by Roxie Noir
“And there’s nothing wrong with all that. She loves her kids, but it’s not what I want. It’s never been what I wanted, but after that night, I realized how easy it could be to wind up like that and never get out of Lawton.”
Tears are pricking behind my eyeballs. I’ve never said this out loud to anyone before, because there’s no one else who knows what happened, or what almost happened.
Jackson leans forward, his elbows on his knees, and he looks at me as I desperately fight my tears.
“Lula-Mae, there’s not a person in this world who hasn’t screwed up a couple of times,” he says.
“I know,” I say, my voice nearly a whisper. “I just hate how I could have ruined everything.”
“You turned out just fine,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say.
He’s quiet for a long time as we both look forward, down the stands.
“If it helps, I probably wasn’t gonna let you ride bareback,” he says.
I flush bright red.
“Probably?” I ask.
“You made a pretty convincing case,” he says.
“I did?” I ask. I don’t remember making a case at all.
“Sure,” he says, then looks at me and grins. “You were hot and ready to go and I was nineteen and prone to bad decisions.”
“Oh,” I say.
He shrugs.
“But you seemed like a good girl who got a little crazy for one night. Hell, you’d never given a hand job before. I had the feeling you wouldn’t want to swipe your v-card on some guy in the back of a pickup truck.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says.
“That was the first time I saw a dick in person,” I say.
Jackson laughs, and after a moment, I do too.
“I had some suspicions,” he says.
“I made out with some guys in high school, but that was it,” I say. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
“Enthusiasm counts for a lot,” he says. “Especially with nineteen year olds.”
I pick up the peach wine and take the last swallow, then grimace.
“This is really bad,” I say.
“So you’re not getting drunk again?” he teases.
“I’ve had about two tablespoons and I think I might puke,” I say.
“Try to make it down to ground level first,” he says. “Don’t want anyone knowing we were up here.”
A thrill runs through me, as I’m reminded: I’m sneaking around with Jackson.
We’re already here. If we get caught, whoever catches us will already assume the worst.
He’s right next to me, and we’re both leaning against the press box at the top of the stands, the whole arena spread before us. My pulse is pounding through my veins, and somehow, we’ve closed the distance between us from a foot to an inch, and we’re sitting here laughing about the past like old friends.
“I come up here the night before my first ride every year,” Jackson says.
“With girls?” I ask. Then I bite my tongue.
“Alone,” he says. “It helps me get my nerves under control if I can see the place empty and quiet. It seems smaller now than it does when there’s people in it. That way, when I get on that bull tomorrow inside the chute, in the second before he goes, I imagine it’s empty, just me and him, and I don’t have to worry about anything else.”
“You still get nervous?” I ask.
“Every single time,” he says. “I get nervous, and then I get on that bull, and I just ride.”
Even here, talking quietly in the stands, there’s a soft swagger in his voice, a cockiness that does something to me.
“I could never do it,” I say.
“I did offer to teach you,” he says.
“You were just hitting on me,” I say, teasing him. “Telling some wide-eyed girl that she ought to try rodeo.”
He pauses.
“I was kinda hoping you’d show up that weekend,” he says. “I didn’t think you would, but I kept on picking out blond heads in the crowd.”
“I think I stayed home and organized my report cards by letter grade,” I say.
“I won it, you know,” he says, and then he turns his head toward me.
My heartbeat speeds up, and I can feel the warmth rolling off of his body. I stare rigidly straight ahead, eyes locked on the arena below. My self-control is hanging on by a thread.
“You win a lot,” I say.
“I just pictured you in the stands,” he says.
My palms get sweaty.
“Lula-Mae,” he says.
I take a deep breath and turn to look up at him, his hazel eyes glimmering in the dark, serious and searching me.
“My first ride is tomorrow,” he says.
“I’ll be in the stands this time,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
He takes my chin in his hand.
“I know I promised,” he says. “But just give me one kiss for good luck, Lula-Mae.”
“One,” I say, even though I know it’s a lie, and I’m about to embark on something reckless and stupid.
He locks eyes with me for a moment. I hold my breath and think this is my last chance to leave, but I know there’s no way I’m leaving. I’m sunk. I’m finished.
Then Jackson presses his lips to mine. They’re warm and a little rough, and a shower of sparks washes over me, a shiver running down my spine.
His hand moves from my chin to my shoulder and then to my back, and I press myself into him, my fingers in his hair.
Jackson pulls back a little, just enough to look at me as we’re both breathing hard.
“That was one,” he whispers.
“Feeling lucky enough yet?” I ask.
“Not quite,” he says, and draws me back to him.
12
Jackson
I press my lips to Mae’s again and her fingers curl in my hair, like she’s trying to pull me in against her. My heart’s going like a jackhammer and I have the wild urge to push her back and lay her down on this cold metal bench, but I force myself to slow down, to savor every second of this.
Slowly, I open my mouth against hers and slide my tongue against her bottom lip. She hesitates for a moment and then deepens the kiss, her tongue against mine as her body presses into me.
I’ve got one hand on her hip, clutching it through her jeans, the other on her back and I can feel her muscles work as she leans into me hungrily, her mouth against mine. She pulls back and bites my lower lip, and it sends a shock of desire through me, though I’m already rock hard.
Mae looks at me with those blue eyes, dark with lust, and she finds the top button on my shirt with one finger, hooking it over the top. She’s breathing hard and she locks her gaze onto mine. It takes every ounce of self-control I’ve got not to pick her up and push her against the wall of the press box.
I want to taste her and make her moan. I want to hear her say my name while I’m buried in her.
“This is a bad idea, Jackson,” she whispers.
“Then stop,” I whisper back.
I bend and kiss her neck, her heartbeat racing beneath my lips, and she sighs. The first button of my shirt pops open, and I grab her hand in mine, squeezing it.
“I thought this was a bad idea,” I murmur into her collarbone.
Suddenly, the lights go on in the arena below, and we both freeze. She’s half on my lap and my head is in the curve between her neck and shoulder as she pants for breath.
It’s still dark in the stands, but two men walk into the sandy ring below. Quietly, slowly, Mae slides off of me, her eyes wide in the darkness. She runs one hand through her hair, and then she stands.
I grab her hand.
“Wait,” I whisper. “They can’t see into the stands when the lights are on, but if you leave, they’ll see you.”
Mae just nods, and I give her a long look.
She’s got more riding on this than me. If I get caug
ht, Darlene gets mad, and Sports Weekly calls me some names. I’ll live. As long as I can keep riding, I’ll live.
Mae, on the other hand, has everything to lose. If Sports Weekly thinks she’s sleeping with me, they could pull her from the assignment. They’d never hire her again, and every other magazine would know why.
“I’ll get them outta here,” I whisper to her. “Sneak back out the way we came once we’re gone.”
I squeeze her hand and then rush down the stands before she can protest. Both men look up. I recognize one as Wayne, and the other as Travis, one of the other organizers.
Wayne frowns.
“Jackson, what are you doing here? This is closed off.”
I smile and saunter down the last few steps, even though my pulse is racing.
“Sorry,” I say. “I come here sometimes to get away from everything and think.”
Travis looks me over head to toe, then shrugs. Wayne looks annoyed, but not like he’s all that upset.
“We were just checking that the barriers are all up to code,” he says. “You remember that incident in Tulsa a few years ago. Better safe than sorry.”
A barrier failed when a bull knocked into it, and a kid on the other side broke his leg. His parents sued the Tulsa Fair and won a lot of money.
“They looked pretty solid today,” I say.
They both nod, but Wayne still looks worried. I realize again how seriously he takes this, and how badly he wants Pioneer Days Rodeo to make the leap to the big time. How much he wants ESPN and SportsCenter to care about rodeo.
If he found out I was just canoodling with the photographer and making his chances at all that worse, he might kill me.
“I’ll help you two check,” I say.
We split off the arena into thirds, and I walk my third, shaking and kicking and rattling the barrier the best I can. I’m not worried about that. I know that under his Good Old Country Boy demeanor, Wayne’s ferociously driven and detail-oriented, not the kind of guy who’d let something like this slip.
Every thirty seconds, I glance up at the stands. I can’t see a thing, but I can’t get my mind off of her, up there, watching me. It feels like tiny sparks are skipping along my nerves, and I’m all keyed up. I want to get out of there so Mae can leave, because if I’m nervous, she must be dying.
Finally we meet in the middle of the arena.
“I do believe we’re good,” Travis says, his hands on his hips, his belly just sticking out past his belt buckle.
Wayne nods.
“Thanks for indulging me,” he says. Then he looks at me. “You too, Jackson.”
“I’ve got a vested interest in not plowing through a barrier,” I say.
“You feeling good about tomorrow?” he asks.
My eyes flick up to the stands, where I know Mae’s watching us.
“Yessir,” I say.
“When’s the bull drawing?” asks Travis.
“Twelve-fifteen tomorrow,” Wayne answers before I can.
Each rider gets assigned a bull by lottery, so I can only hope for the roughest bulls. If I get a cupcake like Screaming Heat, it’s harder to win.
“You hoping for Crash?” Travis asks.
“You know it,” I say. “Go big or go home.”
Travis just shakes his head. He used to ride — most of the organizers did — so he knows what I’m hoping to get myself into.
“Good luck, son,” he says. “You’re gonna need it.”
We leave the arena, and I go out last. Just before I leave, I look at the stands one more time, give Mae a thumbs up, then hit the light switch. The arena goes dark again.
Pioneer Days has a couple attractions besides the rodeo. One is the carnival, which runs all day and into the night. It’s got all the usual rides, games, and attractions: you can eat funnel cake and then spin around on the Scrambler until you puke, then try to toss rings onto a bottle and win a giant stuffed bear.
It’s got a fair, with prize-winning pies, tomatoes, chickens. All that 4H stuff.
And it’s got Wild West Town. I don’t know where they get this stuff, but it’s about two blocks of fake wooden storefronts, hitching posts, saloon doors, and all. Every day at noon they act out a gunfight. People eat it up.
The bull riding lottery is right after the gunfight. I guess they did it that way to get a crowd, but it just means that I have to stand around in a crowd of tourists while two actors point fake guns at each other.
I keep looking through the crowd for Mae, because this seems like the kind of thing she’d photograph, but maybe not. I just want to know she snuck out okay and didn’t get caught.
That’s the worst reason for her not to be here: Bruce found out she’d snuck off with me, told her bosses, and they pulled her from the job. I tell myself that can’t possibly have happened.
There’s some plot to the gunfight — someone’s the Sheriff, someone’s the outlaw, there’s a twist in the middle when a woman comes in and hollers at them to stop — but I’m not paying attention until it’s over and someone’s lying in the street, pretending to be dead.
“All right!” an announcer says, his deep voice booming over the PA. “If y’all could just step into the Gold Strike Amphitheater over here, we’ll be doing the bull selection right now.”
I head over, trying to look casual. Before I know it, Raylan’s fallen in next to me, and he nods. I nod back.
“Who you hoping for?” he asks.
“You know who,” I say.
Raylan laughs.
“Of course you are,” he says. “I’m going light. Got my fingers crossed for Train Robbery. If I can get above a seventy average, I make the finals.”
I don’t need to ride Crash Junction to make the finals, but I want to. He’s the biggest and the baddest, and I want to conquer him. It’s that simple.
“I think you got this in the bag,” I tell Raylan. “Me and you are gonna be sipping whiskey in the high-stakes poker room this time next month.”
He laughs.
“So I can lose all my money the minute I make it?” he asks. “You know what my father always said? ‘Son, the best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.’”
“Smart man,” I say.
It’s like the other night never happened. That’s how our friendship goes: sometimes we have to rough each other up a little, but it’s the nature of the beast. Can’t be around someone too long without wanting to do that.
“I ought to listen to him sometimes,” Raylan says, and then Wayne’s on the wooden stage, getting everyone’s attention.
Raylan and I are standing in the back. Up front, they bring out a bulletin board on wheels and a folding tables three boxes with holes cut in the top. The bulletin has the bull riders’ names in a line down the left, with three slots to the right of each.
Pioneer Days isn’t exactly a high-tech enterprise.
“Ladies and gentlemen, now begins the bull selection for Pioneer Days bull riding!” Wayne says, trying to stir up as much enthusiasm as he can. He gets polite applause.
“Well, what do you say we get this started?” he asks rhetorically.
Across the amphitheater, I see Bruce walk in. Mae follows a second later, and my heart does a flip in my chest.
At the very least, she got back to the motel without getting caught. Her eyes rake the crowd, and when they find me, we look at each other for a long moment before she looks away.
“Day one,” Wayne says. “First cowboy is Trevor Anderson, and he’ll be riding...”
Wayne reaches into the cardboard box and swishes his hand around.
“...Muscle Grunt!”
He pins a piece of paper that says MUSCLE GRUNT onto the board next to Trevor’s name and moves on to the next one. I’m a ways down the list, but I pay attention anyway. Someone else gets Crash Junction, but then Wayne calls out my name.
“Jackson Cody,” he says, dramatically swishing his hand in the box again. “...Train Robbery!”
I nod, but on the inside I’m pumped. Train Robbery’s good, and besides, I don’t want to ride Crash Junction first and get all tuckered out for the next two days. I’d rather save the best for last.
On day two, I get Mr. Torque, who’s okay but nothing special. I might have to lean into him some with the spurs to really get his blood up, but that’s okay.
I’m being optimistic, of course. The very best riders get thrown more often than not, and I know it’s more than likely that either Train Robbery or Mr. Torque is gonna get the best of me. I just get up and get back on the next day.
The bull selection for day three feels like it takes about a year. Time crawls at a snail’s pace, and with every name they call, I’m afraid that Crash Junction’s gonna go to someone else and I won’t get my chance.
That is, right up until Wayne calls my name. He reaches into the box and looks at the slip of paper for a moment before looking up and right at me.
“...Crash Junction!” he says.
I let out a whoop, and next to me, Raylan laughs.
“Never seen someone so excited to get his ass handed to him,” he says.
“Just you wait,” I say, grinning as Wayne pins Crash Junction next to my name on the board for day three.
On the other side of the small amphitheater, I see a camera move. As she lowers it, Mae smiles at me for half a second, and then looks away.
I crack my knuckles, the adrenaline already spiking through me the way it always does. There’s five hours until the rodeo starts and I ride Train Robbery, Mae watching.
Bring it the fuck on. I got this.
The hours crawl by, then fly, then crawl again. It feels like a high schooler sings the National Anthem for two hours, but the first block of bull riding is over in thirty seconds. I watch as much of it as I can, hanging over the barriers, looking at how each bull moves and kicks and spins, judging how each rider handles them. It’s good practice to always watch the competition.
Across the arena in a gated-off press area are Mae and Bruce. She’s snapping away, talking to him, and he’s taking notes. I keep thinking that she’s looking over at me, but it could be my imagination. Even as I’m watching, I can’t get that kiss out of my mind. Her hands in my hair. The feel of her heartbeat underneath my lips when I kissed her neck.
