Ride: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. I feel like I’m watching something on TV, like everything in front of me is flat and two-dimensional and I’m totally removed, seeing it from somewhere else.

  I watch the paramedics work, and they work fast, maybe too fast. Maybe too urgently, but I’m just standing here. I want to jump the barrier and run to him, help him somehow, but what the fuck am I going to do?

  They carry him out of the arena, and I finally look around.

  Everyone in the media box is staring at me. Finally Bruce reaches out one hand and touches me on the shoulder.

  “Mae, are you all right?” he says.

  I move my hands away from my mouth, and suddenly I realize my hands are wet. I’m crying. My whole face is wet, but I just stare at my hands like I don’t understand what tears are.

  “I don’t think so,” I tell him, and my voice sounds weirdly calm, even though my whole body is shaking.

  The announcer says the next cowboy’s name. There’s another bull in the chute, and even though there’s a hush over everything we’re all carrying on.

  I look around. Now everyone is pretending like they weren’t just staring at me. Not that I give a shit.

  “Where are they gonna take him?” I ask Bruce.

  “Probably the university hospital, but I’m not sure,” he says.

  “I have to go,” I say. I start backing away from my camera and bump into someone else. There’s a hand on my shoulder to steady me, and now that I can breathe again I’m breathing too much, too fast, and getting lightheaded.

  Everyone’s staring at me again.

  “Is this set up?” Bruce asks, pointing at the camera.

  I nod.

  “Just hit the button,” I say. He nods once, then steps in front of it and looks through the viewfinder.

  I look around at all the wide eyes, and then I turn and stumble out of the media box, and then I’m running. I shove through crowds of people and some of them shout at me, but I keep going.

  At the entrance to the backstage area there’s a big guy in a plaid shirt. He holds up one hand.

  “Whoa,” he says.

  I try to duck around him but there’s someone behind him, and I run full-tilt into that guy and have to stop.

  “No media,” he says.

  “I’m not media,” I gasp.

  “You got a media pass,” he says, looking at the lanyard around my neck.

  I tear it off and throw it on the ground.

  “There,” I say. “I’m not here as fucking media, I swear.”

  I can hear my voice rising.

  “You can’t come back here,” he says.

  I try to dodge around him, but he blocks me.

  “I ain’t kidding, sweetheart,” he says.

  “I need to see him!” I shout. “Just fucking let me through!”

  “You need to leave,” he says. “You got three seconds before I escort you out.”

  “No,” I say. “Look, I swear, I just need to—”

  I try to duck past him again but he catches me by the upper arm.

  “You vultures can’t just come back here because you’re pretty girls who can cry,” he says. “Now get out.”

  Just then, I see a familiar face.

  “RAYLAN!” I shout.

  Everyone in earshot looks over at me. The security guy lets my arm go, but he’s still blocking me.

  “Raylan, please!” I shout, trying to look over this guy’s shoulder.

  Raylan’s pale, his face drawn, but he jogs over.

  “Just let me in, please, I know Jackson, and I just need to get in,” I’m babbling as Raylan comes up.

  “She’s all right, Dale,” he says.

  The guy crosses his arms.

  “Come on, Mae,” Raylan says.

  I duck around Dale, and he doesn’t stop me this time. Raylan’s walking fast, and I just follow him.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Raylan just nods, walking faster. In a moment the ambulance comes into view. The lights are already on and they’re loading a stretcher into it. Next to it is a knot of cowboys, faces serious, arms crossed.

  I sprint to them, my eyes on the ambulance.

  “Where are they taking him?” I shout.

  One of the paramedics looks at me, her face somber and serious.

  “University hospital,” she says, then shuts the ambulance door. The sirens start blaring and the ambulance drives off.

  I’ve never felt more helpless in my life. All I can do is stand there and watch until it turns a corner and drives out of sight, and then I look around at the men standing around. They’re half looking at me and half looking at the ground.

  “What happened?” I ask. I’m crying and breathing hard, and it comes out as a ragged whisper.

  “Broken ribs, punctured lung, shattered leg at least,” someone says. I think his name is Clay. “Could be a lot more.”

  “Is he...” I say, and let my voice trail off. I almost say okay, but it’s the dumbest thing I could say right now. I just want someone to tell me that he’s alive, that he’s going to be okay. That this wasn’t the last time I’m going to see Jackson.

  Clay and Raylan shake their heads.

  “How bad is this?” I whisper.

  They look at each other.

  “It’s bad, Mae,” Raylan finally says. “I don’t know how bad, but it’s bad.”

  I nod, swallowing hard. I’m doing my best not to have a total breakdown in front of these guys, but it’s not really working.

  All I can think of is us, in bed, my head on his chest. Him telling me he’d be fine.

  Me being such a bitch this morning when all he did was bring me coffee.

  “You want a ride to the hospital?” Raylan asks.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  We don’t talk on the drive, just stare out the windshield of Raylan’s pickup truck. At the hospital, all the woman at the desk will tell us is that Jackson was admitted to the ER. She doesn’t even know if he’s stable.

  Raylan and I sit there for an hour. Some other cowboys trickle in, and I just stare at the wall. I can’t even concentrate well enough to read the tabloids scattered around the waiting area.

  I think about Jackson showing up at my door with a bottle of Boone’s Farm. I think about postcards, pictures of Flossie the goat, about how he told his parents I was his girlfriend.

  I think about him saying I don’t want to leave here.

  I’m still sitting there, feeling catatonic, when Bruce walks in and over to us.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  Raylan and I shake our heads.

  “They don’t know or they won’t tell us,” I say. I’ve finally stopped crying, but I think it’s because my body’s out of water for tears.

  “I see,” Bruce says. “Give me a minute.”

  He walks off. Raylan and I look at each other, and Raylan shrugs.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bruce is back.

  “Jackson’s heading into surgery,” he says, keeping his voice low. “He’s got broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a lot of internal bleeding. It’s gonna be a while.”

  “How long is a while?” I whisper.

  Bruce shakes his head.

  “Couple hours at least,” he says. “Maybe longer.”

  This is good, right? I think. That he’s okay enough to have surgery?

  I have no fucking idea.

  “Is he gonna...” I start. I swallow, then clear my throat. “I mean, will he—?”

  I can’t.

  “It’s looking better than it was,” Bruce says.

  “Did anyone call his parents?”

  “They’re heading down.”

  I look out the hospital window. It’s dark outside, and I can see the glow of the strip far away. Raylan stands.

  “How’d you find this out?” I suddenly ask Bruce.

  “I’ve been a reporter since I was your age,” he says. “I wouldn’t be very good at it if I couldn�
�t get information.”

  “I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” Raylan says. “I may as well be useless in comfort.”

  I stand and give him a slightly awkward hug.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say.

  “I’m sorry about that picture,” he says.

  We detach and I cross my arms in front of myself.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Raylan leaves, and Bruce is still standing there.

  “You too,” he says.

  “I’m not leaving,” I say.

  “I know you need to eat,” he says. “You’re no good to anyone here. You may as well have a meal, Mae. Jackson’s gonna be under for a while.”

  I know he’s right. I don’t want to leave the hospital where Jackson is, but it’s not like I can do anything while he’s in surgery.

  It’s not like I can do anything, period.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You like sushi?” Bruce asks.

  I nod.

  26

  Mae

  There’s a fancy sushi restaurant next to the Wynn, and they seat Bruce and I at a table way off in the corner. I sip a tiny cup of green tea, and every time I put it back on the table, Bruce refills it from a ceramic teapot.

  He orders. I’m barely listening.

  I’m thinking of Jackson saying, you’re my monster. Of him saying I wish everyone knew I was yours.

  Finally, Bruce drinks his own tea and looks at me.

  “Mae, I think you should tell me what’s going on with you and Jackson Cody,” he finally says.

  I sigh and shove my fingers through my hair.

  “We’re dating,” I say.

  He looks like he doesn’t quite believe me.

  “Dating,” he says. Bruce has been reporting on rodeo for a long time, so he knows as well as anyone that Jackson Cody doesn’t date.

  I take a deep breath.

  “Yeah,” I say. “We, uh...”

  I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if I start with a bottle of Boone’s Farm in a pickup truck, or if I start at Pioneer Days, or if I start when he called me a week later.

  “We started seeing each other in Oklahoma,” I say, because that seems like as good an introduction as any. I go through the phone calls, the texting, mention that I’ve been visiting Jackson after-hours here in Vegas. I show him the pictures on my phone: Flossie, sunsets, tractors, fields. Jackson’s cute nephews.

  He believes me by the end.

  “I know you warned me,” I say.

  “I tried,” he says.

  Sushi comes, and we start eating in silence. Incredibly, it makes me feel a little better.

  “Am I fucked?” I ask Bruce.

  More scenes flash through my mind: freaking out in the media area. Causing a scene backstage.

  “I don’t know,” Bruce says. “I can only tell you what I think you should do.”

  I wait.

  “Call your editor, Erica,” he says. “The minute the offices open in New York, and tell her everything. It’ll go better if she hears it from you first.”

  I chew on my thumb and nod.

  “If you just went back to New York tomorrow morning, you could probably get away with it,” Bruce says. “You and Jackson became friends at Pioneer Days, so it’s natural that you had a reaction to him getting injured.”

  “I can’t just go back,” I whisper.

  “I’m just laying out the options,” he says. “I didn’t think you would.”

  He pauses, chopsticks hovering over his plate, and looks at me.

  “You’re a good photographer, Mae,” he says. “That should be the first thing people think when they hear your name. Not something else.”

  Something else meaning sleeps with the people she’s photographing, I assume.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  After dinner, Bruce makes a phone call and somehow gets more information. Jackson’s still in surgery. I go to my room and try to watch TV, but I can’t. I end up taking a long walk down the strip, wandering through casino after casino. I’ll take any loud, horrible, flashing distraction to get my mind off of what’s happening.

  I wonder if Jackson is waking up from surgery and no one’s there, and then I just pray that he’s waking up. At midnight, I find a number for the hospital and call, but I can’t get anyone to answer my questions. I wander back to the hotel. I change my flight to one four days from now, because that seems like as good a time as any. It costs four hundred dollars and I put it on my credit card, praying that I get paid for this job before my rent is due on the first.

  Then I make myself lay in my bed and shut my eyes.

  Every time I drift off to sleep, I see it again: Jackson on the ground, Crash Junction galloping toward him. I wake up with a jolt. At five a.m., I give up. I call the hospital again, uselessly, so I shower and find their visiting hours. They start at eight.

  I text Bruce a single question mark, because he seems to be the only person who can find anything out.

  At 5:50, I sit at the table in my room and look out the window. I’ve got a view of the block behind the strip, facing east. There’s not much to look at, just the horizon starting to turn pink and gray since the sun hasn’t come up yet.

  Call her and tell her, I think.

  I don’t want to. There’s a tiny part of me that thinks, somehow, we can keep this a secret until I’m done with the job. That somehow I can see Jackson in the hospital and not have everyone know.

  But Bruce was right, of course. My options are go back to New York or fess up.

  At 5:59, I hold my breath. When the clock says 6:00 — 9:00 on the east coast — I pick it up and dial Erica. Her assistant picks up on the first ring, and when I tell her who it is, she puts me through right away.

  “What’s happening out there?” Erica says. “Any word?”

  “Last I knew, Jackson was in surgery and it sounded pretty serious,” I say. My throat’s closing up. “I don’t know what’s happening right now. Also we’ve been dating for the past month.”

  There’s a long pause.

  “You and Jackson?” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, and then I spill the whole story. I start with Oklahoma but I end up going back to the bonfire party, then to Oklahoma, then to Vegas, then to the middle part, and it’s a goddamn mess.

  Through the whole thing, Erica just says, “I see,” over and over, and I have no idea what that means.

  I finish. There’s a long pause.

  “Thank you for telling me first,” she says, but her voice is rigid. “Though I wish I’d known sooner.”

  “I apologize,” I say, and hope my voice isn’t shaking. “I’ll still have the pictures to you by Tuesday.”

  “That would be excellent,” she says. “I’ll have to get back to you about everything else, Mae.”

  When we hang up the phone, Bruce has texted me back.

  He’s out.

  I grab pants, pull my hair into a ponytail, and leave.

  His room is in the ICU, which isn’t surprising. The doors to it are badge-operated and don’t have windows, so I can’t even see in. When I bother the nurse at the front desk she very firmly tells me that visiting hours start at eight, and there’s no one even at the desk outside the ICU yet.

  I don’t know what to do, so I drink coffee in the hospital cafeteria. It’s not good coffee, but at least I won’t have a headache later.

  He’s alive, I think. It’s been twelve hours, and he’s alive, and that’s good.

  I have no idea what else could happen. Internal bleeding sounds pretty bad, and shattered leg sounds pretty bad, and hell, everything sounds bad. I construct scenarios in my head, one after the other: he dies suddenly, still in the hospital. He’s paralyzed from the neck down. From the waist down. He’s in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He’s got serious brain damage and doesn’t know who I am.

  At 7:45, I make myself stop and go back upstairs. At 8:00 exactly, someone comes and sits down at the ICU recept
ion desk, and I go up to her.

  “Hi, I’m here to see Jackson Cody,” I say.

  She looks at a list.

  “You family?” she asks.

  I stare for a second, and I panic.

  “I’m his sister,” I hear myself say.

  She looks down again.

  “His parents didn’t clear a sister,” she says.

  “Mom and Dad are really shaken up right now,” I say. “They probably forgot. Please, just let me go see him.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  Desperation wells up in me, and I try to tamp it down.

  It’s important that he’s alive, I tell myself. You seeing him is secondary.

  “Are his parents in there now?” I ask. “Can you call his room?”

  “I’m not calling,” she says.

  “Please?”

  She just looks at me.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are—”

  The ICU doors open, and a woman with short gray hair steps through. She’s fit and no-nonsense looking, with a paisley shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans. She’s got bloodshot hazel eyes.

  She looks at me, then looks away.

  Then she looks at me again.

  “Mrs. Cody?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, then frowns slightly. “Are you Mae?”

  I just nod, and before I know it, she’s hugging me.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she says. “I wish circumstances were different.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  She leads me back to the ICU doors.

  “She’s with me,” Jackson’s mom tells the woman.

  “That your daughter?” the woman asks, a little sarcastically.

  Jackson’s mom looks at me.

  “Sure,” she says.

  The ICU hall is quiet except for beeping. Mrs. Cody is a little taller than me and walks fast, then stops suddenly outside a room.

  “You haven’t seen him yet,” she says.

  “No,” I say.

  “It’s still touch-and-go,” she says. “He looks bad, Mae. His face is all busted up, he’s covered in casts, and he can’t really move. Plus, he’s on a heavy morphine drip, so he’s not quite all there right now.”