Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

I
watch
Jackson walk away through the crack in the curtains. No other doors open, no one seems to be looking out. No cars come into the parking lot.

Besides,
I tell myself,
no one has memorized who’s in which room.

He walks to his truck, opens the cab, and starts looking for something inside it. Another car swings into the parking lot and its headlights flash across Jackson, but now he’s just a guy getting something out of his car.

I give myself another few seconds and then close the crack in the drapes and turn on the TV a little louder than I should. I flip on a bedside lamp and wonder why I bothered getting dressed again, because now I’m just going to shower and go to bed.

In the bathroom, I wind about a mile of toilet paper around the condom wrapper before I throw it away. I know it’s silly, because whoever cleans my motel room isn’t going to care if I had sex or not, but it makes me feel better to make
certain
no one knows.

All the while, I pray that whoever’s next door takes sleeping pills and uses industrial-strength ear plugs.

Maybe tomorrow we should do this in his motel room
, I think.
And I should wear a muzzle, apparently.

Then I think:
tomorrow? So we’re doing this again?

I rake conditioner through my hair, rinse, cut off the water and step out of the shower.

Stop it, Mae
, I tell myself firmly.
You will drive yourself crazy. Even if you sleep with him again, after that you’re going home to Brooklyn, so just have some fun while this lasts.

For once in your life
.

I dry off, put on my sleep shirt, turn the TV off, and crawl between the covers.

I wish Jackson could have stayed
, I think before I fall asleep.

* * *

I
drive myself a little crazy
. Relaxing and going with the flow have never quite been in my nature, and normally I like that about myself — it got me out of Lawton, after all — but now, I keep seeing glimpses of Jackson from a hundred feet away. I think my stomach is trying to strangle my lungs.

I shoot the talent competition portion of Miss Pioneer Days and see Jackson walk by the tent. A middle-aged woman comes up to him, he signs something, and then she kisses his cheek. He smiles. I look away.

I stand by the rodeo gates, chatting with Darlene, showing her some of my shots from that day. She’s telling me about how she was Miss Pioneer Days once upon a time.

“My mother made my evening gown,” she says, laughing.

“She did?” I ask.

Darlene nods.

“She knew how to do everything like that,” Darlene says. “She grew up on a ranch, then married a rancher herself and had six kids while running the place half the time. Just as good at helping birth foals as she was at making biscuits.”

“I can’t do either of those things,” I admit. “Last week I sewed a button onto my coat after it fell off and I was really, really proud of myself.”

She laughs.

“On the other hand, my mother doesn’t own a computer and can barely use a cell phone,” she says. “But my kids all have matching Easter outfits that she made.”

“What did your evening gown look like?” I ask.

I make a mental note:
Tell Bruce to ask Darlene about all this
.

“First, it was the late eighties in rural Oklahoma,” Darlene says. “So keep that in mind.”

I nod.

“It was bright pink,” she goes on. “Bubblegum pink, almost Pepto-Bismol pink. Have you seen
Steel Magnolias?
”

Now it’s my turn to laugh.

“Of course I have,” I say.

“The color pink Julia Roberts loves in that movie,” she said. “It was off-the-shoulder, and then had puffy sleeves down to my elbows.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“The skirt had a peplum, and then it was tight all the way down with a slit just past my knee, which is the furthest up the rules would allow. It was almost impossible to walk in that thing, but let me tell you, I was hot stuff,” she says, laughing.

I believe her. She’s in her late forties and still looks fantastic, with the confidence age gives some people.

“She was the
hottest
stuff,” a voice behind me says.

I turn, and Wayne is walking up. Darlene’s still laughing.

Jackson is with him, and right away, my heartbeat goes erratic. I’m instantly certain that everyone can read our secret on my face, even as I nod politely to the two men and barely make eye contact with Jackson.

They’re here because they know
, I think.
Oh god, everyone’s found out, and my editors are going to find out and then I’m screwed forever and ever. Oh no.

“You’re sweet,” Darlene says.

“It’s true,” Wayne says.

I sneak another glance at Jackson, but his face is politely blank. I immediately feel a different kind of anxiety.

What if that was just a casual thing and he doesn’t want to do it again?

I take a deep breath.

Lula-Mae, you have got to stop this nonsense,
I tell myself sternly.
You are being insane
.

“Wayne says you’re thinking of changing which vendor you get the arena sand from next year,” Jackson says to Darlene.

“Yes,” Darlene says. “Do you have a minute? I could use some opinions.”

“I’m all yours,” Jackson says to her.

“Sorry, Mae,” she says. “The glamorous side of rodeo is calling my name.”

Jackson nods at me once, and then he and Darlene walk away together. I’m relieved, or disappointed, or some combination of those two things. Relievappointed.

“You getting everything you need?” asks Wayne.

“Absolutely,” I say. “I think I’ll have about a thousand more pictures than I can possibly use.”

He nods, arms folded across his chest.

“Well, you seem to be handling things quite well,” he says, a little cryptically.

Immediately, I flip through everything he could possibly mean: is he talking about Jackson and I, or about Raylan taking a picture of his dick, or just about soldiering on after I broke a camera?

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m having a good time being at a rodeo again.”

He claps me on the shoulder, his meaty hand hitting me with a little more force than he probably intended.

“We’ll just stay outta your way, then,” he says. “You need anything, you holler.”

I need a new personality that comes with the ability to relax
, I think, but I just smile.

“Will do,” I say, and Wayne walks off to go organize something else.

* * *

W
hen the rodeo
starts that afternoon, I’m actually relieved. I’m not looking forward to men possibly getting trampled by livestock any more than I was yesterday, but at least I have a place where I have to be and a job I have to be doing.

If I’m standing here, taking pictures, it’s totally
normal
for me to be looking at cowboys. Even at Jackson, who’s taken up residence across the arena from me. Every time I glance over at him, he’s looking at me. I think he’s half-smiling, though he’s far away and it’s hard to tell.

Finally, I glance at him and he’s gone. My chest tightens. That means he’s riding soon, those eight long seconds. Eight seconds if he’s lucky.

Which he ought to be, if last night was any indication.

The gate opens and a different cowboy blasts out, the bull bucking and leaping and writhing. He doesn’t make it four seconds before he’s flung off, looking like a rag doll as he flies through the air and then falls a little funny on his shoulder.

I grit my teeth together but he rolls and gets up, the rodeo clowns shooing the bull to the exit.

As they do, I realize: it’s Train Robbery, the bull Jackson rode yesterday. This guy didn’t last even half as long as Jackson did.

A tiny bubble of pride swells in my chest, as if I had anything at all to do with it. As if Jackson is
mine
, someone I can be proud of.

I adjust my camera so it’s looking at the gate again and wait for the announcer, heart thumping. I know Jackson is soon. I think of the thick, ugly scar on his chest, weird and smooth under my fingertips. I think of the long scar on his forearm and shudder, but I force myself to look through the camera.

“Up next, Jackson Cody riding Mr. Torque!” the announcer says.

The crowd cheers. They cheer harder and louder for him than for anyone else. The women in the front of the stands are there, and their signs are even bigger today: JACKSON IS SEXY and GO JACKSON GO!

I swallow and look at the camera, because that’s my job.

Jackson leaps onto the bull. Mr. Torque doesn’t try to buck him off right away like Train Robbery did. The bull doesn’t seem happy, but he’s not
enraged
.

He’ll be fine
, I tell myself.
He does this all the time. He’ll be fine
.

Jackson’s head comes up. He looks at the crowd, scanning the stands from right to left until finally his deep hazel gaze settles on me.

I nod once, just barely. He nods back, the brim of his hat dipping slightly. I think he’s smiling.

The gate’s pulled open and Mr. Torque runs out, leaping in the air, twisting and bucking. He kicks his back legs up and dives and for one second, Jackson flies in the air and I’m certain he’s flying off, but then he regains his seat, one hand still in the air.

I watch through the viewfinder. I have to. I snap away, following the bull with my camera, even as cold chills rock through my body as the timer counts up.

Leap, kick, twist, spin, and I can’t believe it hasn’t been eight seconds, the longest eight seconds in the world.

At last the buzzer goes off and Jackson finally flies off, landing in the dirt and rolling away as the other men in the arena turn Mr. Torque and head him off.

I take a deep breath and unclench my hands. I pray I don’t look half as rattled as I feel, because I feel like anyone who so much as glances my way will
know
.

The crowd’s going nuts again. The women with signs are jumping up and down. Some of them are waving
pom poms
, and Jackson grins at them and waves with one hand.

“Another qualified ride from Cody,” booms the announcer. “Ladies and gentlemen, he is having one
heck
of a showing here at Pioneer Days, first on Train Robbery and now on Mr. Torque...”

Still grinning and breathing hard, Jackson turns toward me and we lock eyes one more time.

Don’t do anything
, I think.
Please, not in front of all these people
.

He winks.

It takes a split second, but he
winks
at me and then jumps up and pulls himself over the gate effortlessly, disappearing behind the barriers. My insides feels like a whirlpool, like quicksand, like I could be sucked down into something dangerous if I’m not careful.

Because when he does that? When he risks his life like it’s nothing, when a stadium full of people are screaming his name and he looks over at
me?

It does something to me, expands some deep, needy,
hungry
part of me that I didn’t know I had until now. For a second I think about abandoning my camera and running backstage. Finding Jackson and leaping into his arms, covering his stupid handsome face with kisses.

I adjust my camera so it’s pointing at the gate. I breathe deep and hope I’m not acting weird.

Another cowboy mounts a bull, nods, and rides out. I take pictures. Five seconds and he’s been tossed off into the sand and scampers off.

Slowly, my heart stops feeling like it might explode.