Free Ride: A Bad Boy Romance by Roxie Noir Page A

York , I think. Stop dealing with these immature jerks. Invent an emergency or something .
    It’s tempting, but there’s no way I’ll give up the best chance I’ve got at really making it.
    Totally unbidden, I think of Jackson clinging to the gate of the bucking chute today, grinning up at me, rescued camera in his hand. I know full well that he was just showing off, but I can’t help thinking he was showing off for me , and he risked his neck to do it.
    As sleep pulls me under, I think: I’d really like to stop wanting to have sex with Jackson Cody.

10

Jackson
    T he next day’s got a rough start. I wake up the minute the sunlight hits the cheap green curtains, just like always, even though it feels like a pair of gorillas are slugging it out in my head. I take a deep breath, sigh, and then look to the other side of the bed.
    Empty.
    I look at it for a long moment, even though my eyes feel like someone’s taken a high-pressure fire hose to them, and I wait for the night before to piece itself together. We were at Betty’s. There were shots and karaoke, and I know there was a girl sitting in my lap, asking me if I was going to take her home.
    I close my eyes again and scoot over in the double bed, the cool sheets briefly making me feel better, and more comes back.
    Mae taking photos. Some girl with her shirt off, Betty coming over and putting a stop to that. More karaoke, and then Mae giving Raylan a dressing-down for some dumbass thing he did.
    The sidewalk. Mae telling me she just wants to do her job, her leaving, me going back inside where I did another shot of Jack.
    I pull a pillow over my face, remembering what happened next: getting in Raylan’s face, both of us drunk as hell. I think I shouted something about dick harassment and he shouted something about a bitch who couldn’t take a joke, and then we got pulled apart.
    There’s flashes of me making out with some girl in the bathroom, then flashes of getting a ride back to the motel from the rodeo veterinarian, who kept asking if I was gonna puke in his car.
    I didn’t. I think.
    I came home alone and crashed, and now I’m here, paying for it.
    “Goddamn,” I mutter, and push myself out of bed.

    * * *
    E veryone’s hurting today . Everyone except Mae, who didn’t drink a thing, and seems refreshed and spry as a spring chicken.
    I pull myself together with about ten cups of coffee and a pound of bacon, then grab one more cup and stand around the arena, watching the ropers practice on each other. The rodeo proper doesn’t start until two in the afternoon, so until then there’s nothing to do besides wander around, breathing in the tense air.
    Bull riding doesn’t start tonight. It starts tomorrow night and goes for three nights. By the end of the third, someone’s the champion.
    My pulse pounds, just thinking about it. The head rush, the pure force of nature, the feeling when you leap off after eight seconds and the crowd roars.
    There ain’t nothing like it in the whole world.
    After about an hour, I see Bruce and Mae making their way around the arena. There’s still thirty minutes before the rodeo opens again, so people are trickling into the stands but most are still hanging around the fair, riding the Ferris wheel or buying knickknacks in the old west town they’ve got set up.
    I realize that the two of them are walking over to me, so I stand up a little straighter, try not to look so hungover. I’m sure Mae can see right through it, but maybe Bruce won’t know.
    “Jackson,” Bruce says.
    “Howdy,” I say.
    “Do you have a minute to walk through the stable and talk bulls?” he asks. “I wanted to get your take on them.”
    “I could talk bulls all day,” I say, and smile at the two of them.
    Bruce just nods and writes something down, but Mae looks at me with an undecipherable look on her face. Like she’s made of iron. But for once, she’s not taking my picture, and I’m grateful because my hungover mug doesn’t need a place