Free Wild Ride: A Bad Boy Romance by Roxeanne Rolling

earning was going right to Cambridge’s
pocket. But honestly Colton didn’t even care.
    He was trying
to enjoy the new lifestyle…the new fame. When he went to the store now, people
knew who he was. He had been on TV now, so he wasn’t just a nobody like
everybody else.
    And Cambridge
had promised that he would be a household name within the next few months…all
Colton had to do was keep competing at the same level at the rodeo…that
shouldn’t be much of a problem. He was feeling as fit and healthy as ever…he
was even drinking a little bit less. He figured he had a few good years left in
him before he had to retire, and by that point he hoped that the fame he had
build up in these good years would carry him into old age…
    But he was
having problems enjoying it….it was very unusual for him. Sure, he was sleeping
with hotter women than ever before…many of them were actual models, whose
pictures could be seen in the supermarket aisles on the covers of the national
magazines. But it was that woman…that woman he had shared just one brief night
with just one week ago…there was something special about her. He wasn’t sure
what it was. He didn’t know how to describe it.
    But as he thought
more and more about her, his fear of deep intimate relationships began to
slowly diminish. Of course, this transformation was only apparent to himself.
    To everyone
else, he was the same fun loving bad boy rodeo star as always…if not even more
so, now that he was enjoying more fame.
    But inside, he
was secretly longing to find that woman again, and to have some type of
relationship with her…he found himself wondering what she would look like as
she grew older, as they grew older together. Would she be the woman who would
bear him children? He found himself thinking about children for the first time
in his adult life. Before her, the thought had never once crossed his mind.
    But the fact of
the matter was that Colton was far too caught up in his new life to think much
about Katy…after all, he didn’t even know her name.

 
    This was the
day of the next big event.
    He was in the
changing room at the rodeo.
    The last
competitor had just finished. There was only one more before Colton’s turn was
up.
    “Now,
remember,” said Cambridge. “You don’t need to do anything spectacular. Don’t
let this new fame get to your head. Don’t try any fancy tricks or anything.
Just ride the bull like you always have. I mean really how hard is it? You just
need to stay on for a couple seconds right?” Cambridge laughed at his own joke.
    “It’s pretty
difficult, no matter how many times you do it,” said Colton. His mind should
have been focused on the bull…on the task he had ahead.
    But for some
strange reason, this changing room had reminded him of Katy. It was something
about the scents here…it was the scents of the dirt, of the bulls…something
about being a little closer to nature made him think of Katy and their night
together.
    “Earth to
Colton. Colton, are you there?”
    Colton looked
up.
    “What’s going
on with you, Colton? You look like you’re out in space somewhere. You need to
be concentrating. I’m doing all this work. Aren’t I promoting you well? You’re
already getting more famous than you ever have been, right?”
    Colton nodded
his head.
    “Great, now all
you have to do is just keep doing what you’ve been doing for years. Just
pretend you’re still the expert bull rider you were when you were toiling in
obscurity. Pretend you don’t know anything about fame. Pretend it’s not even on
your mind. This is what I tell all my clients who have to keep performing a
skill…”
    “Don’t all your
clients have skills?” said Colton, seeming to wake up a little.
    “You’d be
surprised how easy acting is,” said Cambridge. “It’s really a lot more about
the image with actors. And the rest of the skills we can usually fake. The
singers, for instance, are usually just lip sinking at concerts.