Chapter 8 #2
He did not look toward the catering tent.
Not once. Not when he passed the line where it sat bright under floodlights.
Not when laughter from that direction cut sharper than anything else on the grounds.
The back of his neck burned anyway, as if someone tracked his steps without needing to call his name.
The competitor tent trapped heat and smell in equal measure. Leather. Sweat. Rosin. Men packed shoulder to shoulder along narrow benches, pulling on chaps, cursing stuck zippers, running through routines that kept nerves from getting the better of them.
Titus dropped onto a bench near the edge, vest across his lap. His hands already felt damp. He wiped them once against his jeans, then reached for the glove again, tightening the laces with steady pulls. The leather pressed against raw skin. He leaned into it, letting the pressure focus him.
Around him, voices overlapped. Jokes. Complaints. Quiet bets about who would ride clean and who would eat dirt before the buzzer. Someone kicked a gear bag under the bench. Another man laughed too loud, trying to shake off nerves that showed anyway.
Titus kept his head down. He worked the rosin deeper into his palm, slower this time, forcing his hands to settle. His breathing stayed tight, each inhale scraping rough against his throat. Sweat gathered along his back, caught at his waistband, and refused to dry.
The silence between him and Kyla stretched across every hour since the rain. It sat there, pressing against him no matter where he stood. He told himself it did not matter. He told himself tomorrow would come and go the same whether she watched or not. The lie was paper thin.
He pulled harder on the glove laces, fingers catching on a frayed edge of leather. He stopped, exhaled, and let his hands rest for a second before starting again.
The tent felt smaller with every breath he took. Outside, the generators carried on, uneven and steady. The ground beneath him vibrated faint through the bench. Time narrowed to the next task. The next motion. The next breath.
A sheet of paper slapped against plywood at the far end of the tent. “The draw’s up.”
Men moved in fast. Boots scraped. Shoulders pressed close. Voices rose again, sharper this time. Titus stayed where he was for a second longer, then pushed himself up and stepped forward.
He did not rush. He moved through the crowd one step at a time, letting the noise settle into something distant. When he reached the board, he did not look right away. His gaze dropped to the lower edge, then lifted slow, tracking line by line.
He found his name. He stopped. Next to it, in thick marker, sat the name everyone knew. A mare that had thrown every rider who tried to stay on her. Two seasons without a clean ride. Broken ribs. Concussions. Stories that grew with every telling.
Someone let out a low whistle. “Tough draw, Brooks.”
Titus did not react. He read the line again, as if it might change if he gave it enough time. It didn’t. The letters stayed fixed. The noise around him shifted. Not louder. Not quieter. Just different. He could feel it without needing to look up.
He leaned in a fraction, head lowered, taking it in once more.
The air pressed harder against his chest. Tomorrow would not leave room for error.
Not in front of the crowd. Not with the talk already moving through town.
Not with her a few hundred yards away, close enough to see everything he did right or wrong.
He straightened and stepped back. No comment. No reaction. He pushed through the crowd and out of the tent, letting the noise fall behind him again. The night air hit cooler, carrying dust and smoke and the last of the day’s heat.
He walked without a set direction at first. Just far enough to clear the press of people and voices. The ride would decide more than points or money.
He knew it.
He did not need anyone to say it out loud.
* * *
Night settled over the fairgrounds in slow layers, thinning the noise until only gravel under boots and low voices carried.
Titus kept to the outer track, hands deep in his pockets, chin angled down.
Sweat from earlier dried tacky against his skin, mixed with dust and the cold edge of fatigue that had settled into his bones.
Most of the crowd had cleared out. Ranchers drifted back toward motels.
Rodeo hands claimed pickup beds and trailers.
A few volunteers stayed behind to shut down generators and stack what needed stacking.
The air held onto the smell of trampled grass and fryer oil, the kind that clung long after the last plate was cleared.
He walked without purpose at first, letting distance build between him and the tent line.
Each step dragged through packed dirt, the ground worn down by boots and hooves over the last few days.
Tomorrow pressed in from every direction.
Every ride. Every fall. Every second under the eyes of a crowd that would remember the outcome long after he tried to forget it.
Still, it wasn’t the ride that stayed front and center. It was the silence.
He cut across the back edge of the livestock lot, passing a row of RVs set up along the fence line.
Generators ticked down. Doors shut. Voices dropped to low conversation and then faded.
One trailer stood out against the rest. Plain.
White. Two potted plants placed beside the steps like someone had tried to claim the space for more than a weekend.
Kyla’s.
Light spilled through the small window. He slowed. Stopped. Twenty feet. Maybe less. Close enough to make it simple. Six steps and he would be at her door. A knock. A word. Or nothing at all. Just standing there until she chose to answer or send him away.
He stayed where he was. Inside, her outline moved through the narrow space. Head bent. One leg tucked beneath her as she sat. The glow from her phone lit the edge of her jaw, the line of her mouth set tight.
Her hair fell loose, no longer pulled back for work, curls catching what light reached them. She shifted once, reaching for something out of view, then settled again.
He watched longer than he should have. His chest tightened. Breath came in short, controlled pulls. Every instinct pushed him forward. Close the distance. Say something. Fix what had broken between them before it settled into something permanent.
His hands curled deeper into his pockets. He counted. One. Two. Three. Each second stretched, testing him in a way no ride ever had. Out there, you either stayed on or you didn’t. Here, there was no clean line, no buzzer to mark the end.
He took a step forward.
Stopped again.
The memory of her voice in the rain came back sharp. The look on her face when he turned away. The offer she made. The way he shut it down without giving her anything in return. Pride stayed where it always had: right between them.
He exhaled slow, steady, and turned. His boots ground into the dirt as he cut a wide arc away from the trailer. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to keep moving before he gave himself time to change his mind.
The light from her window stayed at his back.
He did not look again.
He made the full loop around the lot, keeping his path wide, letting distance stretch until the trailer blended into the line of others.
The grounds thinned further the deeper he went, noise falling away until only the scrape of his own steps remained.
His shoulders dropped for a fraction of a second before he pulled them back into place.
Tomorrow would come whether he was ready or not.
So would she.
He walked into the darker stretch beyond the pens, letting the space open up in front of him. No voices. No distractions. Just the steady rhythm of his steps and the knowledge that the gap between them had not closed tonight.
Behind him, her light stayed on. Ahead, the fairgrounds waited. He kept walking.