Rodeo
LILA
The grandstands are packed, aluminum bleachers still hot from the full day of now-extinguished sun. The crowd is loud because most people have been drinking since noon and the best event of the night is still coming.
The bull riding.
I’ve got Slade’s thigh pressed against mine and a cardboard boat of fries in my lap and plastic cup filled to the brim with Yellowstone Pale Ale. What I also have is a clear sightline to the bucking chutes, and that’s what’s making me nervous.
I never gave much thought to bull riding, understood its dangers only in the abstract, but now that I’m watching it happen in front of me, I’m getting it.
I watch the current rider get launched sideways and hit the dirt and scramble for the fence while the bull wheels around looking for something to destroy. Preferably, apparently, the cowboy that was just on his back.
My mind goes to Tanner at Thanksgiving, stealing pecans from my pie bowl and making Jonah laugh and doing his Zorro bow for Cassidy. Easy and loose and grinning, the most relaxed man in any room he’s ever walked into.
That man is about to sit on top of an enormous, horned animal that wants him dead, and everyone around me is acting like it’s just another Tuesday.
I ask Slade, “He has to hang on for how many seconds, you said?”
“Eight,” he answers.
He’s got his arm slung around me. With his fingertips he plays with the ends of my pigtails braided beneath my cowboy hat, the honeymoon one emblazoned with my new initials: LR.
Lila Rhodes.
Should I change it back to Lila Sherwood after we divorce?
I don’t want to. I don’t want any of it: a name change, or a divorce.
But I also don’t want to be in a marriage where I never see my husband. Where he’s never around and I’m alone all the time. I’ve been lonely inside the bonds of a relationship too many times in my life to choose that for myself.
Given my emotionally unavailable family, my former therapist would probably tell me it makes perfect sense I’d fall in love with a man who will never let himself be vulnerable.
Since Slade and I had our late night talk in bed, things have pretty much gone back to status quo for us, even as heartache simmers beneath the surface.
We’re acting like a normal newlywed couple. We have dinner together every night. Chat about our days. I ask Slade for his opinions as I slowly decorate the house.
Typical of newlywed life, I’d guess. As is the sex we’re having, and plenty of it.
Sometimes at the end of the day, when we’re watching TV, he starts kissing me and touching me and before I know it he’s kneeling in front of me with my legs spread and his mouth on my pussy.
Sometimes he takes me slow and sleep-hazy before he leaves to work on the ranch, sliding inside me from behind as he spoons me and I float back to sleep for a few more hours on a post-orgasmic cloud.
Sometimes he drops by the office and brings me lunch and we end up having a hot, intense midday quickie on my desk or in his truck parked out back.
It’s heaven. And it’s hell. Because it’s just a bubble we’re living in, and it’s only a matter of time before that bubble pops.
But that’s heartbreak for another day. For now, my husband is holding me like he never wants to let go, and I’ll savor it while it lasts.
In the stands next to us Walker has Jonah on his knee, both of them leaning forward with identical expressions of focus.
Jonah has his cowboy hat and chaps on, looking like a mini bull rider himself, and it might just be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, matched only by Sadie holding one twin on each hip, matching bandana hairbands in their hair.
Next to me on the other side, Cassidy is sitting very straight, her eyes on the chutes. On Tanner.
Beside her, her fiancé Derek is on his phone.
He’s been on his phone since we got here.
He was sure to let all of us know he’s involved in an extremely important case and it needs his full attention.
He’s a tall and good-looking neurosurgeon—I can see what the appeal might have been for Cassidy—but he’s also cold and insufferably arrogant and has ignored her since we got here.
I don’t like him. Judging by the tight way Cassidy keeps glancing at him, I’m honestly not sure she does either.
The announcer’s voice booms through the arena and the crowd surges to its feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, next up in the chute, a three-time regional champion, riding out of Marble Falls, Montana. Tanner Rhodes!”
Jonah loses his mind, cheering loud and bouncing up and down with excitement.
I grab Slade’s arm.
Because there he is: Tanner, settling onto the back of a jet-black bull, rope wound around his hand. Even from here I can see him roll his shoulders. Breathe out. Go still and utterly focused in a way I’ve never seen from my brother-in-law.
I’ve seen the other Rhodes boys do it. Walker gets that look on stage. Rafe does when he’s one horseback. I can only assume Josie’s got the same thing as a nurse, that when the pressure ratchets up, that’s when she’s at her best.
And of course I’ve seen my husband do it: go into the zone. Except Slade is on the ice when it happens... or having sex with me.
I lean into Slade and watch the arena and absorb the electricity of a crowd that’s entirely, collectively invested in what’s about to happen.
Around us are cowboy hats as far as the eye can see, kids on their fathers’ shoulders, couples sharing drinks.
It’s loud and rowdy and unlike anything I grew up with.
I love all of it. The sawdust smell and the noise and the livestock and the fried food.
The energy. The heritage. People have been following these traditions for hundreds of years and they’ll be following them for hundreds more.
Once upon a time they came by covered wagons to the rodeos.
We drove here in a state of the art pickup truck.
Maybe our great-great grandkids will arrive by hovercraft.
What remains the same is the horses threading through barrels at a breakneck speed. The lassoes roped around steers by cowboys using their great-grandaddy’s same techniques. The raging bulls and the men who climb atop them just because they can.
The dirt gets older every year, but there’s always fresh blood.
The gate swings open and everything happens at once.
The bull comes out spinning left, hard and fast, and Tanner’s already moving with him, hips loose, free hand high, his whole body absorbing the animal’s rage in a way that looks almost lazy from up here and most definitely isn’t.
The bull changes direction, bucking furiously, and still Tanner hangs on.
“He’s got him,” Slade says, low, close to my ear. “Watch his hips.”
I don’t know what I’m watching for but I watch anyway. Tanner is locked in, his riding hand buried in the rope, his body moving in this controlled violent rhythm that looks exactly like what it is: someone who has done this a thousand times, who is completely and utterly in his element.
The buzzer sounds.
Tanner releases his hand and the bull launches him, one last furious lunge that sends him clear away. He tucks, turns, and lands on both feet with catlike grace.
The crowd absolutely loses its mind.
The bullfighters are already moving, cutting between him and the bull with practiced expertise, drawing the animal toward the out gate while Tanner rolls his shoulders and shakes out his riding hand.
He pulls his helmet off.
The roar gets louder.
He’s grinning, that big, easy, born-for-this Tanner Rhodes grin. He points at the bullfighters as he walks past them, fist bumps exchanged without breaking stride.
The scoreboard lights up. Ninety-one.
The section three rows down erupts. It’s a cluster of women who have clearly come here specifically for Tanner, signs and all. He gives them a friendly wave, and his fan club loses its mind.
“Good ride,” Slade says.
I turn to look at him. “Good? That was extraordinary.”
Walker snorts. “Don’t tell Tanner that. His ego’s already a problem.”
“His ego?” Slade arches an eyebrow. “Pot, meet kettle.”
“This whole thing is barbaric,” Derek says, not looking up from his phone. “Can’t imagine why anyone would pay to watch this.”
Cassidy’s whole body freezes. The silence that falls over our little group is absolute.
All the Rhodes boys turn to Derek with looks that could make a man shrivel into a husk. Except Derek still hasn’t bothered to look up from his phone, so he has no idea what he’s wading into.
Sadie is the one to break the silence, clearly reading the sub-zero temperature and trying to smooth things over.
“It’s a legitimate sport,” she says easily. “With a lot of skill involved.”
“Sure.” Derek finally looks up, scanning the arena with obvious contempt. “If you consider voluntarily sustaining traumatic brain injuries a skill.” He looks at Cassidy. “Remind me why we drove two hours for this?”
Cassidy says nothing.
“Well it’s my first time at a rodeo,” I offer, “and I’m having a blast. Life is a lot more fun when you keep an open mind.”
“Contrary to the drunk idiots you see around you, life is about more than fun.” Derek’s cold blue eyes settle on me. “Where are you from?”
“Newport. Rhode Island.”
It’s one of those places where if you say it, the people who know, know.
Derek knows.
His look turns assessing. “Do you know the Greenleafs?”
I give him a tight smile. Another if you know, you know moment. “They’re our neighbors.”
The look changes yet again. Approving, now, even as the corners of his mouth turn down with distaste when his gaze lingers on my pink hair. “They’re my father’s cousins. We’re the Phipps.”
I make the connection. Phipps. As in Grant Phipps, the governor of New Hampshire.
And this is his son, I presume. The young neurosurgeon, the scion of the family, likely destined for political office someday himself.
Suddenly we both know what the other is—old money—and he’s clocked me as one of his people. Except I’m not. I might have been born into that world, but I’ve chosen a different path for myself.
One where I don’t have to give a damn who’s his daddy.
All I see is an arrogant jerk who couldn’t last two days solo in the Montana wilderness, brain surgeon or not.
“I’d think,” I say, keeping my voice polite, “that you’d want to make an effort to appreciate something Cassidy loves. Since you’re marrying her.”
Derek looks at me with incredulity. “Cassidy knows I support her. I don’t have to pretend to enjoy”— he gestures at the arena —“all of this to do that.”
Cassidy is looking at her hands.
Slade’s fingers tighten where they rest on my shoulder.
“Seems to me,” Slade says, deceptively casual, “a man ought to respect his wife. Her interests, her world, the things that light her up. He doesn’t sit next to her and make her feel ridiculous for loving them.”
He’s not leaning in. Not squaring up. His arm is around me and he’s just looking at Derek the way he looks at most things: icy, unimpressed, giving nothing away. Not an outright challenge.
But my husband’s got five inches of height and fifty pounds of muscle on Derek and Derek appears to realize he’s not in the operating room anymore. He’s not the king of his sterile castle around these parts.
I can see the recalibration happening. His eyes tick up to Slade, whose face is shadowed under the brim of his Stetson, those green eyes catching the arena light and holding it. Whatever Derek sees there makes him hunch a little.
Then he looks back at his phone and says nothing.
Sadie leans in to say something to Cassidy, who just shakes her head and looks back down at the arena. She’s twisting her engagement ring around and around her finger like it’s burning her skin.
Tanner makes his way through the crowd below us, accepting backslaps and congratulations, that easy grin still on his face. He looks up at our section and finds us, waving and grinning. Jonah goes absolutely wild.
“That’s my uncle!” he informs the strangers around him. “He just rode that bull! Did you see? Did you see him?”
“He’s pretty damn impressive,” Cassidy murmurs. The comment seems to slip out of her.
Derek looks at her. Then down at Tanner.
Something shifts in his expression, something ugly and jealous.
“Impressive,” he repeat, boredly, with clinical detachment. “You know what’s impressive? The neurosurgeons who are going to be scooping what’s left of his brain out of his shattered skull in ten years.”
For a moment, there’s complete silence amidst our group.
Then Cassidy sucks in a sharp breath.
“You are such an asshole,” she whispers.
Derek rolls his eyes and stands up. “I have to take a consult from the car. Are you coming?”
She folds her arms. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now.”
“Fine. Go find your cowboy. The way you’ve been watching him all night, I’m sure he’d be happy to give you exactly the kind of ride you’re after. You’ll be competing with all his other whores though. Good luck to you.”
Cassidy’s eyes widen.
Beside me Slade is already moving, shifting his weight forward like he’s getting ready to kick this guy’s ass, and I put my hand flat on his thigh before he gets any further. Across from us Sadie does the same to Walker and gives him a shake of the head.
My husband leans in close to Derek and says quietly, “Say what you want about bull riding and Montana and all of it.” Those green eyes darken like the storm clouds moving across the sky. “But you do not speak to a woman that way.”
Derek’s head swivels to meet Slade’s gaze head-on, but whatever he sees there makes him quail.
Beneath my hand, Slade’s thigh is iron. He’s not moving but he wants to. I can feel exactly how much he wants to. But this isn’t their fight. It’s Cassidy’s.
Derek stands abruptly. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
As Derek stalks away, Walker calls out, “Who wears boat shoes to a rodeo, ya fuckin’ weasel?”
Cassidy just wraps her arms around her knees.
Then, stricken, realizing everyone just bore witness to that, she whispers, “Excuse me,” and hurries off in the opposite direction from her fiance.
“Get why Tanner hates him now,” Walker mutters. “Snot-nosed prick.”
Sadie and I exchange glances. Mari is pawing at her, clearly hungry, with whines that are starting to escalate.
It feels like someone needs to make sure Cassidy is okay though. Quickly I get to my feet.
“I’ll go check on her,” I tell them.
Slade squeezes my hand. “Want me to come?”
I shake my head. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, though,” I joke, “it means I’m lost or kidnapped.”
His expression darkens, so I give him a quick, soft kiss. “That was a joke, honey.”
“Ten minutes,” he says softly, the worry for me obvious in his eyes. “Then I’m coming for you.”
When our marriage is over, I’m going to miss having someone who worries about me.
I have a list of things I’m going to miss about Slade Rhodes. It only gets longer as our time gets shorter.