Chapter 6 – Jensen
“You feeling good?” Joel asks me while hanging off the side of the chute by one hand. His other is full of Nerd Ropes that he's chomping on like it's his only meal of the day.
The sad thing is it probably is.
"Just wait until you turn thirty-five next month. You won't be able to survive on candy alone anymore."
He snorts in response.
I roll my shoulder once, ignoring the bite of pain that’s been lingering there all morning.
I always seem to be one of the last to ride these days.
Probably to build suspense and make up for whatever our team lacks in points.
I also seem to get the meanest bulls—rank, vicious, born angry with the wildest names.
Sometimes it all feels orchestrated. Like maybe the league wants the crazy rides under my name so they can plaster the footage everywhere and draw in more crowds.
More wins for me, means more ticket sales for them, means more money for Craig.
Even though it’s supposed to be a lottery draw, I’d be lying if I said I never wondered whether the pick of the bull was rigged. After the last doctor stole money from the rodeo, I know Craig’s been looking for any opportunity to make up the financial loss.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, even though the rope’s rougher against my palm tonight, and my shoulder’s humming, and my head feels like I’m underwater with my ears plugged again.
Fucking Catalina Alba is in my head. That's all this is.
“Heard the doctor tried to block your ride.”
His tone’s light, but I hear the question buried under it. He’s concerned. He means well. They all do. I grip the rope tighter, wrapping it exactly how I like, not letting his words land.
“Yeah. Just a little misunderstanding. I feel great and I'm here, ready to go.”
Joel gives me that look—the one that says you’re full of shit, but I’m not getting involved. He slaps the gate hard and drops to the dirt.
“Alright, good luck man.”
“Thanks.”
“Dinner and drinks later tonight?”
“Of course.”
He wanders off while I inhale slow, eyes shut, waiting for the announcer to call out my name. The cameras swing toward me, lights hot on my face. I flash a grin, mouth the same words I always do before a ride—love you, Grandma—and blow her a kiss from thousands of miles away.
I’m sure she’s smiling at the TV back in Tennessee, where the mountains suffocate the noise of the city and it's currently a hot, summer day. She’s probably yelling at the screen shouting ‘keep your ass on that bull and don't go giving me a heart attack’ like she’s been telling me since I was twelve.
Who knew it’d be me with the heart issues.
June pops up onto the fence, fancy camera out and in my face like there isn't a pissed-off bull between my thighs ready to launch my ass. I swear, she has no sense of fear or personal space. She’s always off in her head dreaming about something. Or buried behind her phone scrolling.
“Smile Jensen,” she orders.
I force another one, she snaps a few pictures, checks the screen and then nods. “Good luck! Don't die! You better comment on these pics later tonight for reach,” she chirps before hopping down.
We both know I won’t. And then the horn goes.
Eight seconds. That’s all it ever is. Usually, it feels like water flowing through me—muscle memory, instinct, adrenaline.
I perform the rides in my head the night before when I'm staring at whatever hotel room ceiling I’m sleeping in.
I'm always ready, never caught off guard. But tonight, the moment the bull snaps out of the chute with me on its back, something’s wrong. And I know it.
My shoulder’s too tight. The rope pulls left, my bull kicks right, and suddenly my entire upper body is torqued the wrong damn way because I didn't anticipate it correctly. It's a rookie move, and a serious mistake I haven’t made in years.
Call it Catalina getting in my head before the ride. Call it her being fucking right about my injury that I never let heal properly. Either way, I know if I stay on this animal, something’s going to tear, and it'll be bad for me.
I let go with two seconds left, which is basically career blasphemy, and hit the dirt hard. Thankfully, because I'm the one who decided when to let go, I chose to fall on my good side. Had I forced myself to stay on for another two, I could have fallen right on my injury and been done for good.
“Fuck!” I grunt when I hit the ground.
The rescue crew rushes out. The crowd boos. It's an ugly, rumbling sound I haven’t heard in over a year, and one that I know will haunt my dreams later.
I scramble to my feet, shoulder throbbing like a warning siren. Catalina warned me. I didn't listen. She was right. I've made it worse.
I lift a hand, wave at the crowd like that’ll calm them down. The announcers start rambling about the score—some bullshit about the ride—I tune them out like I always do. I don't look at the board. There's no point. I gotta get out of here.
I stalk toward the gate, catching Dawson’s confused stare. His dark brown brows are drawn together in concern, and his eyes don't look pleased.
“What happened?”
“My shoulder threw me off.”
He presses a finger to his bottom lip, unimpressed. “You should’ve listened to that doctor.”
I swing over the gate, biting back a curse because he’s not wrong but he also didn't encourage me to listen to Doctor Alba either. He wasn’t against her recommendation; he just stayed silent when he realized I’d made up my mind and couldn’t be talked out of it. I have no one to blame but myself now.
“I’ll go get it looked at in training. See what the damage is.”
He nods. “Fans will be disappointed if you can't ride after the break.”
I fucking know that.
I take off down the hallway toward the Denver training room, heat building under my skin half from embarrassment, half from knowing she was right and feeling guilty as hell for not listening to her.
Heath’s already waiting for me, patting a bed like he’d been watching the ride on the TV and knew I’d come straight here.
“What happened?” he asks. “The way you landed made it seem like you let go on purpose.”
These guys are pros, have watched us ride for years and know our tells better than we do.
“Right shoulder’s pulling. I let go before it got worse.”
He guides me to lay back so he can start his examination. The pressure is immediate when he touches it—deep, blunt, and entirely unwelcome.
"Fuck me. That hurts."
“The ligaments feel stretched,” he mutters while he continues.
Dammit. Even I know that's not good.
The next second, the doors to the training room swing open softly. I know it's her before she says a word. Usually, Catalina storms into a room like she's got a personal grudge against the hinges. Loud. Annoyed. Ready to tell me exactly why I'm not thinking straight.
Not tonight.
Tonight, she slips inside quietly, her footsteps barely making a sound. Like she's exhausted. Like she's run out of energy to argue with me. And that worries me more.
There's still a shift in the air when she gets close to the table. A pull I feel before I even look up. But tonight, instead of anger crackling around her, there's only a heavy kind of disappointment.
I shut my eyes tight, but it doesn’t matter.
I can practically hear her heartbeat. I can smell her scent.
I'm not sure what I thought she'd smell like.
Maybe antiseptic and lavender since that's what I remember smelling when I woke up from surgery.
But that's because I was in an OR where everything was clinical.
Here on the circuit, she smells warmer. Like the spices my grandma used to put out on Christmas morning. And cocoa. So much cocoa.
Even panicked, even hurting, something in me steadies the second she steps closer to my body and touches me.
She doesn't ask for permission, and though I have a strong feeling she doesn't enjoy this part of her job, she does it anyway with strong, controlled fingers. Maybe it’s because what she’s doing is clinical and not personal.
Her hands press into the strained, swollen flesh while she murmurs something softly to Heath. My eyes are sealed shut and I'm in my head. That static noise I always hear reverberating in my skull, except now it’s full of her voice telling me I should have listened.
When I come back to my body, her voice is warmer, but the disappointment is still in her tone.
The static in my head, always full of rage, pain, adrenaline—goes silent.
And for some fucking reason that I can’t examine right now, my whole-body syncs to hers like she’s the only steady pulse left in the room.
No longer is it the rush of blood in my ears that I hear, but it's the blood in my heart, pounding, reminding me I'm alive because of her. I’m breathing because of her.
“Okay, let’s get some ice on it first, Jensen,” Heath says. “Just lay here for a couple minutes while I grab that.”
He steps away, and I close my eyes again. Not because I’m tired, but because I can feel her still standing there looking at me. Catalina’s presence is a thing that can't be measured in matter. It's a weighted blanket. A heat. Something that fills the room even when she’s silent.
I'm a big guy, but being around her can be intimidating. Maybe it's because I know she's mad that I undermined her. Maybe it's because I know she doesn't like me, and there's a part of me that hates being disliked by anyone.
“Interested in saying ‘I told you so’?” I crack one eye open and catch her gaze. Her brown eyes are looking down at me, face completely void of emotion. It's not critical or angry. It's just... empty. Like she’s trying to work something out in her head.
“I’m not interested in saying anything to you, Jensen.”
That pisses me off more than if she’d yelled. At least yelling comes with emotion. But she’s just standing there, arms crossed, her face a perfectly empty canvas. She's unreadable.
Her lips are slicked with a soft pink gloss today—barely there, but enough that I notice.
Enough that it pisses me off that I keep noticing all the little changes she makes to her appearance each time I see her.
Her dark curls are loose, perfectly framing those sharp cheekbones and eyes that somehow look even prettier under the fluorescent lights.
Her lashes lower lazily, almost bored, and I notice the faint hint of freckles dusting across the surface of her brown skin.
I meet her gaze, and the second I do, I’m transported.
Back to that moment I woke up from surgery—groggy, disoriented, scared in a way I’d never admit because that week was the week I realized maybe I wasn't quite ready to die.
That I hadn't got my shit together, affairs in order. I hadn’t accomplished all the dreams I had.
Hers was the first face I saw. Calm. Focused. Watching over me like she was relieved to see I made it out alive. Like she cared.
For a while, I convinced myself I’d imagined her—just some anesthesia fever dream.
Then the paperwork confirmed it. Doctor Catalina Alba, MD, FACS.
The one who cut into my body. The one who put me back together.
The one whose face I’ll probably see the next time I’m close to dying at the rate that I'm going.
We gaze at each other in comfortable silence for what feels like minutes until Heath returns to my side. He looks at both of us and says nothing.
“Here.” He lays a cold bag of ice on my shoulder. “Let’s tape this down to get the swelling under control. Then we can reassess and see if we need to send you for an updated MRI.”
“He needs an MRI. I want an MRI on that,” Catalina says, arms tightening just a fraction around her chest. It's the only thing that tells me, though she's mad, she still cares about me.
I think she'll always care about her patients, even when she says she doesn't. Even when they don’t listen to her good advice.
I nod immediately. “Let’s get it. If she says I need one, she knows best. I trust her.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. Something flickers across her face—brief and gone before I can name it.
Surprise, maybe. Or maybe she's just glad I'm finally listening.
Either way, she doesn't say, I told you so.
Doesn't gloat. Doesn't look pleased that she was right.
She just gives a small nod and turns away, leaving the training room without another word.
Heath tapes me up while I sit there thinking about the look on her face. Then I push myself off the table and head to the hospital for the scan, praying like hell it isn't anything serious.