Wade - 25 Years Old
Winning a buckle at the NFR in Las Vegas was a cowboy’s equivalent of earning a Super Bowl ring. There was no greater accomplishment than being named one of the best in the nation.
With the win came perks: a huge gold buckle you could wear with pride, sponsorship and brand deal opportunities, a huge winnings check, and buckle bunnies galore.
What was better than any other event I’d competed in before? I won the fucking buckle, and the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about was there to see it.
No matter that she wasn’t my girlfriend, I wouldn’t be taking her home at the end of the night, and she’d forever friend-zoned me. She was there, cheering me on in lieu of my family, who hadn’t been able to make it, and that’s all that mattered.
We were both currently drunk off our asses at some nightclub on the strip, and Ray was dancing to obnoxiously loud techno music like we weren’t from the middle of nowhere, Georgia.
We definitely weren’t in our element—me in my cowboy hat, starched Wranglers, pearl snap button-down, and boots, and her in a frilly sundress, her hair in a high ponytail, and white rhinestone boots of her own.
The majority of women here were dressed in skimpy, form-fitting dresses that left nothing to the imagination; then there was Ray, shining bright in the middle of the packed dance floor like the shiny beacon of sunlight she was.
She danced with reckless abandon, moving her hips in a circle to the beat. She was mesmerizing to watch, but I averted my eyes because I wasn’t supposed to be staring at my best friend like she was the most beautiful girl in the place, even if she was.
Catching her attention, I waved her over from where I stood on the edge of the dance floor. The bass thumped as she made her way to me, every man’s eyes watching the subtle sashay of her hips and heart-shaped ass.
I cut my eyes in their direction in warning, but this wasn’t Jack’s back at home, and I wasn’t a threat to them.
“Why don’t we find something a little more our speed?” I shouted over the raging music, hiking my thumb over my shoulder toward the exit. She leaned in closer to hear what I was saying, but I could barely hear myself think, much less have a conversation.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her off the dance floor to the edge of the bar, where it was marginally quieter. I signaled the bartender for two glasses of water, and he filled two small plastic cups with the soda gun before shoving them in our direction.
Clearly, their priority was to keep people drunk, not hydrated.
I leaned forward, my lips nearly pressed to the shell of Ray’s ear as I repeated the question. “Why don’t we find something a little more our speed?”
She nodded gently, taking my hand and pulling me toward the exit. Once we were outside, the air flooded our lungs with much-needed coolness. We both relished the breath of fresh air as we got our bearings back from the sensory overload we left behind.
“Wow, that place was insane!” Ray shouted, not having quite regained her hearing yet. I chuckled, taking her hand and walking away from the club and down the strip.
I’d seen a honky-tonk bar down that way earlier, and I thought we’d enjoy that more than the earthquake-inducing bass we’d just endured.
Both of us walked in companionable silence, letting our ears readjust to normal levels of hearing. As we stumbled down the sidewalk, both of us drunk enough to be feeling good, but neither drunk enough to make shitty decisions, we came to the heavy wooden doors of the cowboy bar.
The place was packed with cowboys and cowgirls, everyone wearing some form of hat and boots. It was definitely more our speed.
The bouncer at the door checked our IDs, scrutinizing Ray’s a little longer than mine as if she were freshly twenty-one. After verifying we were of age, he ushered us inside.
The bar couldn’t have been more stereotypical country, with its steer skulls, cowhide pool tables, lasso-wrapped bar stools, and Hank Williams on the old-school jukebox in the back corner. We made our way through the crowd, heading toward the bar to snag drinks.
I signaled the bartender, ordering both of us a whiskey shot and a beer. After all, whiskey before beer, you’re in the clear. The volume was less oppressive as we each grabbed our shot glasses, ready to cheers.
“Cheers to the heat! Not the kind that brings down shacks and shanties, but to the kind that brings down panties,” I yelled, earning a chorus of cheers and clinking glasses as all those within earshot toasted along with us.
I tapped my small shot glass to Ray’s as she laughed loudly. I smiled at the warmth that bloomed in my chest at the sound.
Fuck, I needed to get laid.
The sunlight was relentless as it blasted through the curtains I’d apparently forgotten to close the night before. Rolling over with a groan, my hand met the warm softness of another body, and I froze.
I’d had my share of one-night stands over the years. I’d taken many buckle bunnies back to my hotel rooms.
Never in my entire life had I let one sleep over. That crossed a line into something more than just sex, and it was a hard line in the sand for me.
Refusing to open my eyes, I lay perfectly still, hoping I was imagining the feeling of a woman’s body next to mine. I hoped and prayed I hadn’t made a huge mistake, and that it was Ray sleeping next to me.
That would have been a bigger can of worms to open that I didn’t feel like dealing with, especially with how shitty I felt due to the obnoxious amount of whiskey I drank.
“Good morning, stud,” the woman purred, rolling over and scratching her long nails along my chest. She nuzzled up close to me, and I could smell the sickly-sweet scent of too much perfume mixed with an insane amount of hairspray.
“Uh, mornin’,” I mumbled back.
“What a wild night. You’re quite the stallion,” she teased as she ran one of her long nails over my nipple, causing a pained hiss to escape my lips.
“Yeah, wild night, um, excuse me, I’ve gotta take a piss.” I fumbled out of the bed, snagging my phone from where I’d thrown it haphazardly on the nightstand, sending up a silent prayer that there was enough charge to send out an SOS text.
Slamming the door to the bathroom behind me, I unlocked my phone and pulled up the contact for the one person I could trust to get me out of a shitty situation, no questions asked.
The dial tone rang once, twice. “Fuck, Wade. How much did we drink last night? I feel like I got hit by a truck. Izzy didn’t even make it back to the room. She sent me a text letting me know she’d met someone at the rodeo and would meet up with us later before the events.”
A sigh of relief flowed past my lips at hearing Ray’s voice on the other end of the line. “Sunshine, I need your help.”
“Are you okay?” I could hear the frantic edge to her voice and the rustling of sheets on the other end.
I willed my mind to avoid conjuring images of Ray, half naked in her bed, hair mussed and hungover. Unfortunately, Las Vegas luck clearly wasn’t on my side because my dick was rock hard beneath my briefs.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said quickly. “I fucked up.”
“Wade, you’re scaring me,” she said softly.
“Apparently, I took a girl home last night. I normally don’t let women stay the night, but I must have been seriously fucked up.
I don’t remember much after dancing at the cowboy bar on the strip and then walking you back to your room.
I must have gone back out and ended up bringing someone back with me.
” I groaned as the fluorescent lights of the bathroom assaulted my senses when I flicked the switch to get a look at myself.
There were claw marks down my chest and back, clearly from the woman’s talons that she called nails. I had a giant purple hickey on the right side of my neck, and lipstick smeared all over my face. I looked like a rodeo clown who had gotten in a fight with a bobcat.
“And how do you want me to help?” she asked pointedly, clearly irritated at my lack of responsibility.
“I don’t know! Come up with something! Please,” I begged.
Her sigh of frustration was followed by the clanging of a belt buckle as I assumed she was putting her clothes on. I willed my dick to stand down as she rustled around on the other end of the line.
“Give me five minutes, and somehow slide one of the room keys under the door.”
After a hundred extrications of Daisy June’s, as I’d learned her name was, hand from my dick and five excruciating minutes, the electronic lock on the door whirred and unlatched with a click.
I watched the woman’s eyebrows furrow in confusion as she tried to put the pieces together of who might be entering my room, especially someone who so clearly had a key.
“Babe, I know I’m not supposed to see you the day before the wedding, but—What the FUCK!”
Ray’s screech as she entered the room had Daisy June scrambling off the bed, grabbing for any item of clothing she could find scattered across the floor. She was thankfully in her underwear and a T-shirt of mine that barely covered her tits and ass as she gathered her belongings.
“You shitbag!” she screamed at me, tossing one of the pillows that had fallen off the bed in my direction. “You’re married?!”
“Technically engaged?” I asked, looking in Ray’s direction for confirmation. She gave me a sly nod as she struggled to hold in her laughter, watching the woman fumble around on the floor.
“Fuck you!” Daisy June added and turned toward Ray in womanly solidarity. “Good luck, honey. He wasn’t that great of a fuck anyway,” she spat as she stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her.
As soon as the door shut, both of us burst into hysterical laughter. I groaned, gripping my head and falling back on the pillows as the throbbing pain bloomed behind my eyes.
Ray walked over and flopped herself down on the bed beside me, a similar wince escaping her lips from the pounding in her own skull.
“So, what time’s the wedding?” I joked, only to be met with the plush thud of a pillow as it whacked me directly in the face.