“You used to coach Mike?” I asked in surprise.
He grinned over at me. “Where do you think all the bad blood comes from?”
“So, what do I need to do if I’m going to beat him?” I asked, watching as his score got put up on the board. Mid-eighties. It was a respectable score. Not impossible for me to beat, not if I got a good time and had a clean ride, but I’d have to have a good time and a clean ride.
It suddenly hit home to me that this wasn’t just practice. I looked nervously out over the crowd, managing to pick out Vanessa by her bright green shirt.
“What you need to do to beat him is to focus on your own riding and forget about him and everyone else,” Larry said, tapping me on the shoulder to get my attention. “You’ve been doing better in practice lately. Just go out there and give it a ride like you have been. That’s all you have to do.”
I nodded grimly and went to line up as we got closer to my number. I would be the last rider to go, which meant that I had plenty of time to think about what Larry had said, about rolling with the punches or giving it a little bit of a tease, rather than just going in for a fuck. I glanced back toward Vanessa, thinking again about how proud she was going to be if I managed to win. If I could get the prize money for her.
I smiled and nodded my head a little to myself. I was going to win this thing.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Vanessa
I watched yet another rider get thrown around the five-second mark and turned toward Dad, starting to feel a bit impatient as I waited for Trethan to ride. “Is this normal?” I asked him. “I’ve never really been interested in bull riding before, so I don’t know, but it seems like a lot of people are getting disqualified.”
“It’s an amateur competition,” he reminded me.
“Still. You’d think more than a handful of riders would have made it longer than eight seconds. Or you’d think that the organizers would change the minimum amount of time. At this point, they’re hardly going to have enough guys to give prizes to.”
Dad snorted out a laugh. “They’ll have plenty of guys,” he said. “We’ve got five guys who have already made it over eight seconds. And they’re each going to get three rides to prove themselves. It’s not over yet.” He paused. “Anyway, it’s been a good day of rodeo. I don’t want to jinx it, but at least no one’s been seriously injured yet.”
I hummed in agreement, even though I knew that meant Trethan’s odds were worse. I regretted agreeing to this plan. I couldn’t stand between Trethan and his dream of being a bull rider, but I would feel horrible if he got injured when he was doing this just to get me the money for the gallery.
I swallowed hard and tried to take my mind off it. “Dad, you don’t mind that Trethan and I are seeing one another again, do you?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I want you to be careful,” he finally said. “You know Trethan’s history, maybe better than I do. I’d hate to see him go down that path again. He was in a bad place when you left, you know.”
“He told me,” I admitted, watching him bounce on his toes on the edge of the pen. “I don’t plan on leaving again, though.”
Dad whistled softly. “You’re really serious about him, are you?”
I rubbed at my wrist. “I don’t know,” I said, but I was sure he could hear the truth in my voice. I glanced over at him. “We haven’t talked about any of this, though. We haven’t even really said if we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now or anything like that.” I shook my head and then grabbed at his arm. “Look, there he goes, he’s mounting up.”
I bit my lower lip, watching as Trethan, seemingly impervious to nerves, waved out at the crowd and then tipped his hat in my direction. Then, the buzzer sounded, and the bull burst out of the pen and into the center of the ring.
“That’s it,” Dad said under his breath, watching Trethan move with the bull.
I didn’t know enough about bull riding to know if he was doing better than any of the other riders, but he was staying on the thing pretty well, and I supposed that was something.
My breath caught as he fell forward over the bull’s head. The bull bucked backward and tossed his head, and Trethan went flying off to one side, looking as limp as a rag doll. At the last second, he collected himself and rolled with the impact, coming up in a crouch. He assessed the movement of the bull and then darted off toward the edge of the ring, jumping up high on the wall.
Then, his eyes found mine, and he flashed me a thumbs up.
I swallowed hard and looked toward the scoreboard. He had hit his scoring time, and the judges were nodding approvingly.
Ninety-two.
I stood and cheered before the score even registered in my brain. Dad clapped and whistled as well.
I slipped out of the stands and ran down to where Trethan was. He swept me up into his arms and kissed me. “Hey, darling,” he said as he set me back down on my feet. “What did you think of that?”
“You’re amazing,” I gushed. “You’re in the lead right now, right? So, what happens next?”
Trethan shrugged one shoulder. “Now we do it all over