Chapter 26
H ave I mentioned that riders are superstitious?
Just a few times now? Well, I wasn’t about to tell anyone else, but I was performing the best rides of my damn life for the next two rodeos.
I rode a bull for eight seconds each weekend, though I always crashed and burned on the second bull, but my scores were great.
I wasn’t about to take out the World Championship, but I sat comfortably on the leaderboard and I brought in a little bit of cash.
I mean, anecdotally, that could just be dumb luck. But Branch rode both bulls the first weekend and one bull the second.
By the time we made it to Casper, Dylan’s doctors gave him the all clear to ride and he was so damn eager to get on a bull, I was pretty sure he’d chase one down in a field and climb on its back if they’d said no.
But still, I was nervous as hell. I listened to the commentators talking about his decision to wear a helmet, and was relieved to hear they were all for it.
Some of the older figures in the WbrP were scathing of the practice, as if protecting your skull softened the sport.
I wanted to take a baseball bat to those old fuckers heads and see how they felt afterwards.
Beau and Frankie stood beside me, Branch up on the chutes, holding his rope, hyping him up. My grip on the rails was so tight, my knuckles were going white.
Frankie wrapped an arm around my waist. “Relax, Querida. He will be fine.”
Logically, I knew that. Riders got concussions all the time.
Hell, every time any of us hopped on a bull, we might die.
But this was his first ride with the helmet.
The first time really testing his new center of balance and I was freaking out.
What if he got hung up? What if it threw him off and he got in the well?
What if he just rode shit and decided he didn’t want the helmet anymore?
The gate flew open and I sent up a silent prayer. Dylan’s bull burst out, twisting, and I noticed Dylan’s body slipping a little to the left. Fuck. He was out of balance.
In a move that was pure strength and skill, Dylan shifted his body, righting his balance and maintaining his seat. I hollered from behind the chutes, counting the seconds in my head until the buzzer went off.
I didn’t need to hear when he hit eight seconds, because the crowd went nuts. He pulled his tail rope and slipped from the bull, tearing toward the rails where I was standing, his fist pumping. He ripped off his helmet and thrust it in the air. “Woo!”
I whistled and stomped, standing up on the railings and cheering. When he made it to the fence and climbed up beside me, his grin was so huge that I just knew it was mirroring my own. “I did it, Baby Girl!”
Then he kissed me, shocking the shit out of me. I hardly had time to process as he leapt off the fence rail and was skipping his way back through the exit gates.
Apparently the announcers were a little shocked too.
“Well now, seems like Dylan Montaigne is off the market ladies. For any of you living under a rock still, that lovely lady in the crowd is T.M. Moore, our first female bull rider. Seems she can conquer hearts as well as bulls, isn’t that right, John? ”
“Sure seems that way. Next up, we have North Carolina boy…” they trailed off, talking about the next ride and I looked helplessly at Beau and Frankie. They both shrugged, but there was a faint worried look in their eyes. Maybe I was imagining it, but I didn't think so. “He just kissed me.”
Frankie nodded. “I saw.”
“In public.”
They both nodded.
I swallowed hard. We couldn’t take it back, so we’d let the chips fall where they may. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to see the chips plummet to the ground.
The first sign something was wrong was the incessant pinging of Dylan’s phone at six a.m. on Monday morning. I rolled over from where I was snuggled between Dylan and Frankie, nudging Dylan awake.
He groaned, burying his face in my hair and nudging my ass with his morning wood. But he didn’t wake up. “Dylan.” I poked him in the chest. He snored on and I sighed. I tweaked his nipple and he yelped. “Hey!”
“Your phone is going nuts.”
He blindly reached over to the nightstand, fishing his phone off the top. He opened one eye and looked. Then both eyes shot open. Then he sat up so fast, he almost fell off the bed.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck,” he cursed, and Frankie sat up too, blinking wildly.
“What? What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?”
I shook my head, sitting up too. “What’s wrong?”
Dylan’s fingers moved swiftly over the screen, and then he turned the phone to me.
It was a news website, the heading reading, “ Save the Bull, ride the Cowboy? ”
There was a picture of me from the WbrP official shoot at the beginning of the year.
Underneath that photo was pictures of me kissing all four guys.
Dylan kissing me in the crowd on Saturday night.
Me kissing Frankie outside a grocery store in Knoxville.
Me pressed between both Branch and Beau outside our hotel room in Lexington.
I was stunned. I just blinked, reading through the article which was basically implying that I’d joined the WbrP to find men and sleep with them. That was some kind of bullshit right there, but a picture was worth a thousand words and they had three of them.
Dylan’s phone began to ring in my hand and it was his sponsor. Not even Mechanica Tuff. His original sponsor. I dropped his phone like it burned me.
He jumped out of bed, answering the phone and putting it to his ear. “Steve. Yeah I saw. No I…” he was silent for a long time and his face drained of color. “It’s not like that I…” he was silent as whoever was on the other end reamed him out. Oh god.
I climbed out of bed, rushing to the bathroom and heaving. What the hell had we been thinking? We lived life in the public eye. Strong hands gripped my shoulders. “It will be okay, Querida. We will figure this out.”
I shook my head. I don’t know how. We’d fucked up majorly. Frankie pulled me to my feet, and turned me so I was forced to look him in the eye. “You listen to me, Tessa May. We have done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong.”
He led me back out into the bedroom, and Branch and Beau were there.
Branch was on the phone, growling what sounded like threats down the end of the line.
Beau looked between us all, his brow creased and an anxious expression on his face.
When his eyes found me, he was across the room and had me pressed to his hard chest in an instant. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t my career going down the toilet. Maybe. The WbrP couldn’t fire me for this, without firing every rider who went and fucked the girls that swarmed the bars and parties every weekend. But I was a fool if I expected them not to hold me to a different standard.
Dylan hung up his phone, his hands shaking. “That was my manager. They are going to pull my sponsorship unless I sever any relationship with you. Machina Tuff is already distancing itself from me.”
The pain in my chest made me want to vomit again. “Dylan…”
Frankie’s jaw was tense. “What did you say?”
“I… I didn’t say anything.” He began pulling on his jeans and shirt, grabbing his hat as he headed toward the door. “I just gotta think. It’s not like it is for you guys. I can’t do this without a sponsor. I just... I have to think.”
The door slamming behind him made me whimper. Beau held me tighter. “It's going to be okay, Tessa May. He’ll be back. He loves you, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t love me more than riding.”
Beau scoffed. “If you think that, then you’re blind, Tessa May Everett. Branch?” The man in question turned around, his face a thundercloud of rage.
“What?”
“If you had to choose between Tessa May and riding bulls, which would you choose?”
“Tessa May.”
He didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t blink, he didn’t think about it. It was out of his mouth with absolute certainty. I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. “Seriously?”
If anything, that made Branch look even more pissed off.
“You’ve known me a long time, Tessa May Everett.
You know that once I’ve set my mind on something, there's no changing my mind. I loved you before I loved bull riding. I loved you before I even knew what love was. I’ll love you long after my body is too battered to get on a bull and when we are old and grey and your nipples touch your belly button. ”
I made a weird sound that was somewhere between a snort, a laugh and a sob. “I love you too.”
Beau nuzzled my hair. “See? If I asked Frankie, he’d say the same thing.”
Frankie nodded. “In a heartbeat.”
“Dylan has had the least amount of time to get where we are, but girl, once you are in someone's soul, you are damn hard to shake. Trust me, I should know.” I let out a strangled little laugh and leaned into his chest. “Dylan will come to that conclusion, or he won’t. You are allowed to be sad about it, but give him the benefit of the doubt for now. We’ll have faith for a little longer, and if he doesn’t decide the way we hope, then we three will be here to hold you together until the pain goes away. ”
I don’t know what I did to deserve these guys, but I thanked God every day that I had them.
“Now that’s settled, I think we should deal with the real issue at hand,” Branch interrupted.
I frowned. “How will the WbrP feel about this?”
He shook his head, his face getting a level of scary that a chill ran down my spine. “Fuck the WbrP. No, these photos were all taken in different locations with tele lenses, except the one of you and Dylan. Either you have a stalker or someone has you under surveillance.”
This time, the chill that ran down my spine had nothing to do with the men in this room, and everything to do with the world outside of Beau’s arms.