Five | Colson
Ihate sand.
My boots may be on, but I still feel like those grainy little fuckers are somehow wedged between my toes.
A light morning breeze floats over the water, carrying the scent of salt and seaweed while the sun rises against a vibrant blue sky.
Most would consider the smell of the ocean clear and clean, but not me.
Okay, I don’t despise the beach, but I’d like it a lot more if I were lounging around with a cold beer in my hand.
The air in Florida is just different.
It’s not the rich scent of earthy notes that comes with higher altitudes, thick forests, and a crisp climate.
The mountains are home. I prefer the sense of safety and seclusion they bring.
When I’m on the road all the time competing in cities, it’s peaceful to return to something so quiet and simple.
Florida isn’t Tennessee.
“Alright,” a voice raises, directing my attention to the videographers, photographers, and our Pbr marketing staff. “I need—”
I zone out, not listening to the list of names Jason, our videographer, shouts out at the top of his lungs.
The first round of the event in Jacksonville starts tonight, and all of us athletes are standing around on the beach, annoyed, because we would rather be elsewhere.
Unfortunately, they need video and marketing materials for our social media, and whenever there’s a break in the live stream.
So, here we are, standing around in our hot-as-hell riding gear as the temperatures continue to rise.
“Colson,” someone barks, cutting through my distracted state.
My eyes cut to Synthia, our marketing manager.
Her perfectly straight, bleached hair is blinding in the sunlight.
She tosses her hands up in frustration, clutching her clipboard with the schedule for the next hour of my life. “We don’t have all day!”
No shit.
We should’ve started thirty minutes ago. It’s not my fault that some of the other riders were late. She also finds any excuse to single me out after we slept together several times last season, since we regularly stay at the same hotels during events.
I got bored. Really bored because she liked vanilla sex and sharing too much on social media about my sex life. It should’ve been a one-and-done thing, but after I’m finished with a ride, my adrenaline is still so high that I need other methods to release it.
She just always happened to be around.
I also regularly got annoyed when she started pushing for more. I didn’t want more. I wanted to fuck and for her to dick and dash, because there are only a few select people whose company I enjoy.
Synthia isn’t one of them.
A laugh, too warm for this early in the morning, pours through my ears. “Might need to turn your hearing aids on, old man.”
I locate the frustratingly stunning blonde in a taupe cowgirl hat and button-down, with suede chaps in a black, tan, and rust-red pattern.
Harlow stands with ten other athletes near the cameras, all of them laughing at her remark.
Brian Sanders is beside her, and he leans in, muttering something too close to her ear.
Surprisingly, it has an unfamiliar feeling clawing at my sternum.
I don’t like that.
She covers her mouth and chuckles.
Yeah. I really don’t fucking like that either.
The muscles in my jaw tighten. Some of the things that come out of this girl’s mouth rub me in ways I don’t quite understand.
I march toward them, my attention solely on her.
Harlow’s striking blue eyes narrow into slits as I quickly advance.
They’re the exact shade of the water today—that intense hue you catch in the middle of a wave just before it crashes into the surface.
I’d say they are beautiful, but it’s one of those waves concealing a riptide, ready to drag you under to the depths where you’ll never resurface.
They’re dangerous.
I cup my hand over my ear. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you, dust bunny. Will you repeat that?”
She folds her arms, huffing out an exasperated breath. “You’re an ass.”
“And you’re a brat.”
She runs her tongue over her top teeth, probably looking for another comeback since bantering back and forth to no goddamn end seems to be our thing.
The second her plush pink lips part, Jason yells, “Synthia, we need another rider to even this out.”
I turn, analyzing the tall, skinny man who reminds me of the skeleton from that cartoon movie Nightmare Before Christmas. He’s a living, breathing version of that character, but has a layer of skin over his bones and no muscles as far as I can see.
He fiddles with his video camera before gesturing to me. “I want these two in the middle with five riders on either side of them in the shape of a V.”
It takes me a moment to realize his thin finger is bouncing between Harlow and me.
“What?” Harlow stutters dumbfoundedly, avoiding my eyes as she regards him with confusion. “Why us?”
Harlow and I side-eye each other, her nose scrunching in repulsion over the idea. She looks like a little mouse sniffing the cheese in a trap that Jason set up, contemplating how close she can get before it snaps.
“Because I can feel the tension radiating off you two, and the camera will catch it perfectly,” he replies.
“Try being in a room with them every weekend,” Leandro mutters.
Leandro is a rider from Brazil, and we have been competing against each other for the past four years.
He’s no stranger to the heated battle that has unraveled between Harlow and me.
One that she fucking started for some reason during our first interaction at a kickoff party to celebrate the season and learn the updated rules.
That was two years ago, and Harlow’s first time making it to the professional league.
Harlow hates me, and I don’t know why. However, the feeling is mutual, considering that the girl who should be competing against me is my twin.
Paisley and I making it into the Pbr together was our dream—it had been since we were kids.
Harlow isn’t Paisley, and it’s even more annoying that their personalities are so similar.
Before Harlow, I could push aside the hollow feeling blooming in my chest whenever the season started. Then, in her first year competing, she became a walking, riding reminder of my mistakes. A reminder of a past I can never escape.
Self-condemnation doesn’t just disappear; it sticks with you, festering in all the cracks where you’ll never be rid of it.
Harlow’s little stunt in Tucson last week proved how unprepared she is.
I damn near vaulted the fence to get to her when she cowered on the ground in a ball, utterly unaware that a massive animal with a temper was ready to take her out and annihilate her as a bull had done two years ago.
Luckily, the bullfighters did their job and got the animal back through the chutes—my best friend Matt among them.
I have nothing against women doing intense sports. What I do have a big problem with is them throwing themselves on the back of a raging animal just to prove a fucking point when they aren’t ready.
Harlow is hardheaded, much like my twin sister.
Hell, I’ve wished all these years that I could trade places with Paisley so I could watch her chase her dream.
A goal we obsessed over and worked endlessly to reach.
Then recklessness on both our parts ripped that away in an instant, and I’ve been paying the price, riding this life solo because of a damn injury we both knew Paisley wasn’t ready to come back from.
All it took was one moment of fear.
A second of hesitation.
And instead of being on the road with me, she’s home in Tennessee, leaving me with only a piece of her because she can’t be here. I always feel her, though—cling to those traces.
My eyes drop to the bracelet on my wrist, then wander to my fingers, where “don’t stop” is tattooed across the backs of my knuckles.
My promise to her.
Harlow may not think it’s hurting her to get back in the arena, but I damn well know what her family is going through.
She’s lucky it wasn’t worse. Sure, the bull crushed her tibia, and her leg needed surgery and months of recovery, but there are some injuries that you think someone will come back from—recover from—and then they never do.
In a way, when you’re the reason it happened to them, you never walk away from it either.
Reckless pride has no place in this sport.
“From what I’ve heard, people are starting to become obsessed with your rivalry, and what better way to show the stakes this year than to put you two front and center for a few of the shots,” Jason says.
A growl emanates from a throat somewhere in the distance. Jax Bowman shakes his head. “They aren’t even the top riders, especially Harlow.”
Harlow winces beside me, her head lowering to rest between her shoulders as if she’s more interested in the shifting sand below her boots.
I’ve never really liked Jax; I tolerate him.
“You should probably get your head out of your ass, Bowman, considering this is only the second event of the season and there’s a lot left to go.
” Over five months, to be exact. “It would be unfortunate if it got stuck up there this early. Get it shoved too high, and you might not see who’s gaining on you.
A lot of unexpected things can happen between now and the World Finals. ”
Harlow’s head lifts, and I swear I catch a ghost of a smile on her lips. I find it interesting that she can be a fiery ball of fury when standing up to me—or in my presence—but is a soft, harmless flame when it’s someone else.
Synthia organizes some of the other riders in the lineup Jason requested, then marches back toward me. She grips my shirt and Harlow’s elbow as she drags us to the front of the formation.
“Turn your backs toward each other and cross your arms over your chest,” she demands.
Reluctantly, we do as she says. Almost instantly, Synthia huffs in annoyance and repositions us so we are facing the cameras more than before, but still back-to-back. She steps away, scanning the formation of bull riders, and smiles contentedly as she moves out of the way.
“Yes,” Jason hums in approval.
Cameras click while Jason films, and for a moment, it seems like everyone is holding their breath. Or maybe it’s just me forgetting how to get my damn lungs to work as Harlow’s proximity claws at my skin.
A bead of sweat glides down the valley of my spine, soaking into my shirt tucked into my Wranglers. It may be nine in the morning, but I’m still sweating my balls off in this heat.
“This is so stupid,” I mumble. My back isn’t touching Harlow’s, but the air shifts in the foot of space between us as her posture solidifies in response to my tone. Somehow, it brushes against my skin. “I’d rather be doing anything else.”
“Like sitting down with your newspaper and coffee?”
Fuck. I shouldn’t entertain the idea, but sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to smother her hot tongue with mine.
“I mean,” I drawl through clenched teeth, “that we should film and take marketing pictures before the season starts and not do it the day of an event when all of us are trying to focus.”
My body flares as Harlow’s eyes bore into me.
I don’t dare move my body position; Synthia would lash out like I’m a disobedient child who can’t stay still for a family photo.
Keeping my arms still knitted, I peer over my shoulder to find Harlow looking over hers.
She’s staring up at me from her 5’3’’ frame with those groomed brows drawn.
I know her exact height because the Pbr uses that information for our online athlete profiles.
I’m 6’2’’, so she seems so small and fragile beside me.
At first, a feeling I can’t decipher passes between us. Then I realize why she’s looking at me the way she is.
We are in Jacksonville, where her accident happened two years ago—in the same arena where her career could’ve ended.
Where her career should’ve ended.
Her eyes bounce between mine, and she swallows. “I think that’s the first thing we’ve ever agreed on.”