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Clint snorts. “You say that about everyone.”
“Not everyone,” Tripp shoots back, still watching the arena.
More riders go. Some stay on, some don’t. Each one pulls something different from the crowd, but I catch myself watching them the way Tripp does now. Looking for the shift, the balance, the second where it either works or it doesn’t.
And then I feel it…that pull again.
Not at the rodeo…but at them.
Briggs nudges off the rail first. “We’ve got time before Clint is up.”
Clint nods. “I wanna check on my horse.”
Tripp glances at me. “You coming, or are you glued there now?”
I blink, straightening, my hands slipping from the rail. “I’m not glued.”
He huffs, already turning. “Sure.”
I follow anyway.
The noise dulls the farther we get from the arena, not gone but softer, like it’s sitting behind a wall now, instead of inside my head. The air shifts, too; less packed and suffocating.
Clint moves straight to one of the horses without hesitation, his hand coming up to run along its neck, checking it over in a way that looks automatic.
“You good, boy?” he murmurs, voice lower now. The horse nudges into him, and my chest tightens again.
Clint grabs a bucket, filling it from a spout nearby before setting it down. “Drink.”
Warm coffee and vanilla drift through the dust as he moves past me.
Tripp disappears into the trailer for a second before coming back out with a bottle and something wrapped in foil.
He holds it out toward me. “Eat.”
I blink at him. “I’m fine.”
His brow lifts slightly. “Didn’t ask.”
My lips press together, but I take it anyway. I unwrap it slowly, the smell hitting me before I even see it.
“Turkey sandwich?" I ask.
Clint smirks. “Welcome to rodeo dining.”
I take a bite without thinking too much about it, and a sound slips out of me before I can stop it.
Tripp huffs. “Told you.”
I roll my eyes, chewing. “Don’t make it weird.”
“Too late,” he mutters, not even looking at me.
My fingers tighten slightly around the foil, heat creeping up my neck, but I don’t look away this time.
A voice cuts through the space a second later.
“Hey, Clint.”
