Miles was in a great mood when he got home Friday night—not the ranch, not the cabin, just home. Despite Shawn calling out sick, he’d handled the kitchen with a little extra help from Emily and Annabelle, and they’d sold out of buffalo burgers before four o’clock. Every time someone teased him about putting together a cookbook of the saloon’s recipes, it seemed less and less like a dumb idea.
Then again, Miles wasn’t sure he wanted to give away his secrets. He loved that the burger had a following and people visited Bentley just to try it. He’d even seen some fans rumbling online about contacting one of those food shows that featured different restaurants and their signature dishes. The talk delighted Miles, but he had no expectations of anything happening. You probably had to pay those shows to visit you, anyway, and while Miles had a small savings, thanks to a nice paycheck and no rent payments, he wasn’t going to buy publicity when the internet was already doing great things for them.
Miles went inside with two slices of Vinegar pie to supplement dinner and paused just in the door. Instead of food smells, all he caught were the lightest wisps of Reyes’s deodorant and stale coffee from this morning’s pot. The living room lights were off, and only the light above Reyes’s bed was on.
Curious, Miles stepped into the bedroom. Reyes sat on his bunk with his back to the wall, legs crossed, hands in his lap. No book, no phone, just waiting. It wasn’t until Miles spotted the bruised cut on Reyes’s mouth that his curiosity shifted into alarm. “What happened?” Miles put the pie on his bed, then sat next to Reyes. “Did a horse kick you?”
Reyes shook his head no, dark eyes liquid and sad. “No. No, my past showed up today and gave me a well-deserved punch in the face.”
“What does that mean?” He reached out, but Reyes flinched away from his touch, and that hurt. “Reyes?”
A single tear slid down Reyes’s left cheek, and Miles’s alarm rose exponentially. “I told you I was in a gang when I was a teenager, and that I did some terrible things before deciding to change.”
“Yes.” His belly squirmed. Was this that big thing about Reyes’s past that he’d been avoiding? Suddenly, Miles wasn’t sure he wanted to know, especially with the grief-stricken look on Reyes’s face. And the fact that he couldn’t seem to look Miles in the eye.
“I never told you the exact thing that made me get out.”
Miles shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me this. We’ve been perfectly happy until now without me knowing.”
“We have been, but today showed me that I can’t hide from it forever. The truth always has a way of coming out.”
“Reyes, I love you. Nothing you’ve done in your past can change that.”
“I wouldn’t put money on that bet.”
Miles bit the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming in frustration and terror. As much as he wanted to know everything about Reyes, something deep inside was screaming at him to leave, to walk away from this truth, because it had the power to ruin everything. “If you’re going to say it, then say it,” Miles blurted, his voice a bit shrill from fear.
Reyes closed his eyes briefly, and a second tear followed the first. “When you’re in a gang, it’s about loyalty and respect. You don’t narc, you don’t steal from each other, and you aren’t queer. For me the first two were easy, but...the third worried me, and I kept those feelings to myself. Telling anyone would end in a beating, probably broken bones. So I stayed quiet, even after the group started bullying this kid in the neighborhood named Miguel. He was fifteen, effeminate, quiet, and assumed to be queer, so we bullied and harassed him.”
Miles’s heart clenched at the idea of Reyes bullying another kid. Sure, this was a lifetime ago, but it hurt to hear. And it also hurt knowing the story didn’t end there.
“One night I get a call to meet the guys in this abandoned house we’d party at sometimes, so I figured it was alcohol and girls and shit. But when I got there...” Reyes wiped his nose. “They had Miguel there. He was naked and tied to an old trash can, and at first, they were just taking turns beating on him with sticks or their fists. Saying things and scaring the shit out of him. I kept watching, trying not to be sick, and hoping it stopped there.”
Acid boiled in Miles’s stomach. “It didn’t?”
“No. The guy in charge pulled a dildo out of his cargo shorts pocket, and they...used it to violate Miguel with just spit for lube.”
The world grayed out briefly as blood rushed from Miles’s head. He was glad to be sitting, because he had to put his head between his knees until the spell passed. Horror stole over him—not only for this poor kid Miguel, but that Reyes could have possibly participated in something like that. In the beating, torture, and rape of a fellow teenager. His sweet, protective Reyes.
Miles’s head snapped up, and he barely managed the words, “Did you?”
“No. No, I didn’t touch him. I also didn’t help him.” Reyes’s voice fractured. “I just stood there, agreed with anything my friends said, and waited until they got bored and it was over. I was so sick, because I couldn’t stop them. I knew if I spoke up, they’d assume I was queer, too, and I’d end up over that trash can, and I was so fucking scared, Miles.”
More tears ran down Reyes’s cheeks, and Miles didn’t know what to do. What to even say to all this? His boyfriend, his safe place, his solid rock in the storm, was an accessory to a gang rape, and Miles had no way to process that. None. And he didn’t want to process it, so he tried to focus as if this was a story that had happened to someone else.
Not his Reyes.
“What happened to Miguel?” Miles asked.
Reyes made a distressed sound. “Three days later, he left a suicide note at home, naming all six of the guys who tortured him, and then he jumped from a bridge on the I-5 freeway. Killed himself.”
Miles’s stomach curled in on itself, and he ran for the bathroom, barely able to get to the toilet before he started to retch. Nothing really came up, but he gagged as the enormity of Reyes’s secret turned his body inside out. The confession about Luke’s accidental death in a fire was nothing like this. This was...beyond words. A boy had been tormented and abused while Reyes did nothing. A boy had taken his own life for the same reason.
A glass of water hovered near his face, and Miles used it to swish his mouth out. He accepted a washrag from Reyes, but no help standing. Miles’s entire body was shaking with adrenaline and grief. He sat on his own bed, the rag clenched in his hands, because the story wasn’t over. It couldn’t be.
Reyes sat opposite him. “The letter and bruises weren’t enough to prosecute anyone for rape, because Miguel had showered, so there was no fingerprints or DNA evidence left on his body. Cops found evidence we’d been at the house, so a few of the guys did time for B&E, but it was nowhere near enough. His older brother Julio vowed revenge. He went after our leader, Omar, and killed him in front of witnesses for what he’d done to Miguel. Julio was sentenced to twenty years, and he just got out six months ago.”
“He came to see you, didn’t he?” Miles asked. “He hit you.”
“Yeah. I was the only person there that night who wasn’t arrested or named. He wanted to know why Miguel didn’t name me in his note. I told him I didn’t know, because I don’t. Miguel had no good reason to protect me from the consequences of my actions.”
“You deserved the same public accusations as the others.”
Reyes flinched. “Yeah. After Miguel, I got out. I was done. Didn’t want to ruin any more lives. And when I wasn’t publicly associated with the assault, the gang turned on me, anyway. The beating I got for leaving nearly killed me, but I was out. I couldn’t change what happened to Miguel and Julio, but I became a better person. A lifesaver, not a life ruiner.”
“You said it yourself, though.” Miles’s chest felt scraped raw, his heart exposed and bleeding. “You can’t change what you did, or who you hurt.”
“I’m so sorry, Miles. Tell me what to do.”
Reyes was red-eyed and desperate in a way that made Miles want to cry, as much as he wanted to rage at what Reyes had done. Twenty years ago, but a kid was still dead after being traumatized while Reyes did nothing to save him. A kid whose pain Miles empathized with more than he cared to admit.
If he hadn’t had Wes around to prop him up last year, Miles could have very well ended up in the same place as Miguel.
“I don’t know what you can do,” Miles said. “I can’t wrap my head around this. People change, but it was still you, Reyes. You stood there. You fucking watched.”
“If Julio hadn’t shown up today, would you ever have told me this?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I told myself you deserved to know it all, but I was terrified you’d leave me. I was a coward again, and I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry. Sorry doesn’t change what you did.” Miles needed space to think. He couldn’t fucking think with Reyes right there, looking so wounded that Miles wanted to make it better for him, knowing Reyes was miserable because of his own actions. “I can’t be here right now.”
He stood, aware of Reyes following him to the cabin door, but keeping a respectful distance. “Where are you going?” Reyes asked.
“I don’t know, I just can’t be here with you.”
“You shouldn’t ride when you’re upset.”
“Not riding. Just please, don’t follow me. And do not call me.”
Reyes’s entire body shrank in on itself. “All right. If that’s what you need.”
“It is.”
Miles fled the cabin, unsure where he was going until he found himself at the ATV shed, starting one up. He knew the trail by now, but he was used to riding it on horses, not on this thing. But he found the house, anyway, despite the nearly set sun. Mack’s truck was there, so Miles took a chance on banging on their door.
Wes opened it with a bright smile that fled immediately. “What happened? Did Dallas do something?”
“Reyes.”
“Reyes is hurt?”
Miles shook his head, then shrank back when Mack appeared behind Wes. Had Mack known this secret?
Wes held him by the shoulders, his eyes intense and angry. “Reyes hurt you?”
The painful sob that lurched from Miles’s chest was the only affirmation Wes needed. He pulled Miles into the cabin, then upstairs to the loft. Miles didn’t know if Mack followed, and he probably didn’t. As soon as Wes sat him down on the edge of their king bed, Miles started sobbing for real. Wes held him while Miles cried out his confusion, fear, and pain. He cried for Miguel, a boy he’d never known but who felt like a friend for having suffered in a similar way. He cried for Julio, who’d lost his brother and his freedom. He cried for the teenage Reyes, who’d been terrified to stop a horrible act of violence because he feared the same fate. He cried for the adult Reyes, who’d distanced himself from his blood family out of shame and self-loathing.
He also cried for himself. Two hours ago, his life had been wonderful. Almost too good to be true. And now...
The joke is on me.
Miles didn’t know how long he cried before his body had nothing left. He was lying in bed with Wes curled around him, hugging him tight while Miles got through it. Eventually, Miles found his voice to tell Wes about it, and then Wes raged on his behalf, because Wes was his best friend. Wes got how this story had shaken the foundation of Miles’s life and the way he saw Reyes—no longer through the lens of a hero, but that of a tarnished soul who had innocent blood on his hands.
“I don’t know what to think,” Miles said after he’d blown his nose a few times.
“You don’t have to know tonight, honey. You’ve been given a horrible shock, and you need to absorb it. You don’t owe Reyes any sort of forgiveness tonight.”
“He was trying to protect me.”
“Pretty sure you’ve proven you don’t need protecting anymore. And Reyes knows your history with Dallas and the shit he did to you. He should have been up front about this long before now.” Wes looked seriously pissed on his behalf, and Miles half expected him to fly down to the ranch and punch Reyes himself.
“He was scared I’d dump him when I found out.”
Wes studied him a beat. “Are you?”
“I don’t know what I want to do. I still love him so much it hurts, but this is...ugh. So confusing. I look at him and I still see my boyfriend, but now there’s this undercurrent. This shadow of a guy who could stand there and watch a boy be tortured and do nothing, and it makes me sick.”
“Then stay here for a few days. Take your time and sort this out. Find the space you need, okay? Mack won’t object.”
“Even through Reyes is his best friend? Is Mack here?”
“No, he left while I dragged you up here, probably down to yell at Reyes for making you look so spooked.”
“Mack doesn’t have to do that.”
“Pretty sure it’s in progress, honey. Relax for a minute. This requires wine.”
Miles snorted, but didn’t protest. He stared at the ceiling, while Wes fetched them two glasses and an open bottle of red sangria. Miles gulped his first glass down, needing the faint haze of the alcohol to take the edge off his internal pain. Tonight, his heart was beating in jagged pieces, and Miles had no idea if it would ever beat right again.
* * *
Reyes was in a hell of his own making, and he was finishing his second beer when Mack stormed the cabin, his anger filling the small space immediately.
At least I know where Miles went and that he’s safe.
More than anything, that had terrified him when Miles left earlier, because anyone could get lost out there in the dark wilderness. But Miles had gone to his best friend for comfort, and Reyes trusted Wes to keep him safe.
“What in the blue hell did you do to Miles, you stupid son of a bitch?” Mack roared.
Only Mack could ever get away with talking to Reyes like that. Reyes was in one of the sitting chairs and didn’t look up when he replied, “Told him the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
Reyes reached for a third beer and cracked the cap. Studied the way a bit of fizz and vapor swirled around the mouth of the longneck. “Something I did when I was sixteen and didn’t tell anyone about. Not even you.”
Mack sat in the opposite chair. “Didn’t know we had any secrets between us.” He sounded more hurt than angry.
“This secret was between me and the world. Never wanted anyone to know. It’s pretty awful.”
“Guess it would have to be for Miles to run to Wes.”
“Yeah.” Reyes took a long pull from his beer. “You wanna go get Colt? I don’t wanna have to say all this a third time.”
“Sure, I’ll be right back.”
Reyes stared at the label on his bottle, sick to his stomach over how Miles had reacted to this truth, and terrified his two best friends might react the same way. Like Reyes had betrayed him, kicked him in the stomach, and then laughed about it all. He wanted to make it better for Miles, but he didn’t know how. There was no fixing the past.
All he could do was face it and deal with the fallout.
* * *
Mack was mostly numb by the time he got home a little after midnight, exhausted and emotionally worn out from Reyes’s confession. He’d met Reyes when they were both twelve-year-old troublemakers, and they’d bonded immediately. But when Reyes was fourteen, he changed. Got into gang life, stopped hanging with Mack, and became a different person almost overnight. And Mack had missed his friend.
He was overjoyed when Reyes got out of the life two years later, and while he vaguely remembered a boy who’d killed himself, and the brother’s retaliation, he’d had no fucking clue Reyes was directly tied to any of it. The story of Reyes’s involvement had shredded him and Colt both, judging by Colt’s face. And yeah, Mack understood Miles’s reaction a lot more now, given the kid’s history with Dallas.
Why is there so much evil in the world?
Not that he thought Reyes himself was evil. Mack understood he’d been terrified and guilty, and it had eaten at Reyes for decades. But Mack nursed a little bit of hurt that his best friend for two-thirds of his life had kept this from him for so long.
It also gave him more insight into who Reyes really was, deep down where he’d hidden this secret. Years of avoiding relationships, never wanting to date or try to find happiness with another person. He’d been punishing himself for the past two decades without realizing he was not only hurting himself, he was also hurting the people he kept at arm’s length.
“I didn’t deserve that kind of love,” Reyes had said earlier that night. “Not after I helped ruin so many lives. And then after Luke...no.”
Colt had disagreed that mistakes made someone unlovable—something Colt had personal experience with—and Mack had taken his side. Reyes had made a terrible choice as a hot-headed teenager, and he was living with the consequences. It didn’t mean Reyes deserved to be alone, and it absolutely didn’t mean Miles was dumping him.
Mack let himself into the house, unsurprised to find it dark and silent. He nudged off his boots before climbing the stairs to the loft. He was, however, a bit surprised to find Wes and Miles asleep in their bed, sprawled together on top of the covers, with two glasses and an empty bottle of wine on Mack’s side table.
Smiling at the pair and happy they had each other, Mack got an extra blanket from the bathroom closet and draped it over the slumbering friends. Even asleep, Miles looked troubled and unhappy, as if the weight of the world had been dumped onto his young shoulders. It was easy to forget Miles was only twenty-five, because he had the aura of someone much older. Someone who’d been ground down by life, but who wasn’t done fighting for his happiness.
Mack had faith that Miles still wanted his happiness to be with Reyes. His friends could get through this and come out stronger on the other side for having faced it together. He tugged the blanket a bit higher on Miles’s shoulder, then whispered, “Don’t stop believing in him, Miles. Fight for what you want, you hear?”
Miles mumbled something, as if hearing Mack’s words, and then slept on.