Ride: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  She laughs, the sound a little too nasal.

  “A couple rides,” she says. “Damn, Jackson, I guess what they say is true.”

  “Course it is,” I say. “No false advertising here.”

  My dick’s at half-mast, and I move my hips so it moves against her.

  She bites her lip again, then slides her finger around the shell of my ear. I’m too drunk for it to feel like much.

  Then she leans in and kisses me. Her lips feel weirdly droopy, and her mouth is wet as she pushes her tongue into me, not that I can complain. I’m sure I’m too drunk to be any good at this either, so I just squeeze her ass and try to pull her against me.

  We make out for a while, right there in the middle of the bar. To be honest, I’m barely paying attention. I’m just on autopilot. Anything to forget about how I don’t get to do this with Mae ever again.

  “Want to get out of here?” she asks, breathily.

  My vision is sliding left and right. My dick’s finally two-thirds hard, and I think I’m good for the last third by the time we get there.

  “Sure,” I say.

  She gets off me, then leads me out the front door. We walk twenty feet down the sidewalk.

  On the opposite side of the street, I see a blond head. My heart leaps for a moment, but it’s not Mae, and now I’m drunk and frustrated and angry at myself for getting so excited.

  I grab Anna and push her up against the plate glass of a closed shop.

  “Oooh,” she says, and I kiss her hard. I run my hand up her legs and push my finger under the hem of her shorts while we kiss sloppily.

  I force myself to pay attention to this, to the hot girl I’m actually going to fuck tonight. The one who’s present.

  I hear a low whistle, and I break the kiss with Anna and look toward the bar entrance.

  It’s Raylan, Clay, Trevor, and a couple other guys, walking toward us.

  “Don’t let us bother you,” Clay says, grinning.

  “We’re going for smokes,” Trevor says. “You need anything?”

  Raylan looks the two of us up and down.

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “What happened?” Raylan says. “The photographer turn you down again?”

  My whole body goes rigid.

  “What?” I say.

  Raylan’s swimming in my vision, but he smirks.

  “What’s her name. Mae? She have a change of heart?”

  Clay and Trevor snicker.

  I step away from Anna, who’s frowning.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, moving toward Raylan.

  “I ain’t stupid,” he says. “I got the room next to hers. I didn’t think she’d put out, but I guess when you’re Jackson Cody and you plow your way through—”

  I grab him by the front of the shirt and shove him up against the wall. Everything lurches and swims, but how dare he talk about Mae like this, in public.

  “You better keep your damn mouth shut, you son—”

  He punches me in the stomach and plain flashes through me as my bruised ribs scream. I stumble backward, nearly falling over.

  “What’s your fucking problem, Jackson?” Raylan shouts.

  I swing at him. It’s a terrible punch, but it still lands on the side of his face and his head snaps around though it doesn’t connect quite right.

  He shouts again and now I’m off balance, but so is he because we’re both drunk. Raylan grabs for me and misses, and we both fall to the sidewalk.

  I’ve been in plenty of fights and I scramble to my feet and nearly fall over him, then grab him from behind in a headlock.

  “Say you won’t tell nobody,” I shout, right in his ear.

  “You ain’t my boss!” Raylan shouts, both hands tugging at my arm around his neck.

  I nearly fall over but I hold on. There’s one thought pounding through my head, and that thought is fucking Raylan needs to keep his mouth shut.

  That’s what Mae wants, and maybe I can give her this one thing.

  “Say you won’t tell!” I shout again, but then Clay finally grabs me from behind and pulls me back by the elbows, locking my arms behind me. He gets me off balance at first, and then Raylan is scrambling up and Trevor’s holding him back.

  “Let me go!” I shout.

  “Get off!” Raylan shouts.

  “Hell no,” says Clay.

  I could probably get free, but my shirt is ripped and I’m breathing hard and God Almighty that punch hurt.

  “Fuck you, Jackson,” Raylan spits out.

  “Keep your damn mouth shut,” I say, and spit on the sidewalk. “Just keep it shut.”

  Raylan spits on the sidewalk too, and we glare at each other for a moment.

  “You gonna start again if we let you go?” Trevor asks.

  I shake my head. Raylan shakes his.

  They release us. I shake out my arms, glaring at Raylan. He glares back.

  Anna comes up to me and puts one hand on my arm, but I move it away and look at her.

  “Sorry, darlin’,” I say. “Not tonight.”

  Raylan snorts, but for once he doesn’t say anything.

  I wake up the moment the sun rises. My stomach’s rolling and my head feels like someone’s mining my skull from the inside. I barely make it to the toilet before I puke my guts out, then sit on the edge of the tub, my head in my hands.

  I don’t remember what happened after the fight. I think I went back into the bar, did another shot, and someone sober took me back here. I’m just glad that I’m alone this morning, and that I didn’t do something impossibly stupid.

  It doesn’t matter, I think. She’s leaving, remember?

  I throw up again. Then I get into the bathtub and sit there, naked except my boxers. The porcelain feels good against my skin.

  She ain’t dead, I think, staring up at the shower head. Just in New York. It’s not even a different country.

  I cover my eyes with my hands, because it’s bright in here. I wish I could reach the bathroom light switch from the tub, but I can’t.

  She’s not even working for Sports Weekly once that issue comes out, I think.

  Too bad that’s not your only problem, Jackson.

  You were a dick to her when she turned you down last night.

  Goddammit.

  After a couple more minutes I drag myself out of the bathtub and drink a couple little plastic cups of tap water. My stomach doesn’t like it, but sooner or later, I’ve gotta keep something down.

  Outside, I hear a man’s voice. Then a woman’s.

  Mae’s.

  I don’t move. A trunk slams. A door shuts. An engine starts.

  I have the urge to rush to the window, to watch her drive away with Bruce in the rental car. Like some sort of pathetic puppy.

  Instead, I get back into bed and listen to the car drive away. Then I lay there, trying to go back to sleep.

  An hour later, there’s a knock on the door. I pull my pants on, stomach lurching, and I open it.

  It’s Raylan, wearing sunglasses. There’s a bruise purpling on one cheekbone, and he looks like hell. He holds out a huge bottle of blue Gatorade.

  “Thought you might be feeling it this morning,” he says.

  I open the door wider.

  “Come on in,” I say, and take the Gatorade. “Thanks.”

  I fall into one crappy chair, take a drink, then wipe my mouth. He falls into the other.

  “Sorry about last night,” I say.

  Raylan shakes his head.

  “It’s all right,” he says. “Been a while since we got into a drunken fight on the sidewalk.”

  “Six months at least,” I say.

  “Was the last one Topeka?” he asks.

  “Either that or Santa Fe,” I say.

  “I forgot about Santa Fe,” he says.

  “I skinned my elbow on the sidewalk in Santa Fe,” I say. “Took a month to heal.”

  We both take long swigs of the blue drink. I’m slowly starting to feel less
nauseous.

  “We good?” I finally say.

  Raylan nods.

  Then he looks around.

  “You alone in here?” he asks, sounding puzzled.

  “Unless there’s someone under the bed,” I say.

  He gives me a weird look.

  “You won and went home alone?” he asks.

  “Apparently so,” I say.

  “Shit, Jackson,” he says. “I still got one asleep in my bed.”

  I lean forward. My head pounds.

  “Raylan,” I say. “I don’t know what you know about me and Mae, but you have got to keep it to yourself.”

  “You made that point last night,” he says, and points to the bruise on his face.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  He finally smiles.

  “Shit, I was just kidding until you punched me,” he said.

  Goddammit.

  “She’ll get fired,” I say, my head in my hand. “I don’t give a shit about me.”

  “I ain’t gonna tell nobody,” Raylan says. “So long as she don’t make me look bad.”

  I look at him. He laughs, then rubs his temples.

  I stand and grab a bottle of Advil from my suitcase and set it on the table between us. Raylan takes about five, and I do too.

  By the time we leave four hours later, the hangover’s almost gone.

  There’s three weeks between the end of Pioneer Days and the start of the Rodeo World Championships in Las Vegas. Raylan and I drive home from Oklahoma. I drop him off at his house in Eastern Colorado and then drive alone to my parents’ ranch eight more hours north in Sawtooth, Wyoming. I listen to country western radio the whole time.

  It’s bright and clear and cold, though it hasn’t snowed yet. The sky stretches from horizon to horizon in a nonstop blue dome, and there’s nothing but waving yellow-green grass for nearly as far as I can see. It’s empty and wild, but this is where I’m from so I guess it’s home.

  My parents welcome me home, and my mom even babies me for a full day before she puts me to work again. I don’t mind. I like baling hay and feeding animals and fixing fences and staring into ancient tractor engines with my dad, debating over which part is busted this time.

  If I’m doing something, I’m not thinking about Mae. I’m not replaying our last conversation in my head, trying to figure out what I should have said instead.

  I miss her. I miss her, and I want her, and I think I like her, and I hate it.

  Sadie, my sister, even visits for a few days with her kids. Her husband can’t come, but my three nephews tear around the house and raise hell.

  “Tyler’s almost old enough to ride a sheep,” I tease her.

  Sadie gives me a stern look.

  “Heck no,” she says. “These boys are not doing rodeo.”

  “I’m offended,” I tease her.

  “I never should have let your father put you on a bull,” my mother sighs.

  I shrug.

  “I’m pretty good at it,” I say.

  “You scare the life outta me every time you get on one of those animals,” my mother says.

  We all go silent for a moment, looking at each other. Tyler bangs a dump truck against the floor next to a dog. The dog doesn’t wake up.

  “Cassie had her baby,” my mom volunteers. “Another boy. Cute as a button.”

  “Yeah?” I say, as noncommittally as possible.

  “That’s three now,” my mother points out.

  “Mhm,” I say.

  The night before my issue of Sports Weekly hits the stands, my parents suddenly insist on going out to dinner. The nearest town, Sawtooth, is forty-five minutes away, but we pack up the six of us — my parents, me, Sadie, and her kids — and head to Luigi’s House of Spaghetti.

  Everyone’s strangely quiet but nervous. I start to think that something might be up.

  When we get there, the windows are dark.

  “I think it’s closed,” I say.

  “Oh, no,” my mom says. “They’re just using those new environmentally friendly lightbulbs.”

  That doesn’t make any sense, but I go with it.

  They make me go first, and the moment I push the door open, the lights fly on.

  “SURPRISE!” a room full of people shouts.

  I stop in my tracks and look around, and then I start laughing.

  “It’s your release party!” Sadie says.

  On a table is a big stack of Sports Weekly.

  “I thought it came out tomorrow,” I say.

  “We know people,” my mom says, and winks. “Stores got it in yesterday and I pulled some strings.”

  Of course she did. Sawtooth has a population of three thousand. She knows everyone.

  Sadie hands me a copy, and I look at it.

  I’m on the cover. It’s weird as hell to see myself there: smiling at the camera, looking kind of cocky. Arms folded. I’m leaning against the side of the arena, hat on.

  I don’t even remember Mae taking this picture, but she took a lot of them.

  In big letters across the bottom, it says

  MEET JACKSON CODY

  Rodeo’s Newest Rockstar

  I let out a whistle.

  “Rockstar,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. Even though I knew I was going to be on the cover, it feels surreal.

  “Open it!” my mom says.

  I start flipping through, but she shoves an open copy into my hands, so I take that.

  Spread across two pages is one of the shots Mae took in the stable. I’m facing Crash Junction.We’re staring at each other. I’ve got him by one horn. There’s sunlight peeking through the windows and we’re both half-lit and golden.

  It nearly leaps off the page with energy, with potential. Staring at it, I’ve got the feeling that something is just about to happen, something powerful and raw, and this photo captures the last quiet second before everything explodes.

  Hell, it takes my breath away, and I was there.

  “It’s a great article, honey,” my mom says, and kisses my cheek.

  Late that night, in my trailer, I finally get to read the whole thing: story by Bruce McMurtry, photos by Mae Guthrie.

  It’s good. It’s exciting. Reading it, even I get keyed up about my final round, riding Crash Junction. I’m disappointed when I fall off.

  The photos are mostly action shots, though there’s one from the night we all went to Betty’s, five of us holding up shots. Raylan’s saying something.

  On the last page is one she took of me on our last night together. I’m standing in the bucking chute, face half-lit, moonlight on the sand past the gate. I’m looking toward it.

  When Mae took it, I could practically still feel her on my skin.

  19

  Mae

  The photos are due to my editors three days after I get back to New York, so all I do for those three days is edit. I pick the best hundred from thousands and then go over them in detail. I fix lighting levels, I sharpen textures, I compare two pictures that are almost exactly the same until it feels like my eyes might bleed.

  After a while, I can even manage to ignore that they’re all pictures of Jackson.

  At the end, I send them off and fall into bed for twelve hours.

  I stay busy, because it keeps my mind off things. I go back and forth with the people at Sports Weekly, and I string together a couple more freelance jobs. The rodeo finally paid enough to give me a slight cushion, something to fall back on if work ever gets really slow, but I don’t want to get lazy and rely on that.

  Maybe when it comes out I’ll suddenly be in demand, but that hasn’t happened yet. I do a low-level fashion shoot and take pictures for a private high school’s marketing brochure.

  I go out with my friends and my roommates, Sasha and Dani. I show them pictures of the sexy cowboy and they’re all smitten instantly. They try to get his number, and I laugh and tell them no.

  I don’t tell them that we got a lot more than professional.


  Then it’s release day. I steel myself as I walk to the news stand. I’ve never actually bought Sports Weekly before, but it’s right up front, next to The Economist and the New Yorker.

  Jackson’s on the cover. Grinning at me. I stare back at him.

  It’s a great picture, but he’s so good-looking it takes me a little by surprise. Not that I didn’t know, but I think I started to take it for granted after looking at his face for seventy-two hours straight.

  I wonder how many women have walked by here only to pick up a copy and suddenly develop a new crush. I buy a copy and then stand on the sidewalk, going over every single photo.

  I can remember where I was when I took each of them, and I remember what was happening for most of them.

  The front photo, with Jackson’s hand on Crash’s horn? He was about to apologize for being an asshole.

  The picture of the group doing shots? A minute later he was on stage, singing Friends in Low Places.

  The last photo, the one of him in the bucking chute? We’d just finished having sex, and he was talking quietly, staring out into the arena. Wondering if he’d be happier if he’d settled down and had kids.

  That quiet, introspective Jackson isn’t in the article. In it he lives up to his reputation as cocky charmer who can never quite follow the rules, who drinks too much, parties hard, goes through women like a hot knife through butter, and wins rodeo after rodeo.

  I wonder which one is the real Jackson. It’s probably both.

  It’s nearly ten that night when Jackson calls. I almost don’t answer, because I have no idea what to say — sorry for being a jerk, but we’re still probably never going to see each other again?

  “You see my cover story, Lula-Mae?” he asks. He even sounds far away.

  “Of course,” I say. “I bought myself a copy.”

  “They didn’t give you one?” he asks.

  “I got impatient,” I say. “It’s good. Bruce is a good writer.”

  “It’s the photos that make it,” he says.

  I laugh.

  “I thought so too,” I say. “Did I get your good side?”

  “They’re all good sides,” he says.

  I hear a bang on the other end.