Riding the Wrong Cowboy
MAX
Last Call is packed tonight, bodies everywhere, bass thumping through the floor and up into my chest. The kind of loud that makes thinking hard, which is maybe exactly what I need.
If you fall off a horse, you get back on.
Or ride a cowboy. Wait, that's not… whatever, same principle.
I'm three drinks in. Not drunk, just… loose.
The edges of everything softened down to something manageable.
Leo is somewhere behind me, dancing with Haru and JP, laughing at words I can't hear over the music.
Laughing. With them. Like everything is fine and normal, and he hasn't been treating me like a stranger wearing his best friend's face for over a week. I take another sip of my drink and turn away.
Ryker is at the door, same as always. Huge. Intimidating. Arms like tree trunks covered in tattoos, that leather vest stretched across his massive chest. He catches me looking and grins, slow, deliberate, the kind of smile that says I know exactly what you're thinking.
I should look away. I don't. Last time I was here, some guy grabbed my arm and tried to pull me down the back hallway.
I remember the panic, the way my voice wouldn't work, and then Ryker was there, stepping between us like a wall.
Didn't even raise his voice. He looked at the guy and said, "We got a problem here?
" and suddenly there wasn't one anymore.
He'd checked on me afterward. Made sure I was okay. He bought us all drinks and apologized. Said, "No one should feel unsafe here. This is my cousin's bar, and we don't tolerate that shit." His voice had been kind.
I wonder which Ryker I'd get if I went over there right now. Screw it. I finish my drink and weave through the crowd toward the door. Ryker watches me approach, one eyebrow lifting.
"Hey, beautiful." His voice is a low rumble. "Having a good night?"
"Could be better." I'm flirting. Holy circuit boards, I'm actually flirting. "Could be a lot better, depending."
"Depending on what?"
"On whether you're gonna stand there looking pretty, or if you want to get out of here." The words come out braver than I feel. My heart is hammering, but it's not entirely fear. It's adrenaline. Anticipation. The feeling of doing something reckless on purpose.
Ryker studies me for a long moment. His eyes flick over my shoulder, toward the dance floor, toward my friends, and then back to my face.
The grin drops for half a second, just half, his eyes going still and sharp, reading me in a way that has nothing to do with flirting.
Then he blinks, and it's gone. Smooth as ever.
"You sure about that?" he asks.
"Yes." I make my voice firm. Certain. "I'm sure." He's quiet for another beat. Then he pulls out his phone and texts someone, probably his cousin, getting coverage, and when he looks back at me, the grin is back.
"Alright, gorgeous. Let's go."
Ryker's apartment is not what I expected.
I don't know what I was expecting, black leather everything?
Weapons on the walls? A sex dungeon? But it wasn't this.
It's small, warm, and lived-in. A worn couch with a soft-looking blanket thrown over the back.
Plants on the windowsill. A bookshelf stuffed with paperbacks.
It smells like coffee and something spicy, like he actually cooks in here.
Okay. Focus.
Ryker is nice. He proved that the night at Last Call, when that guy grabbed me, he stepped in, made sure I was okay.
He's hot, objectively, undeniably hot, in a way that is completely different from…
Don't… Just don’t. Different. Just different.
That's the point. I want different. I want to feel something that isn't this specific, exhausting hurt.
I want to feel good. I chose this. I can do this.
And then there's the dog. A small, scrappy-looking mutt comes hobbling over the moment we walk in, tail wagging so hard its whole body wiggles with it.
It's missing its back left leg, and its fur is about seventeen different colors, and it's looking up at Ryker like he's the greatest thing that ever existed.
"Hey, Princess." Ryker's whole voice changes, softer, warmer, with affection bleeding through. He bends down to scratch behind her ears. "Miss me?"
"Princess?" I can't help the smile tugging at my mouth.
"Princess Tank," he says, straightening up. A faint flush creeps up the back of his neck. “Her full name."
"That's… quite a name."
"Found her in the alley behind the club three years ago.
Someone hit her with a car and dumped her.
" His jaw tightens for a second. “The vet said she probably wouldn't survive the night.
I figured she shouldn't die without a name, so I called her Tank.
Seemed fitting." He shrugs, mouth quirking.
"Didn't realize she was a girl until later. So… she became Princess Tank."
Princess Tank hobbles over to investigate me, sniffing at my ankles. I crouch down to let her smell my hand, and she licks my fingers enthusiastically. "She likes you," Ryker says. "That's a good sign."
"She has excellent taste." He laughs, and the feeling in the room shifts. I feel the tension ease out of me. Maybe this won't be so hard after all.
We end up on the couch, and I'm across Ryker's lap, not straddling. I'm sitting sideways with my legs draped over his lap, and my bum settled against his thighs. His arm is around my back, solid and warm, and his other hand is resting on my knee.
"This okay?" he asks, and there's that checking-in thing again. Making sure.
"Yeah." I shift a little, getting comfortable. "Yeah, this is good."
"Good." And then he kisses me. It's… nice. He's good at this, confident, unhurried, like he's got all the time in the world. His lips are softer than I expected, and he tastes like mint, and when his tongue slides against mine, it sends a pleasant shiver down my spine.
See. I tell myself. This is fine. This is good. You can do this. Ryker makes a low sound in the back of his throat, approving, and pulls back enough to murmur against my mouth. "You feel good, sweetheart."
My stomach flutters. "Yeah?"
"Mm." He kisses the corner of my jaw, right below my ear. "Gonna make you feel so fuckin' amazing."
Wowza. I sort of melt at his words. Low and rough like that, with the promise underneath it, my pulse kicks up, and I lean into him, chasing the feeling. That's hot. That's genuinely hot.
"Yeah?" My voice comes out breathy, like I’ve just run up the engineering building’s stairs. "You’re a big talker."
"I deliver." He grins against my neck, and then his teeth graze my skin, a hint of sharpness, and I gasp.
This is good. This is working. I'm going to have sex with someone who knows what he's doing, and it's going to be great, and I'm going to stop feeling so out of control all the time—
Ryker shifts beneath me, and I feel it. He's hard. Like, really hard. A thick line of heat pressing up against my legs, impossible to ignore. My brain stutters.
That's fine, I tell myself. That's normal. That's the point. You're making out, he's turned on, this is how it works… But my body isn't listening to my brain. My body is tensing up, muscles going tight, that pleasant warmth curdling into an uncomfortableness.
Stop it. You're fine. This is fine. Ryker's hand slides up my back, under my shirt, and his palm is hot against my bare skin, and… I freeze.
Leo's hands. Leo's room. The way everything felt right, and the sick lurch of understanding that follows, because if that was right, then this is… Wrong.
"Hey." Ryker's hands stop moving immediately. He pulls back, searching my face. "Max?" I can't speak. I can't move. I'm sitting there, stiff as a board, probably looking like a deer in headlights.
His hands stop moving before the rest of him does. Then he pulls back, and when I look at his face, the flirty ease is gone. His jaw is set, his eyes still and steady, reading me the same way he did at the club door. "Okay." His voice is calm. Almost gentle. "What's going on?"
"I… nothing, I'm fine, we can…"
"You clearly don't want me." It's not accusatory. Just factual. "So why are you here?"
The question hits me like a splash of cold water. I’m ready to protest, to say no, I do want this, I decided to want this, but nothing comes out. Ryker sighs. Not annoyed, he's… tired. He carefully lifts me off his lap and sets me on the couch next to him, putting a few inches of space between us.
"Talk to me," he says. "What's actually going on with you tonight?"
The whole story spills out. I don't mean for it to; I try to give him some vague excuse and maybe leave with a shred of dignity intact, but once I start talking, I can't stop.
Leo. My first time, because I wanted it to be safe, so I asked my friend.
The weirdness after. Trying to date Jaren, and how wrong it felt.
Leo again, and how right it felt, and how that scared me.
The way Leo's been acting all week. The way I feel like I'm losing my mind.
Ryker listens without interrupting. At some point, Princess Tank hops up onto the couch and settles between us, her head on my thigh, and I scratch behind her ears while I talk. When I finally run out of words, Ryker is quiet for a moment.
"So let me get this straight," he says slowly. "You came home with me because you were trying to prove something to yourself. Not because you actually wanted me."
I wince. "That sounds really bad when you say it like that."
"It's not great, gorgeous."
"Leo said we had to go back to being just friends, and I thought, okay.
Fine. I'll be fine." I scrub a hand over my face.
"If I could feel something real with someone else, it would mean what I feel with Leo is just…
habit. Proximity. Not something I have to do anything about.
" I stop. "I think I already knew it wasn't going to work. I came here anyway."