CHAPTER 2 Maverick
Maverick
The guys and I exit Caleb’s mom’s bakery, The Flour Child, to the street filled with carnival goers from all over Wyoming. The festival gets bigger every year.
Sometimes being back here isn’t so bad—to see how much it’s changed from when I left. It’s been fourteen months since I’ve last been home. The time between visits is getting longer and longer and, as much as I love Dad, we’re too different.
I want different things for my life than what he wants for me. The last time I was in Silver Rapids, I was preparing for the Olympic trials. I went to Vail, then that happened and I sure as hell didn’t need to come back here to feel everyone’s eyes on me.
Even now, I only came back because one of my oldest friends wanted to get the old crew together for a small, hometown bachelor party.
It was Caleb's only ask, to come back and have a party so his younger brother Jake could attend.
Jake, has developmental disabilities, so new places can be hard for him.
He's always been like a younger brother to us so the entire crew made it home for the long weekend.
After Mom died, Mrs. Clark kept an eye on me and Dad. Coming home to visit with them—and I guess Dad—was the least I could do when Caleb said that he wanted a small party to celebrate.
After graduation, we all kind of scattered to the winds.
Caleb went to Colorado State University on a football scholarship.
Garret went to Notre Dame for lacrosse and stayed out in the Midwest. I went to CSU for business through their online program, entirely focused on skiing and training.
And Luke started his own construction company and now builds anything with four walls and a roof.
Spending most of my time in Vail or Aspen, I was close enough that I could visit Caleb in Fort Collins, but it's been a little while since we could all get together like this.
Garrett works in accounting, but jokes that it's not the spicy kind so it's harder to get away from his job.
He's hinted that he was moving back home soon, but that's been the story for a few years.
He likes Cincinnati too much. Caleb majored in business so that he could return back to Silver Rapids and help his mom grow her bakery.
I don't have an excuse for not coming back.
We all knew that Caleb was going to be the first of us to pair off. He's had heart eyes for Kennedy since the second day of senior year of high school when he saved her from falling down the stairs in the hallway when somebody rushed past her. It was his real-life superhero moment.
I’ve never had one of those. And I’ve never dated anyone seriously.
When I do start to feel the spark with someone, it falls apart before it really ever begun. When I’m with someone I am only with them, they just tend to run hot and fast like a firework, a bright flash in a dark sky.
But Caleb? He’s in it for life and to be honest, I love that life for him. He deserves it. I’m thinking that I deserve to be a miserable asshole.
“Let’s go get some food!” Caleb declares.
Garrett laughs, “You just had two pieces of pie, my man.”
“I could eat,” I say.
And that’s when I see a mass of waist-length, golden curls reflecting the light of the sun like a halo around a beautiful woman walking our way.
She’s laughing and her smile, it’s megawatt blinding.
She’s wearing something that looks like a bathing suit top, but it’s got lots of fringe hanging from it, and it stops just below her breasts.
Her toned stomach is a bare expanse of smooth skin.
The flare of her hips could be my undoing.
The pants are the same type of material as her top.
The thousand little strings flit about accenting her long legs and look like waves pulling back and forth on the sand as she walks toward me.
At the fair—in that outfit—she is definitely not from Silver Rapids.
What’s on her feet? Mirrored boots? They look like they’re glowing. No, this woman is not from here. She might not even be from this planet.
With her is a striking brunette who is laughing at something she said. Have they put something in the water supply to make the women here even more ravishing since I left?
The blonde and her friend are headed to the mechanical bull.
No. No way.
Are they going to try to beat Brutus?
Brutus is the bull that’s usually in Bart’s bar.
I’ve been bucked off that damn thing too many times to count.
Old Man Bart thinks it’s hilarious and makes it his mission to knock people off.
Just when you think you might go the full eight seconds, no.
He gives the controls a kick into overdrive and bam!
You’re in the corner with a bruised ego, holding a beer to your busted lip.
I don’t want them to get injured, but I do want a front-row seat to that show. “Hey guys, let’s do the bull before we eat. The last thing we need is for Caleb to pop on top of Brutus again.”
“Bro, not cool. It was one time and to be fair, I don’t remember it.” Caleb pouts and crosses his arms but we head that way.
I see the girls go to the signup booth. The blonde is clearly excited and the brunette has a scowl across her face. We are walking towards the bull when Garrett laughs and elbows me in the ribs.
“Dude. You haven’t changed.” Garrett’s looking towards them.
“You could have just said hotties at two o’clock.
The brunette is Quinn. She moved here a year or so ago.
She works at the bookstore, and Luke called dibs.
The blonde I’ve seen a few times during my visits in the last few months.
I don’t know anything about her. But if she’s single, I call dibs! ”
“Call dibs? What are we, ten years old? Dibs doesn’t count.”
“Well, we’ll see who she’s more interested in, eh?”
There's a group of people walking our way that move over to the road.
Our group takes up a lot of space on the sidewalk.
Luke is the shortest, but just by inches.
He was a runt and then one summer filled out just like the rest of us.
He's also the one with tattoos, full arm sleeves, chest and back pieces, the guy is covered.
Some people in town think it's intimidating, but I think it's art.
Garrett, having played lacrosse for so long, is stacked.
Jake regularly goes to the gym with Caleb and Luke.
Being here has me feeling a little left out of the antics Caleb and Luke get into and it stings a bit more than I thought it would.
My best friend back in Utah, Jude, hits the gym with me every day. He’s a cattle rancher but he does a lot of horseback tours from spring to fall.
We have plans this year to try our hand at skijoring. He’ll be atop his horse, barreling down a snow-covered street, pulling me through a course with a tow rope as I ski over jumps and through slalom gates.
The sport has been around since the early 1900s in Northern Europe with roots in harnessing reindeer to take people over distances, kind of like sled dog racing in Alaska. But with horses, fire, and ring jousting. If you do the circuit right, there’s a lot of money in competing.
Since losing all my sponsorships, it’s been kind of tight.
Working full-time as a ski instructor doesn’t pay as well as you think.
I get a salary, but make a lot off of tips as well.
I suppose I could do something with my business degree, but I’ve never had a real job before.
It’s not even Peter Pan syndrome, I’ve just never had an opportunity to have a job.
I spent all my time up on the mountain or in the gym training. Before that, I was helping Dad.
Quinn and her friend are still talking to the ticket booth attendant when me and the guys walk up behind them. I can hear the guys excitedly talking about who is going to go the full eight seconds this time.
“I’m definitely gonna go the full eight seconds,” says Luke.
Laughing, Garrett says, “Ha! I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“You both are delusional. I’m going to be the one to go for the full eight seconds,” I toss back over my shoulder.
The blonde and her friend turn back to us, size us up, and say, “Alright boys, but we’re up first.”
"Not ‘we’, just you, babycakes!” laughs Quinn to her friend.
Blondie just scowls and blows a raspberry at her friend and walks over to the roped off entrance. I am just a man, so when she starts to bend over to take off her shiny boots, I can’t help but to take in the curve of her ass. She unzips her boots, then pulls them off. She’s wearing hedgehog socks.
Those little dangling strings move back and forth, accentuating her hips and making her ass look incredible, even if it does look like she’s about to do the flamenco or something with those pants. I don’t know that Brutus has ever had such fancy pants in his saddle.
Brutus has a speckled faux cowhide, and his horns are a shaped foam so no one actually impales themselves when they get bucked.
But it’s hard foam and still hurts a bit.
The saddle is real, though. There are no stirrups, so you’re using your thighs to keep you on.
He’s got glowing red eyes, a silver ring through his nose, and if he bucks you off, there’s smoke that blows from his nose.
“Hey!” Luke says, getting Quinn’s attention. “Howdy, Quinn. How you been livin’?”
Howdy?
Oh, he’s turning on the charm for her. We all chuckle and give him a blatant side-eye.
“Hi, Luke.” She looks at him and then at all of us, “Who are your friends?”
“Well you know, Caleb and Jake. I think you met Garrett last year.” He points at them respectfully.
“And this is Silver Rapids’ troublemaker, Maverick.
” They just laugh it up. No matter what I do, the mistakes of a dumb twenty-year-old are going to follow me everywhere.
They laugh, but I don't think they know how much I trained after the accident and then damn near got close to the trials again.