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“What’re you doing here, Chelsea?” he asked with a guarded tone to his voice.
“Well, uh… I’m visiting my family, and I saw the advertisements for the rodeo,” I answered lightly.
“Having fun?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?” he asked.
“Well, I just… was really hoping I could see you.”
“Mission accomplished.”
I nodded my head and swallowed hard, and for the first time since I’d sat on that couch he darted his eyes away and danced them around the trailer. I knew all the questions flying through his head, and I wished he would just ask them. He deserved to know the answers, and I honestly wanted to give them to him. I’d built up a decent career for myself after the fashion scene in Paris took me under its wing, and I was being offered the chance to create my own fashion line to debut this year at fashion week. I wanted to tell him all about it, about the dresses and the pant suits and the flamboyant shirts. I wanted to say him that I was bringing cowgirl chic to the streets of the biggest fashion city in the world, and I wanted him to tell me he was proud of me.
I wanted Flynn to be proud of what I’d accomplished.
“How long you in town?” he asked.
“A week.”
“A week...” he trailed off.
“Yeah…” I sighed. “Do you, um… do you still ride often? That was a hell of an impressive turn you did out there.”
“Nah. First time I’ve been on a bull in years,” he murmured.
“Really? That was badass for it being years. Why’d you stop?”
“My heart just isn’t in it anymore. Not since college,” he admitted. “Now, I raise the rough stock for the rodeos and train new riders who have the same fire. They ain’t got that fire, I don’t train them. People get killed when they don’t have that fire.”
“Not… since college?” I asked.
“Yeah. My heart hasn’t been in it since then.”
“But you were riding after-”
I watched his flaring eyes pan towards me, and every single fear I was hoping didn’t exist were confirmed. He’d stopped riding after graduation. After I left him that morning for Paris. Bull riding was his passion, the one thing he was doing to help pay for his college. And he was damn good, too! There wasn’t a session he
rode that was under six seconds, and he was the only rider in the entire state who never had to do a re-ride because of faulty equipment. Hell, even when the equipment did fail, he still held on and completed his ride!
If there was any human being on this planet that was born for bull riding, it was Flynn.
And he’d given it up when I left.
“Oh, Flynn. I’m so sorry.”
I put my head in my hands and felt tears crest my eyes. I never meant for him to stop. I never meant for him to get hurt. I knew how badly I panicked over him riding and I knew that it got on his nerves, and I figured he would just continue riding without some woman worrying over him in a trailer!
“I never thought you would’ve stopped riding,” I breathed.
My palms were catching my tears, and I felt my neck begin to flush, and all the embarrassment of showing up at this damn rodeo and trying to see him came flooding to the forefront. I felt like an idiot for thinking I could see him… for thinking he would just listen to the answers, I had for him, and everything would be alright.
I was an idiot to come here.
But before I could get off the couch, I felt it dip down beside me before a warm sensation began to trickle over my knee. I sniffed and dropped my hands from my vision and saw Flynn’s hand sprawled out on my skin, and my jaw began to tremble before I felt something underneath it. There was a pressure before my face began to move, and my puffy red eyes connected with Flynn’s green emeralds while tears ricocheted down my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn. I never meant-”
