Chapter 3
Sawyer
I’ve woken up in my fair share of unfamiliar rooms. I’d be lying if that hadn’t been where I expected to find myself the morning after the Willow Ridge Roundup Rodeo—a sign of a good night celebrating.
Except, I wasn’t expecting a machine beeping next to me, or the room to be so stark and grey as I open my heavy eyes. I was also hoping for a naked girl or two to be tangled in the sheets with me, as opposed to a clothed woman perched in a worn leather armchair across from my bed, reading a book.
Even before my blurry vision focuses properly, I know it’s her. The artificial lights shine down on her hair, a bright halo gleaming around the top of her head, like an angel, watching over me.
I’m either dead or dreaming if Honey Goldman’s at the end of my bed.
I’m not sure which I’d prefer right now.
Especially with the heavy weight tumbling about in my head each time I try to look around what is definitely a hospital room.
The numb ache in my right leg also has me wanting to drift back to sleep.
Nothing but star-speckled darkness fills the view from the measly windows, meaning I didn’t make it to the morning. Or I’ve been out for days.
Damn, must’ve been one hell of a celebration—except I can’t remember anything after riding the bull at the rodeo …
How, as I was waiting to climb into the chute, all I could think about was Honey, memories of her that I’d locked away years ago dusting themselves off and relentlessly plaguing my mind.
My strength already waning as I tried to bat them away.
That’s not the state you want your head in before you jump on the back of a bull.
Normally I’m riled up and ready to take fear by the reins.
This time, I just wanted to get it over and done with so I could get the hell out of there.
I try to shuffle up in bed to get my bearings, hoping the memories will flood in soon. That’s when I notice the thick white cast covering too much of my right leg.
Oh fuck.
My gulp is audible as I swallow back all the bile that’s suddenly filled my mouth.
Please let this be a fucking dream.
Honey’s gaze darts up to me from her book, and it makes me hope even more this isn’t reality, that the way her eyes make me freeze so easily is all in my imagination.
‘Hey,’ she says softly, closing her book. ‘How are you feeling?’
Confused. Angry. Scared. What’s new?
I only manage a small grunt when I first try to speak, then have to clear my throat before I can ask, ‘What are you doing here?’
It comes out less polite than I planned, but I’m too overwhelmed to apologise, my mind seesawing between the damn cast around my leg and my past sitting in a hospital room with me.
‘Oh.’ Honey drops her book into her bag beside her, lashes fluttering down.
She gives herself a little nod before talking, like she’s psyching herself up.
‘Um, I was giving Miles a break—he’s been sitting with you for hours.
He’s just getting something to drink. All your friends were here earlier too.
The doctor told them to come back in the morning, but I thought I’d just check in to see how you were doing. ’
I don’t get it. It must be the middle of the night. Why is she wasting her time here? With me?
She stands and brushes down her crumpled blouse—still in the same clothes as earlier—before resting her hands along the metal frame of the bed. ‘Are you in much pain? I can get the nurse if you—’
‘No.’ My head’s already muddled from whatever pain meds they’ve got me on, I don’t need anything stronger. Dealing with the pain in my leg and the throbbing that’s been building in my head is child’s play. I’ve felt worse.
Besides, I don’t think the nurses have anything that can stop the painful reminders that spring up with Honey being here, even though we haven’t seen each other for nine years. It doesn’t make sense. Especially when she’s got a family waiting at home for her.
I bet they’re the kind of family that have dinner altogether around the table, hold hands while saying grace, and fill the room with warm laughter. The kind of family neither of us had growing up. At least one of us finally got what we wanted. She probably deserved it more than me.
Speaking of—‘Where’s the kid?’
‘Noah? Oh, he’s with my mom.’ A breathy chuckle slips from her lips, quieter than the joy that sparks in her eyes from talking about him. Must be nice to have someone think about you like that. ‘He was surprisingly upset that he couldn’t come see you.’
If my head didn’t feel so heavy, so spaced-out, I might laugh too. The kid’s only spoken to me for barely a few minutes. Though, I can’t say I’m not intrigued by the lack of mention of his father …
‘He’s not with his dad?’ Apparently my drugged up self has lost the ability not to say my thoughts out loud. Though, I always was pretty good at saying things I shouldn’t. Honey can attest to that with the amount of times I got kicked out of class.
Honey scoffs, rolling her eyes without even an attempt to hide it. Not like she used to. ‘No, his dad is in New York right now and has been for a good four years.’
It makes me wonder how he got the privilege of being the father of her child when he clearly doesn’t stick around. What was so special about him? What made her stay?
When I wasn’t enough to keep her.
My eyes fall back to my cast and it’s a potent reminder that I’ve always been broken. That I’m reckless and useless. That just like everyone else does when I show them the cracks in my life, Honey ran. Because I wasn’t enough—not like whoever Noah’s dad clearly is.
My eye twitches, her words from my truck cab nine years ago echoing through my mind.
There’s a reason I keep riding, why I don’t stay grounded for too long, why I don’t settle. I can’t let them see my scars or the pain I carry.
Fuck knows how I’m going to be that Sawyer Nash with my leg in a goddamn cast. I can practically hear the drain gurgling as my bull-riding career slowly starts to pour down it. Pressure builds between my eyes at the thought. At the panic of what the fuck I’m going to do.
I can’t deal with this right now. Not with Honey in the room. My mind barely manages to focus on a normal day, but with everything that’s happened, seeing her, it’s in overdrive.
I need her to leave.
So, I give in to the frantic emotions crackling under my skin. I sneer through gritted teeth, ‘You finally found someone grown up enough for you, huh?’
Hurt registers across her face—bottom lip dropping, freckled nose crumpling slightly, but even as she fights her reaction, her eyes give the majority of the pain away, a shine taking residence in them as they flare.
To anyone else, it wasn’t mean, what I said.
If anything, it was rude to me. But I know she must remember that conversation, the words she said, the way she quickly built back up the distance between us we’d broken down over the year.
She must remember, because even after years of trying to scourge my memory of her, that’s the one moment that always lingers.
Honey steels herself, painting herself as the perfect picture of indifferent and reserved, before stating, ‘Your leg’s broken, by the way.’
She’s all too aware that I’m one step away from crumbling at the high possibility my bull-riding career could be over. I let her know me too deeply.
‘No shit. It’s in a cast,’ I deadpan back, ready for this nightmare to end so I can wake up. Maybe I should call the nurse in to dose me up with something strong enough to knock me out for a while after all.
It’s then that my best friend, Wolfman—Miles, as Honey knows him—walks through the door, coffee cup in one hand. His smile lights up beneath his thick brown beard when he sees me. ‘Hey! He’s alive!’
‘I should go.’ Honey scrambles to grab her purse, hooking the straps over her shoulder.
She briefly pauses at the end of the bed again, mouth opening as she stares into my eyes, readying to speak, but then she just twists to face Wolfman and says, ‘See you on Monday, Miles,’ before hurrying out the room.
My mind screams at me—at having to watch her leave again after finally getting another hit of her attention. At being the reason she left. Again.
‘Okay …’ Wolfman’s forehead creases as the door slams behind Honey. He deposits himself in the armchair next to my bed, taking a sip of his coffee before sighing. ‘What did you say to her?’
I furrow my brow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s Honey Goldman—you remember her, right?
’ Wolfman rests his long legs on my bed, one on top of the other, getting incredibly comfortable considering we’re in hospital.
And his feet are inches away from my freshly broken leg.
‘She’s like the nicest girl ever. You’d have to be damn mean to piss her off so much. ’
‘I didn’t say anything. I hardly know her.’ I shrug, unable to keep myself from glancing at the door, wondering if she’ll come back, even though I know it’s futile.
She never came back before. Why would she now?
Wolfman just narrows his eyes, then perks a brow at me. ‘Weird that she wanted to come and check on you, then, isn’t it?’
‘Her kid is a fan, apparently. I spoke to them before the show.’ I meet his stare, revealing nothing.
Because I’ve never told anyone what happened between me and Honey.
It’s never felt like my story to tell. Even before we came to our calamitous end, she was always worried about the truth behind our tutoring sessions slipping out.
I was a mark on her record she didn’t want.
I don’t need to share that humiliation with everyone.
Wolfman nods, then sips his coffee. I don’t like the silence that follows. I don’t like that my mind’s too heavy and jumbled to come up with something to say like usual. This isn’t me.
Though, Wolfman only breaks it to say, ‘You’re an idiot, you know that?’
I scoff, even though I can think of plenty reasons why he’s right. ‘What else have I done now?’
He barks out a laugh, head tipping back. ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe fractured your leg and continued to ride without letting it heal so that when you get thrown off a bull it just ends up breaking even more.’ His raised brows punctuate his point.
Got to love having a best friend who’ll give it to you straight. There’s a reason Wolfman’s been my number one since we were seven. That and the fact he’s too easily convinced to do stupid shit with me.
‘Well, fuck. You got me there.’
Both of us fall into a rumbling laughter then, the small moment of joy needed amongst the heaviness that’s threatening to pull me down as my once clear future crumbles away.
‘How bad is it?’ I ask, wincing.
‘I don’t know.’ Wolfman rocks his head from side to side, weighing up his answer. ‘Is it better or worse if the bone goes through the skin?’
‘Jesus Christ.’ I wipe a hand over my face. That explains how it must be the middle of the night. Guessing I was out from surgery.
‘You didn’t have to look at it.’ Wolfman snorts, grinning too manically, then admits, ‘Pretty sure Wyatt threw up in his mouth when he saw. Might’ve even shed a tear.’
That I wish I had been awake to see. Wyatt, one of my other best friends from high school, likes to act all stoic and tough, but ever since he met his fiancée, Rory—a British wellness influencer he runs a retreat and ranch with here in Willow Ridge—that exterior has slowly been melting.
‘Man, am I gonna give him shit for that when I see him,’ I chuckle out, the deep ache in my bones starting to dispel.
But that short moment of distraction is interrupted when a doctor marches through the door, clipboard in hand. She greets me with a terse smile, her brown bob brushing her shoulders. ‘Good to see you awake finally, Mr Nash.’
Wolfman quickly yanks his feet off the bed when she eyes them. Her expression hardens, transporting me back to high school, as if I’m getting told off by one of my teachers. ‘I’m Doctor Morgan.’
‘Pleasure to meet you, Doc,’ I respond, trying my best to lace my words with my usual charm, and throwing out my smirk, which normally softens even the harshest of shells.
Her mouth forms a thinner line, clearly unimpressed.
‘As I’m sure your friend has told you,’ she explains, ‘you’ve suffered an open fracture—meaning a breakage of your tibia that’s pierced the skin and required surgery. The fracture already present in the bone likely aided the severity of the breakage caused by the impact of the bull’s hooves.’
Bile rises in my throat again as she speaks, going into more detail about the nature of the complicated fracture, and I decide I’m not going to tease Wyatt for cowering over my injury anymore.
Wolfman leans forward in his seat, listening intently with a paler face.
His leg bobs anxiously, distracting me, my mind eager to focus on anything but the doctor who I should be listening to.
It’s when Doctor Morgan starts talking about physiotherapy and I hear the words four to six months that the high-pitched ringing starts in my ears again, drowning out her voice completely.
Half a year without riding, just waiting around for my goddamn leg to heal. That’s going to set me back so far. All those years of studying how to overcome fear thrown in the trash. I won’t be able to compete in the next World Championships. I’ll have to give up my belt. My title. My career.
Wolfman was right when he said I was an idiot.
I’ve gone and fucked up everything. Just like always.
Honey’s a perfect example of that.
What the hell am I going to do?
Bull riding is all I have.
Bull riding is all I am.