7. Clay
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clay
The chute hums under me, metal rattling through my bones while the bull shifts beneath me with the kind of impatient violence that makes lesser men reconsider their life choices.
I’ve never been lesser.
Maybe dumber. Maybe meaner to my own body than is strictly necessary. But never lesser.
I lean forward, settling my grip on the rope, gloved hand locked down tight while my free hand hovers loose above me.
Dust curls, thick with heat, manure, and sweat, and the whole world seems to tighten around this one moment the way it always does. The noise outside the chute is there if I reach for it.
The crowd, the announcer, and the restless movement of bodies packed into stands built to hold breath and disappointment in equal measure.
But I don’t reach for it.
I feel the bull breathe under me, every coil of muscle stacked and ready.
He jerks once, a rough warning, and the motion cracks through my spine hard enough to make my teeth come together.
He’s rank as hell and mean-eyed. The kind of animal men stand around talking about afterward, heads shaking, beer in hand, swearing they always knew he was trouble.
That just makes me want him more.
I roll my shoulders once, testing the pull in my arm, then sit deeper. There’s a rhythm to this if you know where to find it. It’s built out of force, instinct, and all the hard lessons your body learns after it’s hit enough dirt to stop fearing it.
The gate man glances over. I nod.
Then the latch snaps and the chute breaks open.
The bull launches out so hard the ground disappears with him. The first jump comes fast and ugly, all vertical fury, and my hips shift a half second behind it. Too slow. Just enough that I feel my weight drift in the wrong direction.
My stomach drops.
There it is.
That fine sharp edge where this goes from a ride to a wreck.
I drag myself back into line before the thought fully forms, thighs clamping down so hard they burn, shoulder straining as I pull against the rope. The bull hits the ground and twists almost immediately, spinning left in a move so quick it would throw someone greener clean off his back.
He nearly has me anyway.
The turn jerks me wide. My chest pitches out over nothing for one stretched second that feels long enough to see the whole thing ending wrong. Dirt. Horn. Boots in the air. Some medic kneeling over me while the crowd goes uneasy and disappointed.
Instead I wrench myself back, muscle and instinct, and find center again just as he bucks high enough to try and tear the seat of my jeans off with me still in them.
A rough grin drags at my mouth.
Yeah, that’s more like it.
The bull keeps coming, each move meaner than the last, twisting and kicking with the kind of spite that makes it feel personal. My hand burns around the rope. My lungs start working harder. Every part of me is locked into the motion, riding ahead where I can, chasing where I have to.
You don’t conquer a bull in this way. Anybody who says otherwise either hasn’t ridden enough or has been hit in the head one too many times. There’s no taming him and no winning in any lasting way. There’s only hanging on long enough to make the madness belong to you.
He drops his head and leaps again, back legs snapping up so high it pitches me forward hard. My free hand reaches out, searching for balance while my body fights to stay loose enough to move and tight enough to survive.
The crowd comes back to me in fragments. A roar. Somebody screaming my name. The announcer’s voice turned into a blur under all of it. I can hear it, but it sounds far off; it belongs to another life entirely. The bull spins again and this time I nearly lose my hand.
The rope slides hot and vicious through my glove, enough to send panic flashing bright and fast through my chest. My grip catches at the last second, fingers locking down tighter, pain slicing through my palm as punishment for getting sloppy.
He twists under me, surging sideways, and I feel the whole ride tilt toward disaster.
For one brutal moment I’m nowhere near centered. I’m riding the outside of it, body dragged too far, one bad buck away from being flung into open dirt.
I force my weight back over him with everything I’ve got. My core tightens so hard it shakes. My boots dig. My shoulder screams. The bull kicks again, and the correction lands all at once. I slide back into place by inches.
The relief is so sharp it’s almost another hit.
No room to enjoy it, though.
He’s still trying to kill me.
The pressure builds in my legs, deep and hot. My lungs burn. Sweat slides down the side of my face and into my collar. Every second stretches out wider than it should, packed full of movement and danger and the kind of ugly focus that leaves no space for anything else.
Not Buckhorn or my brothers. Not the look on Mom’s face when I leave town again. Not the noise in my chest I can never quite outrun once the rides are done.
Just this.
The buzzer sounds, and I let go instantly, pushing off hard and hitting the dirt shoulder first before rolling through it. The world goes brown and rough around the edges, then clears as I come up to one knee with my hat half off and my heart punching so hard against my ribs it might split them.
The bull wheels back, pissed and still hunting for me, but the barrel man slides in and draws him off just in time. He tears away in a storm of muscle and dust, and just like that the danger belongs to somebody else.
I push to my feet.
The crowd hits me all at once then, loud enough to rattle the sky.
A roar rolling over the arena in a wave of heat and sound that soaks straight into my skin.
That kind of noise never gets old. Doesn’t matter how many towns I ride in, how many bars I stumble through afterward, how many buckles and bruises I stack up trying to fill whatever hole this life keeps opening in me.
That noise still reaches me.
I grab my hat properly, slap the dirt from it against my thigh, and set it back on my head before tipping the brim toward the stands. It’s half habit, half gratitude, and maybe a little bit of showing off too.
No shame in that.
I earned it.
Back behind the chutes, men clap my shoulders and shove a beer into my hand before I’m fully clear of the gate.
“Thought he had you there,” one of the stock guys says.
“He almost did,” I answer, still dragging air into my lungs.
“Hell of a save.”
I take a long pull from the bottle, cold burn sliding down easy while adrenaline still pounds through me. My hand aches. My shoulder might as well be shattered. My thighs are going to hate me tomorrow.
Worth it.
The scoreboard updates across the arena.
Ninety.
A whistle breaks out somewhere behind me, followed by laughter and a slap to the back hard enough to jolt me forward.
“Ninety on Black Mercy,” Brandon says, appearing at my side with the kind of grin men get when they’re half impressed and half pissed it wasn’t them. “You smug bastard.”
I glance up at the number, then back at my beer. “Yeah, that’ll play.”
He barks out a laugh. “That’ll play? You looked like you were one blink away from eating fence.”
“Didn’t though.”
“Only because you’re too stubborn to die in public.”
He isn’t wrong.
I grin despite myself and tip the bottle back again. The ache in my body is settling now, turning from sharp to satisfying.
That’s the thing about riding. It isn’t just the win. It’s the closeness of it. The fact that for a few ugly beautiful seconds the whole world strips down to whether your body can answer what the moment asks of it.
By the time we hit the bar, the whole place is already humming.
It always is after a good rodeo night. Music loud enough to shake the glasses on the shelves. Girls in cutoffs and boots crowding the dance floor. Men reliving their rides bigger and better than they really happened. Beer sloshing over rims. Neon buzzing through cigarette smoke and heat.
The minute I step inside, a cheer goes up from somewhere near the back, and somebody yells, “McCoy!” as if they’ve known me my whole life.
Brandon steers us toward the bar. “First round’s on you.”
“Thought winning bought me some goodwill.”
“It bought you the privilege of being robbed by your closest friends.”
“Touching.”
I order anyway, sliding cash across the bar while the bartender gives me a smile that says she’s heard every version of this same conversation a hundred times before.
“Big night?” she asks.
“Decent,” I say.
Brandon snorts beside me. “He means he damn near flew off and still scored a ninety.”
“That sounds less decent,” she says, amused.
I lift one shoulder. “Depends how much you like staying on.”
The whiskey lands in front of me, and I knock half of it back before the room really settles in.
The music presses against my skin. Laughter blooms and shifts around me.
There’s the usual current running under it all too, easy and familiar, the promise of whatever kind of night I want.
Company. Trouble. Someone warm in my bed for a few hours before morning turns us back into strangers.
Usually I know exactly what I want from post-rodeo nights.
Tonight it all feels just a little off.
A redhead drifts over before I’ve finished my second drink, all glossy lips and confidence, and leans one elbow onto the bar close enough for her perfume to cut through the whiskey.
“You sure as shit tamed Black Mercy today,” she says.
“Thanks.”
“I saw the whole thing.” Her eyes move over me slowly. “Didn’t think you were gonna save it there for a second.”
I grin because that part is easy. “Me either.”
She laughs and leans in a little more. “I like a man who knows how to hold on.”
There it is. The opening. The easy slide into the kind of flirting I could do in my sleep.
Normally I’d pick it up without thinking. Toss something back. Let her laugh. Let the night keep moving in the direction it already wants to go.
Instead I hear myself say, “Sometimes letting go at the right second’s more important.”