Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ACE
Song- Bones For The Crows, Nickelback.
Riding a mechanical bull in a packed bar on my twenty-seventh birthday wasn't really the plan.
The plan was steaks at the ranch, and a few cold ones on the porch. But Jett got involved. And when Jett gets involved, plans don't just change, they catch fire and roll downhill into oncoming traffic.
So here I am. Shirtless and now drenched in sweat, straddling a mechanical bull in Rosie's Roadhouse while two hundred drunk idiots scream my name like I'm performing in the damn ring.
The bull bucks left, hard, and my stomach lurches.
Ten beers and a fuck ton of whiskey will do that to a man.
Even a man who's made a career out of staying on things that don't want him there.
The buzzer sounds. Eight seconds. Done. I might throw up.
I swing my leg over and stumble off, boots hitting the floor, and the room tilts about fifteen degrees before it decides to stay still.
I run my hand over my sweaty abs and blink under the neon.
Someone's thrown a cowboy hat at the bull. Two girls in the corner are filming me on their phones, and the old rancher at the end of the bar is either clapping or having a cardiac event; it’s hard to tell from here when the room is mildly spinning.
Happy birthday to me.
I shove through the crowd toward the bar where my brothers are leaning against the counter, taking up the space like they own the place.
Which, technically, we do. Dad bought Rosie's Roadhouse twelve years ago when old Rosie drank herself into bankruptcy.
It's been a Sterling bar ever since, even if we let the locals pretend otherwise.
Colten hands me a beer before I've even stopped walking. I drink it in four swallows, slam the bottle on the bar, and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Every birthday since I turned twenty-one, I do the same thing. Get wasted and forget.
"Remind me never to let you loose on a real bull when you're drunk," Colten jokes.
I scoff. "Didn't fall off, though, did I?"
Hunter laughs. "No. But fuck me, you were all over the place."
I blow out a breath, bracing my hands on the bar. The room's still spinning, but in a fun way. The kind of spinning that means you're alive and surrounded by people who'd die for you, and the whiskey hasn't quite turned mean yet.
"Yeah. Yeah. You get on it then, big bro."
Hunter shakes his head. "Not a fuckin' chance."
I grin. Hunter's a lot of things, the oldest brother, head of the family since Dad passed, the kind of man that makes grown men cross the street, but a bull rider he is not. That's my department. Colten handles the horses. Hunter handles… everything else.
And our other brother? The one I let bleed out on the ground. His name was Beau. He was fuckin’ useless at everything, and I can’t say any of us miss him.
Colten nudges my side. "That blonde over there has been watching you for half an hour now. Why don't you go buy her a drink?"
I chew on my lip and follow his gaze across the bar.
And he's right. She's leaned up against a high-top near the pool tables, and her eyes are locked onto me like I'm her next fuckin' meal.
Tight jean shorts. Little black top. Cowgirl boots that have actually seen dirt, not the costume-shop kind they sell to tourists in Scottsdale. She's hot. Objectively, undeniably hot.
And all it does is blow up a picture of Harper in the front of my brain.
I pull out my phone from my back pocket. The screen's cracked from when I dropped it in the paddock last week. No notifications. No messages. Nothing.
I don't know why I still check. Force of habit, maybe.
Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.
I text her every birthday. Every Christmas.
Short messages. Never desperate—at least I hope not.
Just enough to say I'm still here. I'm still thinking about you.
The door's still open if you ever wanna walk through it.
She never replies.
The last time I heard from Harper was when Dad died. Just over two years ago. One message. Four words.
I'm so sorry, Ace.
And those four words held me together when everything else was falling apart. When Hunter went cold. When Colten went quiet. Those four words from a girl hundreds of miles away were the rope I grabbed onto, and I held on so tight my knuckles turned white.
I'm a fuckin' pussy when it comes to Harper Jones, and my heart can't help it. Never could. And that’s pretty much why she left me. For my own good. I was so obsessed and in love with her that I was going to throw away my career, my ranch, my family, to follow her to LA. Where we both knew I’d be miserable, but I was prepared to do that anyway.
She wouldn’t let me do that. So she dumped me. Brutally. And stupidly, my twenty-year-old brain took it as a hit to the ego, and I let her go. I didn’t fight. And I’ll regret that until the day I die.
But I’ve never given up hope. I keep tabs on my girl. She looks like she’s living it up in LA, definitely not thinking about me or our teenage love. I just live on the delusion that social media is a lie, and there is still a part of her that’s as obsessed with me as I am with her.
"Earth to Ace. Go talk to the girl."
I shove my phone back in my pocket. "Nah. I'm here to party with my brothers."
"And cousins!" Jett announces behind me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder with the subtlety of a freight train and nearly stumbling headfirst into the bar.
"And cousins," I laugh, steadying him.
"What are we talkin' about?" Jett asks, snatching a shot of whiskey from the bar like it was put there specifically for him. It wasn't. It belonged to the guy two stools down, who takes one look at Jett's huge six-foot-three frame and decides he didn't want it anyway.
"We're telling Ace he should go talk to that smokin' hot blonde that's been watching him," Colten tells him.
Jett's green eyes light up the way they do right before something goes sideways. He claps me on the shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth and says, "I have a plan that involves no talking. Do. Not. Move."
Then he's gone. Off on his mission, cutting through the crowd, and I know in every bone of my beat-up, bull-riding body that this is going to end in disaster.
We watch him lean across the bar. The bartender, Jimmy, who's worked here since before we owned the place, just sighs and hands over a full bottle of top-shelf whiskey.
Jett tips an imaginary hat, turns on his heel, and approaches the blonde.
I can't hear what he's saying over the music, but whatever it is, it works.
She's laughing. Tucking her hair behind her ear.
And then she's following him, walking right toward me with a smile that says she already knows exactly what she wants.
"Might be the birthday boy's lucky night," Colten says.
"Hopefully," Hunter chimes in.
"My sex life is none of your concern," I hiss.
"What sex life?" Colten counters.
I’m not like Colt, I don’t just fuck around with anyone.
"I'll punch you in the fuckin' jaw, Colten."
He chuckles, running a hand over his stubble. "Play nice, little bro. I don't wanna put you on your ass on your special day."
I shut my mouth as Jett reappears, the blonde in tow. Up close, she's even prettier. Big blue eyes. Plump, glossy lips. The kind of smile that would've knocked me sideways in another lifetime.
"Ace. Meet Abbie. Abbie, meet Ace Sterling. Bull ridin' champion."
I was a champion. Second in the league now.
"Evenin'," I say, tipping my hat.
She blushes. "Evenin', cowboy."
Colten and Hunter take a step back, but I can feel them watching. The way they've watched every woman who's gotten within arm's reach of me since Harper left, waiting to see if this is the one that finally makes me stop checking my phone.
It won't be.
"Abbie here would like to play a game," Jett says, grinning like the devil's personal hype man.
She giggles.
"Alright. What game?" I ask.
He cracks open the bottle, holds it up over his head, and looks me dead in the face.
"It's called chase the whiskey."
Of course it is.
I take a step toward her. She looks up at me through her lashes.
"Can I wear your hat?" she purrs.
My hand goes to the brim on instinct. Black Stetson.
Worn soft at the edges. Sweat-stained from a thousand rides.
Harper bought me this hat; she dragged me into that little shop on Main Street, made me try on six different ones, and when I put this one on, she got this look on her face like she was seeing the man I was going to become.
I've worn it every single day since.
"No, sweetheart. Not this one."
She tilts her head, but doesn't push it. Jett hands me the whiskey.
"It's his birthday, give him a real treat, Abbie," Jett cheers.
"Shut the fuck up," I hiss. He throws his hands up and backs away with my brothers, leaving me alone with her. Well, alone in a bar full of two hundred people, but close enough.
"You wanna play?" I ask.
She nods. "I do. I've been watching you, Ace. And I like what I see."
I bite my lip.
She's beautiful. And she's right here, right now, not hundreds of miles away pretending I don't exist. Maybe my brothers are right. Maybe almost six years is long enough to mourn something that ain't coming back. Maybe tonight I'll let myself have this. Just this.
"Let's play."
I tilt the bottle, let a slow pour of whiskey hit my chest. Just a little. Enough to run. The amber liquid traces the grooves of my abs, and Abbie leans in and runs her tongue up the trail.
The crowd roars.
And I'm tempted. Really fucking tempted. Because her mouth is warm and her hands are on my belt, and this is exactly the kind of reckless, birthday-night bullshit a twenty-seven-year-old bull rider should be doing. This is normal. This is what moving on looks like.
Except, all I can see behind my closed eyes is Harper.