by Shey Stahl
He stares at me. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Yes, I can. I broke up with him that night.”
“Why?”
“He went to Joel’s baseball game and didn’t come over until later. I was mad that he chose his brother over me so I broke up with him. I was fourteen and a brat. It was completely childish, and I regret it, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
Grayer lets out a heavy breath and it makes me nervous. Like he’s going to say something I don’t want to hear. Warmth spreads throughout my chest and face, waiting for that unknown again. “I’m afraid you need me in ways you shouldn’t.”
“That’s not true.” I swallow over the dryness in my throat. It’s like my mouth is filled with sawdust. “I don’t need you. I can live without you in my life. The thing is . . . I want a life with you. I know that sounds crazy, but I do.”
He’s silent, unmoving, maybe not even breathing. And then he clears his throat, thinking about what I just said. My stomach does a flip when he barely lifts those long lashes.
What’s he thinking? It’s driving me mad not knowing. I just basically said I didn’t want to live without him and he’s saying nothing. “Please don’t tell me that you want me to leave again, Grayer. Please don’t do that to me.” I’m going on a bit of a rant and I think he knows it because I’m ready to say more, but I stop when I see the look on his face. “What?”
He scratches his cheek, waiting for me to finish my speech. “Are you done?”
“I think so?”
His sighs, shaking his head in amusement and then pulls me against him. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
His heart’s pounding, the strong muscles of his chest flexing, his arms comforting around me. “Grayer, I—”
He stops me, pressing his fingers to my lips. “Tell me after—”
“No!” I shake my head. I want to tell him that I love him and have him hear me right now. I don’t want to wait like I did last time. “I’m not waiting another city to tell you anything.”
He laughs, his head leaning back against the mattress. “I was going to say tell me after I kiss you.”
“Oh.” I grab his shoulders, pulling him to my chest. “In that case, I will tell you later.” My mouth presses to his—eager, desire-filled, and passionate. This time there’s more to it. I know that this is one of those kisses that lasts a lifetime. The ones that you remember in those moments and go back to. You say to yourself, I remember that kiss for the way his tongue glided over mine or the gentle way he cupped my cheek and held me close. I’ll remember the sighs and the tiny groans when he wanted to take it further, but then sighs again, being content with the moment and what it meant for us.
“What was it you were going to say?” He laughs, pulling away from me with a smile, his palm resting on my cheek. His eyes drop to my neck, and what’s missing, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Thanks for the ride?”
Calmly, he laughs again, watching my face as he speaks. “I thought you were going to tell me you loved me.”
I close my eyes. I fell in love the first time I saw him. It’s dramatic—in a sense—but if you saw him like I did, a breath of fresh air, you’d understand how possible that is. I fell when I saw that first nod. “I do . . . love you.”
His lips press against mine once again. “I love you, too.” And then he draws back, watching my face when his fingertips dance over the hallow spot of my throat. “I’ll get it back for you. I promise.”
Hold on to him, heart. He’s worth it.
A bull rider who is "bucked off" is thrown from the bull before the required eight-seconds expire. The rider consequently does not earn a score.
With the rain hitting windows, a wicked storm raging outside, my fingers sweep across her cheeks. “I love you,” I tell her again, hoping she hears me, and it makes up for everything I said or did to her in the last couple days.
My phone rings nonstop, as does Maesyn’s, but we ignore them. Nothing’s more important to me than what’s happening in this room. I can’t leave here until she knows she’s mine and never ever going anywhere.
Thunder cracks outside, the restless sounds of the rain remind me of that first night with her, and then again in the back of my truck. It seems anytime things are changing for us, the weather is fucking crazy outside. Maesyn watches me closely, waiting for the catch, but it’s not coming. Not this time.
“Nope. You’re not going to cry over this. Stop it,” I tease, trying to ease her worries with joking. “The girl I know doesn’t cry. She punches stereos.”
Maesyn sniffles, rolling her eyes and pushing the back of her hand over her eyes. “I’m not crying. My eyes burn from the color of this horrid carpet.”
She’s right. It’s bright red and has a strange design to it that when you squint, it’s like looking at a kaleidoscope. But I also know she is crying. It’s not the carpet.
Laughing, I sweep her up and set her on the bed.
She kisses me then. It’s the best fucking feeling in the whole world. I try to remember to be gentle with her, not that she needs gentle, but I want to take my time with her and it doesn’t happen that way at first. It’s more like I’m a teenager and just discovered how fun closing the door and locking it can be when a girl is in your bed. The material of her shirt gathers in my fist, her eyes on mine, untouchable, invincible . . . this could be our forever, together.
Those kisses, the touches, they’re all a reminder of what I knew I couldn’t live without, but pathetically refused to admit. They leave the two of us breathless and so ready for more.
Maesyn’s naked now, thanks to my hasty movements of discarding her clothes. I sit up on my knees and stare down at her undeniable beauty. It falls beside her, my eyes never leaving hers.
Carefully, her palms slide up my forearms, to my biceps, drawing me closer. Kissing her lips, cheeks, jaw, neck, but then she pushes me back. “Are you going to take your jeans off, or should I, Eight Seconds?”
“I thought you liked my buckle, baby,” I tease, grinding it against her pussy. On all fours, I have her trapped against the mattress. Dropping down on top of her, I give her my weight and angle my buckle into her pussy like I did that first night. “You don’t know how fucking sexy that was. I thought about it for days after I left you.”
At my admission, her cheeks warm and she rises up to kiss me, our mouths colliding as one. Never again will I deny myself this. Not ever.
Maesyn’s hands move from my cheeks to my buckle. “I’m serious. Get these off,” she breathes, kissing me hard.
I manage to get them down enough, not off, but enough I can pull my cock out and there’s one small moment I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life. With my eyes on hers, I whisper, “I love you,” just before I slide inside her and fucking mean it. I had no idea a woman could consume me this way, but I know now.
My thrusts are urgent, full of need, and while I know I’m not going to make it long, I make sure to take care of her first. Rising up on my hands, I move above her with just the right angle that my cock rubs her clit every time I drive into her. Arching her head back, she grabs onto my waist, moaning a strangled, “Oh my God,” when she comes.
It’s beautiful. No, it’s devastatingly fucking beautiful. I don’t last long after that. Dropping down on top of her, my hands move to her ass and I drive myself forward, lost in the consuming need.
When I come, she holds me a little tighter, or maybe it’s me holding her tighter. I don’t know. I just know it feels like my entire body breaks out in sweat and I can barely catch my breath. And here I thought I was in shape.
Panting against her cheek, I get my elbows underneath me and brush her hair back from her forehead, gazing into her unforgettable face. “How’s that for a re-ride?”
Maesyn smiles, even as tears rise in her eyes. “I don’t know. I think I might need to see a live action replay.”
I laugh and kiss her sweetly. “I thi
nk that can be arranged, but only if you come with me to the World Finals in Vegas.”
She smiles and winks. “I’m always up for a road trip.”
A PBR bull ride is an eight-second contest of strength, balance, endurance, and effort between the world’s best bull riders and the world’s best bucking bulls. A rider must ride for eight seconds with one hand in the bull rope and one in the air in order to earn a score. The clock starts when the bull’s shoulder or hip breaks the plane of the gate. It stops when the rider’s hand comes out of his rope—voluntarily or not. The clock also stops if the rider touches himself, the bull, or the ground with his free arm during the eight-second ride. If the rider makes the eight-second buzzer, he receives a score. If he does not make the eight-second buzzer, then he receives no score for that attempt.
I don’t know where he got it from, because he’d been crazy all his life, but my dad used to tell us boys before any big ride, “If they stand behind you, protect them. If they stand beside you, respect them. If they stand against you, defeat them.”
This bull, he’s standing against me.
“Bulls,” Wyatt says, pointing to Asteroid with his tiny finger. He loves going behind the chutes to look at the bulls. And then he wiggles, trying to get closer to him. “I ride?”
I pat him on the butt, holding him closer and careful not to let him stick his hand in there with them. “No, not yet. Maybe when you get older.” Kissing his temple, I smile at him. “Daddy’s gonna ride him tonight.”
He smiles, too. “You win?”
“I’m hoping to.”
It’s been a good week here so far. Maesyn’s here with me, Ty brought Haylee, and it’s all gone pretty smoothly. In round one, I rode Dumber for a score of 86.6. In round two, Mr. Black for a score of 87.5. In round three, Here We Go Again. He didn’t perform like I wanted and I was handed a score of 69. I declined the re-ride. In round four, Freakster for 86.25 and a torn ACL. Round five, Hokey Dokey for 85.5. Now I was up against Asteroid for the final round. Same bull I rode in the championships last year and won. Now it seemed the two of us have come full-circle.
“You’re gonna give me a run for my money, aren’t you, boy?” I whisper to Asteroid. Usually I don’t know too much about the bulls I’m on, but there’s a few I do. Asteroid’s one of them. I know every rider who’s drawn him this year and since the World Finals last year, he’s gone unridden. He’s not the biggest of the bulls, but his buck off rate is 94.5 percent which makes him number one right now. And that’s the bull I want to ride. The best. I want to know I’m given the craziest son of a bitch because when I stay on him, I’ll know I won because I’m the world champion.
Wyatt squirms in my arms as Britany and Maesyn approach us. Wyatt lunges for Britany before she has the chance to grab him and he practically falls to the arena floor. She gasps, grabbing her baby bump and our squirming toddler. “Holy shit,” she breathes, one hand on him, one hand on her heart.
“Holy shit,” he repeats, grabbing her cheeks and then saying again, “Holy. Shit.”
He’s a bit of a repeater these days. I laugh, as does Maesyn, though we both know it’s not funny, but it kind of is. There’s nothing cuter than a child cursing if you ask me. Totally inappropriate, sure, but fucking cute.
“You have an autograph session in about twenty minutes,” Britany tells me and then holds Wyatt tighter. “And you, little man, you’re gonna take a nap.”
He shakes his head immediately. “No I not. No nap.” More aggressive head shaking follows. “No.”
Rarely does he win the battle against no nap. Britany takes off with Wyatt and leaves me with Maesyn. She worms her way into my arms, smiling, and then lays her head on my chest. “It smells like shit over here.”
I laugh, kissing her temple. “It’s because you’re standing in it.”
Gasping, she pulls back and stares at her boots. “Damn it.”
Things with Maesyn and me are different in the last month. She enrolled in school and is set to start this winter in Austin. I’m not wild about her being four hours away, but she refuses to move in with me. Says something about boys and girls don’t have to live with each other right away. This coming from the girl who practically lives with me now, even after she and Haylee got an apartment together in Austin.
What’s not different? My feelings. I’m still, without a doubt, in love with this girl.
My stare moves to the necklace she’s wearing. After Henry broke it, I had Britany get the beads back for me and tried to fix it, but it wasn’t the same.
“I have something for you,” I tell her, reaching in my pocket for the bead covered in tiny diamonds I found in a flea market in Greensboro. I hold it in my palm for her, the diamonds catching sparks from the arena lights above us. I’m not saying I want to marry her, not yet at least. She’s too young for that shit. But I can give her a goddamn bead for a necklace that means the world to her. “I know your grandpa only gave you beads, but I saw this and thought of you.”
Those tears surface again. “Wow. That’s really beautiful.”
I wink. “So is the girl with cow shit on her boots.” And then I nod in the distance to where her dad’s standing, smiling at her. It was never that she was trouble for him, from what I can understand. It was that he was scared of her rebel-wild ways. He thought for sure she’d get herself into something she couldn’t handle. At least that’s what he told me when I asked him to come here to the World Finals. I had my reasonings, and if I was gonna keep this girl, she had to make it right with her dad.
Maesyn gasps and stares at me. “You seriously invited my dad?”
“Yep. Paid for his flight to come here so you could talk to him.”
“You can’t do that.”
I laugh, wrapping my arm around her. “Actually, I can. And I did.”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Why? I could have seen him in Ellensburg.”
“You could have, but he’s never been to the World Finals and it’s something every bull riding fan should see.”
“What makes you think he’s a fan?” she whispers into my shoulder, watching her dad walk toward her.
“Oh, he’s a fan. And I needed him to be okay with you being here. Morgan and your mom were gonna come too, but Morgan had school. And I also feared she’d let all the bulls out of the pens when no one was looking.”
I’m getting the “are you crazy” look again. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for my dad to be okay with us being together? I’ve been with you for the last three months. Besides, you don’t need his approval. You’re not asking me to marry you.”
The words hang between us and I think she wants to take them back, unsure of their meaning or what my reaction might be. I lean in and smile. “Yet. I haven’t asked you yet.” Her mouth opens into the perfect O. Speechless. Straightening my posture, I shrug, lightening the mood when it looks like she might cry again. “Besides, if I get on his good side now, there’s a better chance he’ll give me his blessing when the time comes. Then I can have you barefoot and pregnant in no time.”
That earns me a laugh. A “yeah, sure” kind of laugh. “Well, look at you, champ. You got my future all planned out for me, don’t you?”
Reaching for her hand, I start walking toward her dad with her. “I do, actually. You’re going to love being married to me.”
She rolls her eyes, but the smile’s still there. “I’m sure.”
“Whoa, control your excitement a bit. It’s a little overwhelming.”
We laugh as Archer finally comes over, smiling tenderly at Maesyn, and I don’t think she’s seen him smile like that at her in a while. And you know what he says to her?
“Freedom looks good on you.”
It doesn’t always happen right away, but if you don’t look back, your past won’t follow you.
I leave Maesyn and her dad talking, and I head to the autograph session, and then return to the locker room to apply rosin to my bull rope and mentally prepare myself for
my ride. As I’m working it into the rope, graying from months of me doing this very same thing before every ride, I think of Maesyn again. I think about wanting to marry her, not yet, eventually, but when those thoughts turn to her in bed, naked, breathless beneath me this morning and it provokes a reaction both physically, and emotionally. I push the thoughts aside for now. There will be time later.
The ritual in the locker room, it’s usually the same for me. I won’t go as far to say I’m superstitious or anything like that, but I like to keep to a similar process every time. I think, too. It’s like my mind won’t shut off. One thing keeps rattling around in my head. Something my dad said to me right before the championship last year. “Winning happens when practice meets opportunity.”
This is my opportunity again.
“Good luck tonight,” riders tell me as they pass by, knowing they’re not winning this championship, but still giving me support. In the month since Thackerville and that goddamn disaster, I managed to get back into the number one spot and hold on this week. But if I don’t ride Asteroid for at least an 82, it might be Javier’s for the taking, a rider out of Mexico. Speaking of riders, you might also be wondering what happened to Henry that night?
Well, he talked about pressing charges, denied it was me who beat the crap out of him, and then told everyone he was in a bar fight. We haven’t talked about it since and honestly, I don’t plan to. I’d rather forget that happened at all.
Trying to clear my mind, I lean down and tighten the straps of my spurs. Then I tape up my fingers, covering calluses on my right hand. Given we’re toward the end of the season, it’s basically raw now. I take a couple more strips and wrap them around my wrist and knuckles.
The noise from the stands rumbles through the locker room, shaking the rafters. This week, it’s the biggest week in the bull riding championship and I can imagine the fans are excited. It’s nice to have the noise as a distraction.