Chapter 25 #2
‘Bailey!’ Beth’s voice comes from behind me. I glance up, and there she is. Bailey James, strutting toward us in a way I can’t stop staring at, hair wavy around her face, cheeks flushing when she glances at me and then beyond to my family.
‘Reckon you’ll meet your own Beth one day.’ Cole’s voice is low, almost like he knows I wouldn’t want anyone to hear him.
‘I doubt it,’ I say, silently praying that I haven’t already.
Bailey
‘I love your family, Beau, but I seriously thought we’d never get rid of them.’ I laugh much later that night, naked in his bed, surrounded by the clothes we tossed all over the place in our haste to come together.
‘You and me both, Bay Jay.’
His fingers run softly down my spine. ‘How’s your article coming?’
I tilt my head to his, surprised by the serious tone in his voice. Other than making the occasional off-handed remark about writing something flattering or a joke about not destroying his reputation, Beau doesn’t really ask about the piece, and I’m glad.
Because the truth is I’m struggling to write it. Struggling like I’ve never struggled before. Usually I find the story angle early on and settle in on it, plaiting a narrative through my interviews and observations so it hangs together on its own.
But with Beau, there’s just too much I want to include and show, too many angles to build one solid, coherent piece.
And in the back of my mind is the beating metronome of worry.
I have to walk a tightrope of being honest and real, of covering the sport and Beau’s place in it with authenticity, but I’m way too close to him to be able to have a clear perspective.
I want to write about his bravery and courage, his intelligence and honour, and the way he cares for all the riders on the circuit.
I want to write about the boy he was, who dreamed of doing this, who’s put one foot in front of the other his whole life, chasing down this dream. I know what will happen if I do though.
I’ll show my hand.
I can’t write what I want to write without revealing what Beau’s come to mean to me, how well I’ve gotten to know him, and I’m terrified of what that will mean.
‘That good, huh?’ he teases, laughing, apparently with no idea of the mental turmoil I’m negotiating. Or maybe he does perceive it, and is just doing that Beau thing of downplaying anything that’s too real, focusing on the joke instead.
It’s just who he is, but it bothers me now.
‘I still need to get the angle right.’
‘And you’re finding that challenging?’
I bite into my lower lip. ‘Kind of.’
‘I’m not a hard guy to write about. I love bull riding—that’s it. The beginning and end of your article.’
I move my fingers to his chest, drawing them up and down his abdominal muscles, watching as they bunch beneath my touch.
‘Perfect. I’ll let my editor know I’m done—just a few thousand words under the guidelines, unfortunately.’
He grins. ‘I always liked a quick read.’
I shake my head, frustration shifting through me. ‘Why do you do that?’
‘What?’
‘Play the part of the fool.’
‘Is that what I was doing?’
‘You’re a smart guy, but you make fun of yourself, like you’re trying to do it before anyone else can.’
His hand stops tracing lines down my back. He stills beneath me. I’m prepared for the inevitable jokey response, but he surprises me. ‘I’m not smart like the others. Growing up, I always knew I was different. It’s probably what pushed me into this.’
My lips part at his open admission. ‘Why do you think you’re different to them?’
‘Because I am. I had to work three times as hard to do anywhere near as well. School was a struggle for me, every day. Partly because I just wanted to be outside, running free, riding horses, you know, that kind of thing. But also it just never made sense to me like it did them. Cole tried to help, Nash too.’
‘You’re smart, Beau. So smart you take my breath away sometimes.
’ I wriggle up so my face is closer to his.
‘But you’re more than that. You’re kind and decent and intuitive as anything.
It’s what makes you such a great bull rider, and it’s what makes you so good at reading people.
You can’t learn those skills, you know. It’s just who you are. ’
He glances down at me then flashes one of those smiles, dismissive and performative, but I barely notice, and I definitely don’t mind. I’ve finally caught a firm hold of the thread I want to write, and I can barely wait.
The moment he falls asleep, I creep out of bed to my laptop across the room and crack it open.
Dimming the screen, I begin typing, word after word, until a story starts to take shape.
The story of a young boy who sought to build himself out of bull riding, who yearned to find himself in this sport, and who, in the process, became a legend of it.
The story starts to form of a boy who became a man capable of conquering any arena he entered.
Capable of conquering a heart that the owner thought broken beyond repair.
Of earning trust where it had once been destroyed: of being everything to someone, forever more.
Beau
The text from Ash is on my phone when I wake up, and my first thought is of Bailey.
Please let her have not seen Ash’s name there.
Not because there’s anything going on with Ash and me, but because after what she went through with Kirk, I can’t bear for her to even think I’d string two women along at once.
That’s never been my style. I’m always clear about what I want, what my availability is. That was true with Ash, the second things started up between us, and it’s been true with Bailey.
Has it? that shit-stirring voice demands, with that smug-ass smirk.
I snatch my phone off the table and click into the message, glancing across the bed to where Bailey is asleep, her hair a fluffy cloud on the crisp white pillow.
Thought I’d come check you out tonight. I’m in Phoenix anyways, so it’s no biggie xx
There is a yawning sense of my worlds colliding, of a meeting happening that I would rather avoid.
It’s not just Bailey seeing Ash, but Ash seeing Bailey.
Or rather, Ash seeing the way I am with Bailey, because things are different with us.
While Ash occupied a certain place in my life, the way it is with Bailey, it’s like she takes over absolutely every part of me.
Which is why I’m fucking relieved it’s almost over.
A deadline looming is usually cause for complaint but in this instance, I feel like it’s probably saving me from myself.
The longer she’s here, the harder I find it to imagine letting her go.
Which spells disaster to me and what I know to be true.
You’ve seen me ride a million times, I type back.
So you’d better make it a good one, then xx
I ignore the little kisses at the end of the sentence.
That’s just Ash. Placing my phone down, I push out of bed, moving quietly to the bathroom then to the coffee machine in the corner of the room.
It makes a soft grumble of complaint as I turn it on, before juicing out a shot of thick, black coffee.
Perfection. I look over my shoulder to see if Bailey’s still sleeping; she is.
A vague memory of waking up in the middle of the night comes back to me, almost like a dream.
She was at her laptop, the light creating a shadow of her against the walls of the hotel.
I move toward the computer, touch the mousepad, but a password screen comes up. I step away, my heart in my throat. Even if I could read the article now, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do anything that might influence Bailey in her work; that wouldn’t be right.
‘Morning,’ she murmurs, her voice throaty and sleep hazed.
I grimace. ‘Sorry to wake you.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ She sits up, bleary-eyed, and pulls her hair over one shoulder. ‘I was just dozing.’
I smile to myself. ‘You seemed pretty out of it to me.’
‘Fine, I was passed out.’ She laughs. ‘But what can I say? The sound of a coffee machine will always, and I mean always, have power over me.’
I move back to the machine but think better of it. For Bailey, only the best will do, and that’s not hotel room coffee. ‘I’ll go get you a latte,’ I say, changing course and unhooking my jeans from the back of the door.
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘It’s fine,’ I demur. ‘This is, what? Our second last morning together? Can’t have you going back to Houston thinking I didn’t treat you right. Not when you’re writing an article about me anyway.’
Her smile slips for a moment and her eyes zip to the door. I feel like my gut’s been squeezed by two giant hands, because I’m pretty sure she’s feeling just as conflicted about this as I am, but we’re both pretending. Pretending nothing’s changed between us, that our original deal still stands.
‘So this coffee would be in the name of bribery?’
‘Just don’t tell your editor,’ I say with a wink, scooping up my phone, shoving it in my back pocket before leaning down and kissing her. Kissing her in a way that makes a mockery of the joking conversation we’re having, because this kiss has the power to break me into pieces if I let it.
‘I’ll be right back, Bay Jay.’ And I walk away, spine ramrod straight, knowing that this is the right call.
Walking away, getting over her, moving on with my life.
Bailey scares the shit out of me—what she makes me feel is everything I’ve run from my whole life—and I’m sure of one thing only: I’m gonna keep running, even when that feels a thousand kinds of wrong.