17. Walker
Walker
M y body aches from the fall, but it pales in comparison to the damage being done to my head, my heart, and my emotions right now. I’d happily throw myself off that bronc ten more times just to make this pain go away.
Phoenix takes all my strength as he walks away. Rightfully so, since he’s who I derived it from anyway.
My knees give out and I slide down the wall of the arena until my ass lands in the dirt.
I don’t know how long I stay there, but eventually, I remember the message waiting for me on my phone.
Deciding I might as well add more shit to the already heaping pile, I stand and make my way back to the camper.
The small space I once craved after dealing with the PR team, media, fans, and the noise of the arena, now feels like a prison cell.
And I’m becoming quite disenchanted with my cell mate.
Thankfully, the shower’s running when I come in, telling me I have a few minutes of peace.
I need to shower and change myself, but first things first. I desperately want a beer, but the doc insisted I take a couple oxycodone before he released me, and I’m pretty sure those two don’t mix.
Bypassing the fridge, I head to the small bedroom and close the door, grabbing my phone to finally face the music.
I had assumed my world was already as upside down as it could get…but what greets me proves me so fucking wrong.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
The emotions that surge through me are so powerful, I can’t stay seated any longer.
I cycle through them quickly, pissed that she’s kept this from me, scared because what the fuck, relieved because one of my biggest regrets doesn’t have to be regretted anymore, and some other emotion that feels positive, but I’m hesitant to label it as joy or happiness over this news.
One thing is for sure. It’s too much. It’s all too much. Just like it was back then.
“Walker? Are you back?” Jonas’s voice rings through the camper.
“Yeah,” I grumble, annoyed by him and his terrible timing now more than ever.
“We need to talk,” he says in a somber tone.
No shit. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
It’s going to take a while to process Alexis’s message, but she’ll know I read it, so I try to choose my words carefully as I offer a response.
I scrub my left hand down my face. What a fucking day.
Opening the door of the bedroom, I steel myself for whatever Jonas is about to throw at me.
He probably wants to leave at first light tomorrow morning, and I’m sure he has a bunch more shit to say about Phoenix—which I absolutely cannot handle right now.
“You in pain?” he asks, looking up as I come into the main portion of the camper .
More than you know, I answer in my head even as I shake it to tell him no. “I’m fine.”
“Alright, well, look, I don’t know how to say this, but I talked to your dad before you came back and I’m going to uh…”
He trails off and is silent for so long I finally say, “Spit it out, Jonas.”
“I’m joining Jackson White’s team for the remainder of the season.”
My eyes go wide. “I appreciate your loyalty,” I say sarcastically. I’m mad, but honestly, with everything else I’m dealing with, this doesn’t even register as more than a two on the shit-in-my-life-that’s-completely-fucked scale.
“Look, Walker, you’re down for the season and I?—”
“It’s fine, Jonas, really.”
Trying to make me feel good about his choice he continues, but it only makes me angrier.
“It could be good. I’ll work with him, learn his style, and bring that knowledge back to you so we can incorporate what he does well.”
“You seem to be forgetting I’m ranked number one,” I bite out. “What’s stopping you from giving my style and my secrets to him?”
“I wouldn’t hurt you or jeopardize your career like that,” he argues, but honestly, it’s weak and makes me wonder if he would do that to Jackson. And then the fucker adds, “Unlike Phoenix.”
“God, Jonas, get your panties out of a wad. What the fuck do you have against Phoenix? You don’t even know him,” I point out.
“I don’t like the way he looks at you,” Jonas answers with a shrug.
“And how exactly does he look at me?”
“I don’t know,” he says automatically, even though clearly, he does know.
Shifting uncomfortably, he finds me waiting, and blows out a breath.
“Okay, fine. He looks at you like he’s trying to stop himself from tearing into you with his teeth.
Sometimes he looks like a predator and sometimes he just looks broken, but either way, it’s inappropriate, especially given your… attraction to him.”
His words rock me. Phoenix looks at me like that? When I see him looking at me, all I see are fury and hurt in his eyes. My mind begins to race with what this could mean for us.
“Don’t go there, Walker,” Jonas warns.
“You now work for the enemy, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t take your advice anymore.”
“So what? You’re just going to go profess your love for this guy? Phoenix is straight , Walker. Just like you should be. Being anything else is dangerous in our world.”
I laugh. “I just rolled off the back of a thousand-pound horse while it continued to buck above me. My entire life is dangerous.” And you don’t know a goddamn thing about Phoenix.
Jonas shakes his head. “C’mon, man. You’re pissed the season’s over, but that doesn’t mean you have to do dumb shit.”
“What I do or don’t do is no longer your concern. When you signed on with Jackson without talking to me first, you made your fucking choice.”
“Yeah, well at least I won’t have to worry about walking in the camper to find Jackson taking it in the ass!” Jonas yells, not bothering to pull any punches.
The silence that fills the space at the end of his outburst is deafening.
“So that’s what this is about? You’re homophobic? Christ, Jonas. It’s the twenty-first century. Why does it matter who I like to fuck? It’s not like you ever had to worry about me being attracted to you. Douchebags aren’t my type,” I fire, hoping to wound him.
He holds his hands up. “I just want to coach rodeo, man. I don’t need this level of drama.
Just so you know, your dad gave me the green light to use the truck and camper for the next two months.
He said he’ll buy you a plane ticket back to Texas.
Just let me know when I need to drop you off at the airport. ”
Fuck. That.
“I don’t need you to do a goddamn thing for me.”
As my coach, Jonas should be in my corner, always. Trying to protect me from Phoenix was one thing, but jumping ship the second I get injured and gay-shaming me when I finally say it out loud for the first time?
Nah, we’re done .
“You might as well stay with Jackson after this season because I can’t work with someone I don’t trust,” I tell him.
“Walker…”
“We’re done, Jonas. Just do me one favor and hate me silently. I’m already a target because I’m at the top. I don’t need you telling my business to everyone and making it worse.”
I spin on my heel, walking back into the tiny-ass bedroom and start ripping shit off hangers, throwing it in my bag.
It won’t all fit of course, but it doesn’t have to.
I don’t need my chaps, my show hat, the vests, or any of that other shit.
Hell, joggers and athletic shorts will be easier to manage with one hand anyway.
I pack my t-shirts, everything with an elastic waist, clean underwear, socks, my toiletries, my World Championship belt buckle, and my phone charger. Everything I need in one duffel bag.
It’s not the best plan, but I’ll grab an Uber to a hotel, get buzzed in the bar while I figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about Alexis before getting absolutely smashed thinking about yesterday’s kiss with Phoenix and how I’ve somehow managed to fuck up my second meeting with him just as fabulously as the first.
Again, not the finest of plans, but I smile at the welcome idea of the blackout in my future. At least I won’t have to take any narcotics tonight.
Hoisting my duffel bag over my left shoulder, I approach the front door of the camper prepared to leave in silence. I’ve said all I needed to say, but apparently Jonas hasn’t.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he says.
Huh, if anything, I’d stupidly expected get-well-soon, or good-luck-next-season, or even thanks-for-the-last-five-years. Instead, I get another warning.
“I could say the same about you,” I respond, hating the way this is ending. Hating why this is ending. Jonas has been a good coach—regardless of what Phoenix thinks. Hell, I am number one. And until recently, he was about the only person I considered a friend anymore.
But now we’re not even that.
The door to the camper slams shut behind me as I make my way out of the rider’s lot.
Phoenix may have said it about himself, but he was right…I never should have come here.