reminded me of my first expedition in boot camp.

One of our trainers took a bunch of new recruits out into the woods to practice basic survival skills.

I’d grown up in a major city and had rarely ever even seen a tree that wasn’t growing out of a hole in the concrete.

I’d never built a fire or pitched a tent.

Suddenly dropped in the middle of the forest, I had no idea what I was doing, and as it turned out, all the other new recruits had been avid campers.

I’d felt like a total idiot, struggling to set up my tent while everyone else had been done within minutes. They pretended not to watch me, but I could feel their stares on my back.

Their silent judgment had burned me worse than if I’d just stuck my hand straight in the fire. After that, I’d signed up for every survival class that I could until I became the leading expert, but the sting of that first failure never went away.

I never wanted to make Kayden feel that way, so I hung around in the woods, slowly collecting firewood until enough time had passed for him to flip through the tent’s directions and figure out the basics for himself.

When I finally returned, the tent still wasn’t up, but he’d figured out how to put the support poles together, which was the first step.

“Need any help?” I offered as I set my pile of firewood down.

He waved me off over his shoulder. “No, no. I’ve got this. It’s simple.”

“Okay. I’ll leave you to it, but feel free to ask for help if you need it.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted again, but at that exact moment one of the support poles slipped out of his grip and snapped him on the hand. He yelped, then bit his lip to silence himself as he shook out his hand.

I swallowed my laughter and turned back to my fire pit.

Nightfall descended on the mountain just as I finished getting the fire set up. It was summer, so the nights didn’t get too cold, but the warmth was still comforting. The soft orange light of the fire fended off the gloom of the forest and created an almost homey atmosphere around us.

“How’s it coming?” I asked when I turned back to Kayden. He’d done surprisingly well with the tent. It wasn’t perfect, a little lopsided and the ground anchors weren’t hammered in far enough, but it was better than my first attempt had been.

Just as I opened my mouth to compliment him, a pair of glowing eyes caught my attention.

On a ledge of the cliff sticking out just above the spot where Kayden was setting up the tent, a mountain lion was crouched and ready to pounce.

Its sandy fur blended into the stone, making it invisible in the shadows.

If not for the glint of firelight reflecting off its eyes, I never would have seen it.

My body acted on instinct. I dove and tackled Kayden out of the way just as the mountain lion pounced. The creature landed right where he’d been kneeling, its claws digging deep grooves into the dirt.

Kayden gasped when he hit the ground, trapped under my weight. He shoved at my shoulder, demanding to know what I was doing, but froze when he heard the large cat growl.

“What is that?” He tried to look around my shoulder, but I shoved him farther back. “Oh my God.”

“Kayden, get out of the way,” I snapped at him. There was no time to check that he followed my directions. The mountain lion was furious after missing its target and turned on us with even more determination.