Finally, the buzzer went off and it was time to come back to earth, in the most literal way possible. I jumped off, but missed my step and landed on my hands and knees in the dirt. A familiar face grabbed me off the ground and tossed me toward the rails and out of the way of the enraged bull.
The grin on Frankie’s face as he ushered the bull through the gate told me just how much fun he was having. Once the gate slammed closed, I jumped off the rails, and ran over to Frankie. He grinned and slapped my back. “Well done, Querida. Do you hear it?”
I finally heard the sound of the applause over the blood rushing in my ears. Heard the commentators over the speakers talking about how textbook my ride was, how naturally I sat, and I swear, I almost embarrassed myself. Instead, I lifted my arm in the air and pointed to the sky. That one was for my parents.
The grin on Frankie’s face was almost as big as mine. “We’ll celebrate later,” he waggled his eyebrows. “Now get the hell out of the arena.”
I jogged out the exit and almost bypassed Caly. “T.M!” she called after me, and my feet slowed. Fuck. As much as I didn’t want to shy away from what happened, I didn’t want it broadcast on national television either. “Don’t worry. We aren’t crossing to you for an interview. The big guys upstairs have vetoed anything like that for awhile.”
I blew out a relieved sigh. I pulled my helmet off and watched Calypso’s eyes as she took in the bruises on my face and the ones poking up above my collared shirt. Helpless rage and just a hint of fear settled in her face. “That son of a goat fucker,” she growled, making her cameraman chuckle. “I’m not going to ask if you are okay, but I hope whoever your guardian angel was put that fucker in a coma.”
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Caly grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. “Girl, if you need anything, you let me know.” She pulled back and sucked in a ragged breath. “You aren’t the only one he’s tried it on.”
I reared back. “Did he…?” Yeah, sometimes a word was so big that it didn’t feel like it could leave your lungs.
She shook her head, and I let out a relieved sigh. “No, but only because Matty came to find me to do a couple of shots.” She tilted her head at the cameraman, who’s face looked like he’d happily find Junior and put him in a coma if that's what Caly wanted. He looked at Caly like she was the best thing since beer and ribs.
I shrugged like what happened yesterday wasn’t the second hardest thing I’ve ever been through. “I told them that if he even so much as watched from the nosebleeds, I was going to fuck with their world, so hopefully they ship him off to Antarctica and we can both forget he ever existed.”
Caly frowned. “You aren’t going to press charges?” There was a hint of disapproval in her tone, and I got it, but it still hurt a little.
“So he gets a six month good behavior bond, and I get dragged through a very public court case, only to have my reputation and career in tatters at my feet afterwards?”
Caly shook her head, but she knew I was right. I could see it in the disillusioned look in her eyes. Junior was rich, white, and came from a family with a lot of clout in a lot of different circles. He could murder someone, and he still probably wouldn’t see jail time.
I mumbled my goodbyes, getting the hell out of there before guilt consumed me completely.
18
Apparently, we became a convoy overnight. I drove down the interstate, Beau’s big truck behind me.
Dylan slept in my backseat, even though I told him it was okay if he wanted to fly back to Denver. He’d just said, ”Nah I’m good,” and climbed into the back of my truck. Within six miles, his head was tipped back against the headrest and his mouth was wide open as he slept. Frankie was singing along to some angry country song by a female artist, singing about her cheating ex. Frankie did sassy well, and I was laughing as he snapped his fingers to the words of the song.
Damn, this was nice. Temporary but nice.
In my wildest dream, I got to have my cake and eat it too. I’d get my quirky best friend, the nurturer, the alpha asshole, and the sexy one. If this was a romance novel, we’d all ride off into the sunset together, living happily ever after.
But this was real life, and in real life, you couldn’t have four boyfriends. Or four husbands. They didn’t just get along by the magic of pussy power and I couldn’t imagine any of them being satisfied with a quarter of me each. We still hadn’t really talked about it all together, but Beau and Branch had booked into the same hotels as me and Frankie, and Dylan was bunking with us, so I guess there’d be ample opportunity to figure shit out.
I knew both Dylan and Branch had responsibilities other than babysitting me, but I didn’t argue too hard. You know why?
Because I wanted them all with me.
We were staying just outside of Denver, so the commute between Dylan and Branch’s sponsorship duties wouldn’t be too bad for most of the week, and the drive to the arena wouldn’t be too far on the weekend. It was weird how we’d fallen into the domesticity of the arrangement, but I wasn’t fighting it.
When we’d pulled into the motel and gone into reception, the girl behind the desk had looked from me, to the guys, and back to me. I could see why she’d think it was weird. Frankie was holding my hand and Branch was standing so close to my back that when I moved, my ass brushed the front of his jeans. Dylan was picking up brochures and saying shit like, “We should go on a date to Echo Lake,” and no one was even trying to hide the fact that they were all dating me.
The girl behind the desk looked somewhere between envious and scandalised.
She handed over our room keys and I hustled everyone out of the reception office. Frankie and Branch moved the trucks around to the space in front of our rooms and Beau hooked his hand in mine as we walked down the row of doors. Dylan grabbed my other hand, and swung it gently. When I raised an eyebrow, he just lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “What? Everyone else was doing it and it looked kinda nice.”
“Aren’t you worried what people will think? Pretty sure the receptionist thought we were going to have an orgy. Or is it a gang bang if there's only one woman?” I asked Beau.
“How the hell would I know?”
I laughed at the blush on his cheeks. “Either way, she's definitely tallying up cleaning costs and going to rub one out in the back room over the thought of being the April to your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Beau laughed and Dylan just looked confused. Beau let go of my hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I’d forgotten you were once obsessed with the Ninja Turtles. It was the only thing that swayed you from the life of a bull rider for even a moment.”
Hell yeah it had. If I’d been able to get martial arts lessons in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, I might have had a different life. Luckily for me, there was nothing but flat fields and dirt where I came from. I had a wave of homesickness for a place I hadn’t laid eyes on in five years, but it was more than the place. It was my father. If I never went home, I could imagine that maybe he was just back there, working bulls and shooting the shit with the farm hands. Not in a coffin in the ground next to my mother.