Page 21 of Kicking Up Dust

“The pretty brunette with the green hoodie,” I tell him, nodding at the gateman and settling my weight onto the back of the very angry bull beneath me. I can’t focus on anything else because I am all of a sudden 110% sure I don’t want to be a bull rider anymore.

The gates open and the bull shoots out of the chute, immediately trying to buck me off.

One second: I see Blair’s tear-filled eyes as she over-explains our baby in my motel room and begs me to believe her.

Two seconds: I picture her raising that baby alone because a bull has crushed my skull or ribs and put me straight into a coma, or worse.

The bull twists beneath me as the neon clock hits three seconds and I think about Maddox. What would he do? What was the right thing to do?

Four seconds, and it’s obvious: I’ve gotta retire.

At five seconds, I almost lose my grip, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get my full eight seconds out of my last ride. Plus, my girl’s watching me and I still wanna impress her.

Six seconds, and a new mental picture enters my mind. Blair and a faceless little one running around with Rainy and catching fireflies in the evening light while Maddie lights a bonfire and Jamie makes burgers on his porch. Blair in my lap, watching them play with a smile on her face and a hand on her round-again belly.

Seven seconds and everything snaps into place. The clarity I’ve been seeking every night on the roofs of various buildings around the country. My purpose.

Eight seconds. The buzzer sounds and I hop off the bull, darting for the fence. The bull wranglers distract the animal long enough for me to get away. They corral it out of the arena while I dart back toward my woman with a giant grin, plastering a wet kiss on her forehead.

“Let’s get out of here.”

The sound of the windshield wipers fills the otherwise silent cab of my pickup as we ride back to the hotel, and that’s mostly my fault because my head’s whirling a hundred miles a minute with things I’ve gotta do.

I’ve gotta quit smoking. And all the other shit too.

I’ve gotta go see Maddox and ask if I can come home… if we can.

Well, before that, I also probably need to convince Blair to come back to Montana with me. I don’t know what her life in California is like or if she’d want to leave it, but I need to be by her side for this more than I’ve ever needed anything.

I should probably buy some books on how to be a good dad. I’m not the best reader, but shit can get confusing with so many different opinions on the internet, so I think books would be better. Plus, it’s a lot harder to publish a book with your opinions on a topic than it is to type them into Reddit, so surely that provides some level of reliability.

And Blair probably needed a lot of stuff too. I didn’t know what… hopefully the books would help with that, too. But she’d definitely need… things.

“Do you have anything you need right now?” I finally snap out of it and ask, turning my attention from the road for a second. “Like… I don’t know… are you craving anything? I can go get you anything you’d like.”

Blair’s lips twist as I turn my truck into the motel parking lot, and I think there’s a joke I’m not getting, but she doesn’t elaborate when I ask again. I put it in park and turn toward her. She’s fidgeting with her fingers again. I notice she does that a lot. The skin around her nails is all rough. I take her hands in one of mine to stop her from doing further damage.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped, you know? If you want to be involved, I’m definitely happy to let you be, but that doesn’t mean I expect you to rush out to buy me whatever I’m craving or like, go to the appointments or anything. I know you’re busy and you travel a lot for your job⁠—”

“I’m retiring,” I tell her, more sure of this choice than I’ve ever been of anything else.

But she just looks confused and exasperated as she finally looks up from her hands and over to me.

“Colt, twenty-six is too young to retire.”

I raise a brow at her. My age wasn’t on the list of things we’d discussed during our romp all those nights ago. Her cheeks pink as she comes to the same realization.

“Your age is practically public knowledge,” she grumbles, and I grin at the petulance. My girl likes her research.

“Lots of bull riders retire by twenty-six.”

She gives me a look like she knows better, but I highly doubt she does. I’d bet my left nut that the age bull riders retire wasn’t a part of her incessant Googling.

“Come on, let’s go inside. I’ve got about a million and ten questions for you.”

Blair reaches for her door handle while I turn off the truck.

“Don’t think so, pretty girl. When you’re with me, you don’t touch door handles.”