Chapter 5 #2
I sighed. He was probably right, but it didn’t make me feel less surly.
He held open the door for me and I slipped into a room that smelled of beer and barbeque.
Country music hummed softly in the background, and people were crammed into the corners.
I couldn’t see Dylan anywhere, and I threaded my way through the crowd.
The WbrP event had brought a lot of out of towners here and the bar was doing a good trade tonight.
Frankie leaned down. “I see him in the back,” he yelled over the noise, grabbing my hand and leading me through the crowd. It was easier for him than for me. I was like 130 soaking wet and not very imposing.
Frankie was tall, 6’4 and broad and handsome as hell. Women looked and men got out of the way. I was insanely jealous of the talent.
When we stopped at a table and I peeked around his shoulders. I almost turned and walked right back out. It wasn't just Dylan, but also Beau and Branch.
Well shit.
Frankie cast me an apologetic look and I narrowed my eyes at him. He’d asked me about my past with Beau and Branch, but other than to tell him that they were from my childhood, we didn’t get into it much.
Dylan gave me a wide grin as they all got to their feet, their good southern manners shining through.
I went to pull my hat from my head, briefly forgetting that I left it at home and it was just my normal riotous curls.
Dylan leaned across the table, kissing my cheek. “I’m glad you came out, Tessa.”
I couldn’t help but smile as Frankie pulled out a stool for me and I climbed up. He disappeared up to the bar, already knowing what I liked to drink. I sat under the gaze of two ghosts from my past, and a former one night stand. Yeah, this was a shit idea.
“Shouldn’t you be at the WbrP Cookout?” I asked Branch, and he shrugged.
I raised my eyebrows, and he blew out a breath. “I hate that shit. South West Motors isn’t my sponsor. I have no obligations. I’d rather be here.”
What the hell did that even mean?
“How’s the shoulder?” Beau must have seen the wheels turning in my head, because he jumped into the silence, just like he’d done when we were kids. Always the mediator between Branch and I. I smiled softly at the memory.
“Feels better than it has in awhile. You have miracle hands.” At his grin, I felt the urge to slap a hand over my mouth.
That wasn’t what I’d meant. My pink cheeks seemed to amuse them all, as a low chuckle went through the group. “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.”
Beau threw back his head and laughed. “Doesn’t make it wrong though, does it Nugget?”
Thankfully a waitress appeared with a couple of baskets of buffalo wings and fries. She batted her eyelashes at the guys, all of whom were attractive in their own right. They just had this earthiness that made you want to throw your panties at their heads.
Dylan with the jaw and the tattoos.
Branch with the dimples and the million dollar smile.
Beau who looked at you like you were the only woman in the room.
As Frankie came up behind me, putting a beer and a whiskey shooter in front of me, he completed the circle of hotness. Frankie was sensual; he looked like he knew how to play your body until you were weeping with pleasure.
So I couldn’t blame the waitress when she slipped Dylan her number. But the surge of jealousy in my chest was not a good sign. Down girl. You can’t have him , I reminded myself.
Frankie passed out more whiskey shooters, until everyone had one.
“To Tessa, congratulations on making it to the big time,” he said, his accent thick and filled with emotion.
Frankie knew. He knew the hardships. The panic attacks the first time I tried to get back on a bull.
Me being curled in a ball in the back of the truck when we had to travel at night.
The scrimping for food and sleeping in the same flea infested beds as we traveled around to all the tiny ass rodeos trying to get them to let me ride so I could earn some money. He knew how hard this had been.
“To Tessa,” the other three men chorused, their eyes heavy on my face. I threw down my shot and gasped against the burn. I let the feeling of the warming liquor burn through my veins, then I chased it down with a beer.
We all sat in silence. It was thick and awkward, and I desperately wanted more whiskey. Naturally, it was Beau who saved the day. “Frankie, I heard good things about you from the other Bullfighters. Gonna try and go pro as well?”
Frankie looked at me, and shook his head. “No, it would mean traveling around the rodeos and I want to stay with Tessa.”
Branch narrowed his eyes. “Is it because she’s your girlfriend?”
Ugh. Here we go.
I was about to protest, when Frankie’s hand squeezed my thigh. “No, she is not my girlfriend. She is more than that. We are best friends. Ela é meu amor. ”
She is my love.
I swallowed hard at his words. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t said before.
When Luiz had still been traveling around with us, he’d told his brother he loved him all the time.
It was just the kind of person he was. He played hard and loved hard.
Until now, I hadn’t ever considered he meant it in a non-platonic way.
But the way he was staring down the guys was making me second guess everything.
“Sounds convenient. I’ve been her best friend before too, and I don’t remember it involving sleeping with her,” Branch snarked back.
I threw Beau a pitiful look. He cleared his throat to cover his laugh.“So, how ‘bout them Cowboys? Gonna go all the way this year, don’t you think?”
I legit knew NOTHING about football. But for the next two and a half minutes, I pretended I was Jim Nantz and now an expert on all things pigskin.
Dylan, bless his damn sexy ass, took over and drew Branch into the conversation.
While he was distracted, I gave Frankie the stink-eye.
“Really? Of all the times to profess your undying love, you just had to do it right now? I think there's a better time or place for that.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, my face calling him out on his shit.
He just hugged me close and laughed. “With you, Querida, there is never a good time or place. But there is probably a worse time. I am sorry.”
His shit eating grin said he wasn’t even the least bit sorry, but I sighed.
Finally, the conversation shifted to work.
To shit I knew. Bulls, sponsors, the best riders of all time.
I settled into fries and beers and the comfort of friends, new and old.
Beau told stories about me from my childhood, like the time I got stuck with mucking duty for a month because I'd tried to ride a steer.
I was ten. At least I had a bicycle helmet on.
Or the time I'd refused to take off my new boots, even sleeping in them, because Branch said he'd steal them and throw them in the creek.
Branch laughed and I glared. I'd loved those boots.
"You were such an asshole. At least some things never change." Somehow I'd ingested about two too many whiskey shots. "Like the time you tried to teach me how to ride my bike by taking me to the top of the hill and letting me go."
Branch laughed, his dimples winking in the low bar lights. "Dad did up the old chutes. He said he's prepping it for my retirement so I can run a rodeo school. Can you imagine me teaching shit?" Branch laughed. "I'd put them on the rankest bull and say 'hold on tight'."
Those were the exact words he'd told me when he'd let go of my bike. I'd got the death wobbles halfway down the road and face planted over the handlebars. I'd had a cut up face for two weeks.
He pulled out his phone and showed me pictures of the new chutes, and homesickness like I hadn't felt in years hit me in the chest like a wave. I kept telling myself I liked the nomadic lifestyle of a bull rider. I didn't need a home base.
But I was kidding myself. It was because my home was back there. In those dusty fields. In the small, comfy ranch house that was like a well-worn pair of Wranglers.
I could imagine my Dad in that arena, training the bulls, working out the personality of each, whether they were aggressive enough to make it, or if they needed to get farmed out as practice bulls. Whether one was too ornery to even load, to be chuted, then they'd become a sire.
I felt like I was being crushed. By sadness. By guilt. Because, if I hadn't ridden that damn bull, we never would have been on the road when that trucker had a heart attack. We'd still be back at the rodeo, loading bulls into the trailer.
My breathing got a little choppy as I started to suck in breaths.
Fuck. Not here. Not now. I'd been plagued by panic attacks in the early years, because I'd refused to see a therapist for my survivor guilt.
That's what my aunt had called it. A misplaced guilt that I had lived and Daddy had died.
But it wasn't misplaced. I was the direct cause of that accident, and it was something that would weigh me down like a lodestone for the rest of my life.
The laughter in the room seemed to intensify and the darkness started to edge at my vision.
I threw Branch's phone on the table. "I gotta go to the bathroom," I murmured, pushing off my stool and bolting to the bathroom.
I ignored Frankie's voice calling me back, ignored the indignant yell of a woman I bumped into.
I single mindedly headed for the women's bathrooms, pushing through the door and praying there was an open stall. I swore when there was a line. Goddammit. Bars needed to put more stalls in women’s bathrooms. We couldn't whip our shit out and piss on a wall.