Page 50 of Reckless Skye
Even as he tried to calm his mind, those familiar nerves kicked in. But TJ didn’t let them take over. He slipped his AirPods out of his pocket, put them into his ears. He turned on noise cancelling, to avoid outside distraction, and hit play on his Post Malone playlist as he walked towards the Equidome.
He had a few hours to relax and prepare. He’d visit the sports medicine folks in their mobile unit and have his bad hip massaged and his shoulders taped, maybe shit talk with the others in the back while he coated his bull rope with his personal rosin, glycerine, and oil mix.
And then he’d leave it all on the dirt.
TJ was walking through the barn that had doubled as last year’s locker room when he saw a group of guys up ahead. They were unloading their gear bags and, even though he had his earbuds in, he didn’t have to hear them to know they were talking shit.
‘Boys,’ he said as he dropped his bag on the floor and popped out a single earbud.
‘Triple J!’ A fellow bull rider, Dale Smith, whooped. At twenty, Dale had years of riding still ahead of him. He was a good rider, a little cocky. But TJ figured they all were; they had to be. ‘Ready to get your ass handed to ya, old man?’
‘Why? Is Da Silva here?’ TJ mocked.
The others sniggered.
One of the rodeo clowns, Chad Jameson, was sitting on a rickety chair and looking in a small mirror while he slathered his face in white paint. ‘Da Silva broke his hip in Milwaukee last week. He’s out.’
TJ’s head snapped up. ‘Shit, really?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘Which bull?’
‘The brindle motherfucker with one horn.’
‘Freight Train,’ one of the pickup men supplied. ‘Da Silva was in the well. Lost his balance, but his hand got stuck in the bull rope. Bull’s hind legs caught him, dragged him under. Son of a bitch is lucky he only broke a hip. I for sure thought that arm was gonna come off.’
‘Fuck.’
They all nodded.
‘You know Da Silva, though. He fucking belly-crawled away while the guys distracted the bull. Stood up, limped off the dirt on one leg.’ Chad mimicked dragging his leg behind him, making the others laugh, despite the morbid topic of conversation.
Ride through the pain was a sacred rule of bull riding. Guys rode injured all the time. TJ himself had ridden with a broken collarbone, fractured ribs; once he’d had to cut his boot open to get a swollen foot in before a ride. He’d taped the boot shut again, but the ride had been excruciating, and when he’d dismounted, the jump to the ground had made the injury worse. It had taken two surgeries to fix the damage, and the nerves in the bottom of his foot still burned.
Unlike Dale, after more than a decade of bull riding, at the age of thirty-three, TJ understood that his days on the pro circuit were numbered, if only because his body wouldn’t keep up for much longer.
Still, he’d give ’em hell while he could.
He listened to the conversation with one ear as he tied off his bull rope and rosined it. So, he heard when a loud wolf whistle pierced the conversation, followed by a familiar voice. ‘TJ, that pretty little thing from the hotel gonna be here tonight?’
He didn’t even look up at Matthew Savage, just said, ‘Yup.’
‘Think she’ll wanna try out the broncs for a change of pace?’
TJ’s blood heated. He felt the flush of it sear his veins. But knowing that Matthew was just giving him shit, he forced himself to remain calm. ‘Probably not. She’s not a buckle bunny.’
Dale, having overheard the conversation, asked, ‘So, what? You got a girl now?’ He looked almost disappointed, as only a twenty-year-old could, as if his personal hero had let him down.
TJ couldn’t blame him. While some of the guys had girlfriends and even wives, most of them were single – and they all took full advantage of their unattached status. TJ included. ‘Nah. She’s passing through. But I’m gonna try to fly out and visit her when I can. This one’s a keeper, man.’
‘She hot?’ Dale asked.
‘Fucking beautiful,’ TJ replied.
But Dale, having obviously lost trust in TJ’s sanity, looked to Matthew for confirmation.
‘Oh, dude. Cadillac,’ Matthew affirmed.
