Page 2 of Kicking Up Dust

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I tell her, grinning as I eat up the rest of the space between us. Or, most of it, anyway. The way her shoulders are curved in and her hands are twisted together tell me to at least keep some of the distance. “How’d you know this was my truck?”

I should probably be a bit more worried about that, but she’s biting her bottom lip again and she looks too fucking cute to be a stalker. I stub out my practically new cigarette on the tire of my truck and slip it back in the pack for later.

“Stephanie,” she says, as though that’s all the explanation that’s needed. That must be her other friend’s name. “She’s an Insta-sleuth.”

Her smile looks apologetic, but I’m just standing here wondering when the last time I posted a picture of my truck on Instagram was. It had to have been a couple years ago when I first bought the damn thing. Someone on my team does most of the posting for me now.

“There was a lot of scrolling,” Blair says, like she can read my mind. “Look, it’s late, and I’m sure you probably weren’t expecting me to just hang out by your truck like some sort of psycho killer, but I didn’t realize you didn’t just save your number in my phone, so when I closed my apps, I lost your number, and you probably think I’m weird as hell, especially because this is like, the first time you’ve even heard me talk. I just stared at you earlier and I swear, I’m not usually such a creeper and oh my god, Blair, shut uuuup.”

She covers her face with her hands as I chuckle at her.

“Don’t shut up. I’m enjoying myself,” I tell her. I want to reach out and take her hands away from her face, but if I touch her, I think I’ll do something weird and overly intimate like pull her in for a hug or something.

Blair huffs, finally letting me see her pretty face again and pouting up at me. I don’t think she even means to jut her bottom lip out like that, but maybe she uses it like I use my dimples. Regardless, it’s doing a good job.

“Can we just go back to your motel?”

I raise my brows at her forwardness. Not that I’m judging her, I’m just surprised. “I promised you dinner and you’re trying to steal my virtue?”

“I’d imagine that ship sailed a long time ago,” she retorts, crossing her arms. Her eyes track over me quickly, but not so quickly I don’t notice. My tattoos are, mostly, on full display now. She rolls her eyes when she sees me grin like a smug bastard.

“What gave it away? My devilish good looks or how I rode the bull?”

“Your ridiculous hat, actually.”

I pull the cap off my head and flip it around so I can read what it says. I’ve got so many I go between that I can’t even remember which one I grabbed out of my truck today.

If you’ve got a boat, I’ve got a throat.

I chuckle at it, same as I do with every cap that winds up on my head. They’re a bit cringey and nonsensical, but they make me laugh, and that’s all I really care about.

“Well, do you have a boat, or…?”

She scrunches her nose and twists her lips, like it’s taking everything in her to hide that I’ve amused her. All it succeeds in doing is making her look like a bunny rabbit.

“No, unfortunately, a boat wouldn’t fit in my dorm.”

“It’s a shame how small they make those nowadays.”

“Quite,” she says with a grin. “Perhaps we could make some other sort of arrangement.”

“I’m all ears, baby,” I quip back with a smile to match hers. This back-and-forth is fun. I don’t usually spend this much time just… talking with the people I take to bed.

“How about this: If you’ve got a motel where we can get out of here before it starts raining, I’ve got time to kill before the girls and I have to head back to school tomorrow morning.”

I bark out a laugh and shake my head, walking her around to the passenger side of the truck.

“We’ll have to work on your rhyming skills,” I tell her, pulling open the door for her.

TWO

BLAIR

I blame the alcohol.

There’s no other plausible excuse for me having the sudden courage to proposition a champion bull rider after waiting outside his truck like some stalker freak for an hour.

I also blame my vagina, which has been especially needy lately.