‘Pity.’
I ignore the flirtation in his tone. ‘How about you?’ I ask instead. ‘Is this what you usually work on?’
‘It’s huge around here.’ He shrugs. ‘And this year’s shaping up to be particularly good.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Rivalry,’ he says, nodding in Beau’s direction. ‘There’s three of them duking it out for the top spot and they’re neck-and-neck after tonight. Beau Donovan’s the sentimental favourite, but you never know.’
‘Do you think he’ll have many seasons after this?’ I hate that my voice sounds strained to my own ears. Hate that I care, when in a little over a week I’ll be back in my own city, my own apartment, working on this article and thinking about the next—or better yet, on my way to DC.
‘He’s in top form,’ Nicholas says. ‘But who knows? He’s pushing the limits, in terms of age. He doesn’t need the money.’
‘No?’
‘I mean, not when you factor in his sponsorships. Plus I heard he’s already knocked back a lucrative reporting job.’
I almost spit my beer. ‘Reporting?’
‘Sure. Commentating on the event. He’s got a way about him that TV cameras just eat up; you must have noticed?’
He’s looking at me as though maybe I have a screw loose, so I smile weakly. ‘Sure.’ At that moment, Beau’s eyes find mine, and he looks like he wants to eatmeup, so my heart thumps into my ribs and I turn away again quickly, heat flushing my whole body.
‘But he turned it down?’
‘He’d need to stop riding and the word is he’s nowhere near ready.’
My stomach rolls, and I remind myself that this isn’t my business. Beau and I are involved in a meaningless fling; we each have our own lives, our own thoughts, our own wants.
‘What makes any of them ready?’ I ask seriously, the question one I realise I’ve been turning over in my mind for almost a week now.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I guess all these guys share a similar passion for the sport. They’re here because they want to be the best damn bull rider in the world. But at some point, they retire. When? Why?’
‘Depends on the rider. Injury, money, life circumstances. It’s hard on your body, hard to have a family when you’re travelling around like this. Like anything, you do it till you don’t.’
Which isn’t overly helpful, because I don’t know which of those circumstances—if any—will apply to Beau.
‘You’re from theStandard?’ he asks, changing the subject.
I nod and he lets out a low whistle. ‘Impressive.’
I guess it is. As far as major papers go, it’s got a decent reputation.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a couple of women in tiny denim shorts make their way toward Beau. I ignore the knotting in my stomach, the pounding of jealousy. Beau isn’t Kirk, and Kirk didn’t hook up with random women in bars anyway. At least, not as far as I know. That’s the thing about betrayal though. You can never believe any of it was as they said. Once trust is broken, it’s broken completely, and it doesn’t matter what Kirk said about his feelings for me, his wife, about how broken up he was about everything, it was impossible to believe a word that came out of his mouth. It’s impossible to look back on the time we spent together, the times that were objectivelygood, and see that through anything other than a film of heartbreak and hurt.
I place the beer down after only two sips, offer another smile in Nicholas’s direction and say, ‘I’m going to head back and type up some notes. I’ll see you at the next event, maybe.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Thanks for the drink.’
I don’t look in Beau’s direction as I weave through the crowd, toward the front door.
An hour later, I’m in my hotel room trying to come up with some kind of story that doesn’t hint at what Beau and I have been doing behind closed doors, when my phone buzzes.
Beau.
You up?
Just that single text message makes my skin flush with heat, my insides tighten with remembered—and sought—pleasures.
