1. Cole
COLE
The room smells too clean, sterile. I hate it. I hate this paper-thin smock that doesn’t even cover my bare ass, the shrill beep of the machine I’m hooked up to, the way the lights hum overhead like I’m stuck in some kind of laboratory; a science experiment gone wrong.
My head pounds, dull and deep, like one of them bruises you can’t see, but I grit my teeth against it. I’m sitting upright, but it feels like I’m leaning—like the whole world’s been knocked a few degrees off its axis and nobody bothered to tell me.
Pain, I understand. Pain I can handle. What I can’t handle is the look on the doctor’s face.
He’s standing there with my scans pulled up—my brain, sliced into neat little segments, displayed like it’s just another case file.
Another problem for him to solve. Or not.
Probably not, judging by the grim look on his face.
“A concussion,” he says, calm and measured, like he’s talking about the fuckin’ weather. “Not your first, I’m guessing.”
“Nope,” I answer, popping the p obnoxiously. A defense mechanism, because I fuckin’ hate this shit.
He nods like that confirms something he already decided about me long before he even walked in the damn room.
I feel it then—that heat rising in my chest. That tight, restless anger that always shows up when someone starts talking like they know what’s best for me.
He gestures toward the scans. “With repeated head trauma, there’s a very real risk of long-term damage. We’re not just talking about recovery time getting longer. We’re talking about conditions like Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.”
The words hit, but I don’t flinch. I’ve heard it all before. Every rider has. It’s the thing that gets thrown around any time they want to try rattle you. CTE.
“Memory loss. Mood changes. Cognitive decline,” he continues. “It doesn’t always show up right away. Sometimes it takes years. But each concussion increases that risk, tenfold.”
I shake my head, a sharp motion that sends a spike of pain through my skull that I ignore. “So what?” I shrug. “It’s part of the gig.”
The doctor’s expression tightens just a little. He ain’t backing off like others might. “No, Cole. It’s a serious risk. And at a certain point, it stops being a risk and turns into a probability.”
I huff a laugh, tinged with bitterness. “You ever been on the back of a bull, doc?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t get it.” The words come out faster now, hotter, panicked.
Pissed. “You don’t spend your whole life working toward something—bleedin’ for it, breakin’ bones for it—just to walk away because of what might happen someday.
” I shrug again. “Hell, I might walk on out of this dang hospital and get cleaned up by an ambulance. Life’s a risk. Don’t mean it ain’t worth livin’.”
He studies me, and I hate that look. Not judgment. Not exactly. Concern. Maybe even a little pity. Like I’m already halfway gone.
“You need to seriously consider retiring,” he says.
And there it is.
The R word.
Just like that. Like it’s a simple decision. Like he’s telling me to switch cell phone plans or some shit, not give up the only thing that’s ever made me feel like I’m something.
“No,” I say immediately. The word comes out hard. Final. “I’m twenty-six years old, dammit. I ain’t doin’ that.”
“Cole—”
“I’m close.” I cut him off, sitting forward despite the way my head swims. “You don’t understand, doc—I’m right there. A couple more good runs, finish out the season strong—I’ll make the team. I know I will. That’s everything, dammit.”
My hands are shaking now, but not from fear.
From anger and frustration. Because all I see is dust and arena lights.
I hear the gate slam open. Feel the surge of nothing but eighteen hundred pounds of pure muscle move beneath me.
Eight seconds stretched into a lifetime.
That’s where I exist. That’s where I matter.
Out there, I’m not just Cole Dawson, the kid from the trailer park whose drunk daddy killed his mama. I’m somebody, goddammit.
But in here—in this room, with this nagging headache and those fuckin’ scans—I’m just a man being told to give up the only thing he’s ever been good at, the only thing that’s ever made any sense.
“You’re asking me to throw it all away. For what? So I can, what—spend the rest of my sorry ass life fixin’ fences on a ranch that ain’t even mine?” I scoff. “That’s not a life. That’s… nothin’.”
“It’s a life you’ll remember,” the doc says firmly. “A life where you’ll recognize the people who care most about you.”
“I ain’t got no one that gives a shit about me,” I mutter under my breath. My hands ball into fists and I heave a sigh, my jaw clenched tight. “No offense, doc, but you don’t know me.”
“I know what repeated head injuries do to people,” he replies, just as exasperated. “I’ve seen it. Fighters. Football players. Riders just like you. Men who thought they had one more go left in them—and paid for it for the rest of their lives.”
I look away, breathing deep. The room feels smaller now, like it’s closing in on me. Panic swirls low in my chest.
The doctor softens a touch, but it only pisses me off more. Sympathy and pity, laced with condescension. The fucking worst. “CTE isn’t something you feel right away. But it builds. And when it catches up to you… there’s no hiding from it.”
I glance at the scans again. At my brain. My future, apparently, sitting there illuminated in grayscale. Everything I am—my memories, my instincts, every ride, every fall—all of it sitting right there, almost as if it’s mocking me.
On the back of a bull, everything makes sense.
You hold on, or you don’t. You win, or you lose.
Black and white. Simple. But this? This is a man I’ve never even met before, a man who knows better than I do, telling me that the thing I’ve built my entire life around might destroy me from the inside out, and that’s a fear that buries itself deep and settles in your bones.
“If I quit,” I say, my voice lower now but still burning the back of my throat, “then what the hell was all of it for?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and that only makes me angrier. Because I know there ain’t no answer. Not one that replaces the roar of a crowd, the snap of a gate, the eight seconds that mean absolutely everything.
Finally, the doctor speaks. “Whatever it’s for, Cole, it shouldn’t have to cost you everything.”
I shake my head, jaw set, eyes stinging but refusing to give anything away.
Out there, I know exactly who I am. In here… he’s asking me to become the one thing I’ve been terrified of turning into. Not a has-been, or a washed-up, he’s asking me to become a never-was. A fuckin’ nobody. Just like they always said I would…
I close my eyes, and for a second, I can almost hear the crowd.
Feel the rope in my hand. Feel the rhythm of the bull bucking beneath me.
But then it fades. And when all that’s left is the quiet beeping of the machine next to me, I’m not sure which scares me more—losing my mind someday…
or giving up everything I’ve spent the last ten years of life working toward.
I try to avoid the Stop and Shop like my life depends on it.
The place is a goddamn cesspool of consumerism and rude motherfuckers with nothing better to do.
But I was out of gum, and after the day I’ve had full of tests and scans and white-washed waiting rooms, the drive back from Lubbock almost killed me.
My hands were starting to shake like an addict.
It’s gotta be irony or some shit; I ain’t ever smoked a cigarette a day in my life, yet somehow, I found myself addicted to nicotine gum. Go fuckin’ figure.
So, here I am, waiting in line at the register, a bulk pack of Nicorette tucked under my arm like I’m back on the varsity football team, headed for the endzone, when the woman in front of me sighs so loud it pulls me from my thoughts.
I crane my neck to see over the people in line ahead of me, brows tugging together at the sight of the lady being served at the checkout.
Golden hair tied back, a faded ball cap pulled low enough to shield her eyes, and a kid either side of her as she counts the money in her trembling hands.
Summer’s a small town; not quite small enough that I know everyone, but I know most people, especially the ladies. But I ain’t ever seen this one before. Sure as shit I’d remember an ass like that.
With a shake of her head, the blonde reluctantly hands a candy bar back to the cashier, followed by a bottle of ketchup, and a packet of chips.
And then, picking up a small fluffy dog, she glances at the little girl beside her and, with a frown, hands it back to the operator too, along with a couple of other items.
The woman in front of me, the one plenty old enough to know better, sighs again.
Only this time she adds a scoffed chuckle, and the blonde glances our way with an apologetic look on her pretty face that’s tinged with embarrassment.
And that’s when I see it. I normally mind my own business, but something strikes me hard in the pit of my chest when I catch sight of the bruises on her arms, her neck, the one on her face she’s trying so hard to hide beneath that ball cap.
When I watch her walk out, leaving half her shit behind, the two little ones trailing her with their heads hanging down, it’s like looking into my past, and I can’t shake the sting of guilt that pinches me in the back of my neck.
I don’t believe in fate or any of that bullshit, but there’s a reason I pulled into the Stop and Shop today, and I can’t help but think that maybe it’s got fuck all to do with nicotine gum.
“About damn time,” the woman in front of me huffs, shaking her head so vehemently it causes her two extra chins to wobble, and I’m forced to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something I know wouldn’t be considered very gentlemanly of me.
“Howdy, Cole.”
Confused by the suddenly sultry tone of the checkout operator’s greeting, I narrow my eyes, taking her in. Dark hair. Green eyes. Pretty. Unfortunately, that ain’t specific enough.
I allow my gaze to dip down to the name tag pinned to the tight white T-shirt she’s wearing that leaves little to the imagination on account of the air-conditioning blowing a gale through the store.
Cassidy. Nope. Still not ringing no bells.
But, in my defense, I’m a friendly guy; what can I say?
Ladies love me. Or my belt buckle at least.
Tipping my hat, I offer her a nod and my trademark grin. “How you doin’ darlin’?”
“You goin’ to The Saddlery tonight?” Cassidy practically purrs, twirling a long lock of dark hair around her finger while ringing up my box of gum slower than the day is long.
“Not tonight, darlin’,” is all I say as I tug my wallet free from the back pocket of my jeans. My eyes land on the items left behind by the blonde in the baseball cap, the lifeless eyes of the fluffy dog staring back at me from the counter.
“Hey, ring those up for me too, would ya?” I nod my chin at the items.
Cassidy glances from me to the discarded goods and back again, a curious quirk to one of her eyebrows. “These?”
I nod.
“Why?”
I shrug a shoulder, saying nothing because frankly it ain’t none of her damn business, and thankfully she does as I ask, bagging the groceries before giving me my total.
Tapping my card against the machine, I lift my chin. “You got a pen?”
Her green eyes light up, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Hell, I almost feel bad. When she eagerly hands me a pen, I write my cell phone number on the back of my receipt, Cassidy’s pretty face falling when I give her back the pen, but not my number.
Grabbing the plastic bag, I offer her a casual, “See ya round, Cass,” over my shoulder as I haul ass out of the store, hoping like hell I’m not too late.