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"Second?" I asked.
J.D. snarled under his breath. "Asshole saw her give me a kiss on the cheek. For getting her a sponsor, ya know?"
I grunted at that, because I didn't. I also didn't really care, and the guys had just stepped into the light of our fire, letting me see their faces. Like us, all of them wore jeans and boots. From what she'd said, I could make a wild guess that this was the local group that had given her a hard time, and the scowl on J.D.'s face was making me think I was right.
"Guys," Cody told us, "just ignore them."
"These the ones that gave you shit?" I asked her.
Her eyes jumped up to me a little too fast, but she didn't say no, and that was all the answer I needed. So, storming toward the closest one, I pushed right into his face. I was big enough that he had to take a step back.
"You a bull rider?" I asked.
"I'm her ex," he said.
I scoffed at that. "You make it sound like that matters. You one of the bull riders that tried to convince her to give up?"
"Gonna try to say that you're into her for her talents?" he asked.
So I shoved. Yeah, I hadn't quite dealt with that testosterone problem completely. So what? This asshole needed a little shove. The issue was that his buddies all stepped up the exact moment he stepped back. And then my crew was beside me. J.D., Renato, Tanner, Jorge, and Isaac - and they all looked as mad as I felt.
"No one messes with the sweetheart of the PBR," Tanner warned them.
"Shit," the guy in front of him said. "What are you, some other rookie?"
I smiled, and it was the kind that would make J.D. proud. "No, he's a bullfighter. Trust me, these fuckers aren't scared of shit."
Jorge grabbed the guy before him and pulled the idiot right into his face. "I can shove around a two-thousand-pound animal. You? You ain't shit. Now apologize to our friend, or we'll show you what happens when there's no one around to fine us a few grand."
"My treat," J.D. told them. "I got a few mil that needs spending for a good cause."
But Cody groaned and shoved between me and the guy I was staring down. "Go home, Cole," she snapped. "Stop worrying about who I'm sleeping with, because it's none of your business anymore."
"I showed you how to ride a bull," he told her.
"My daddy taught me how," she shot back.
And then the dick made the biggest mistake of them all. He pushed her - hard enough that Cody stumbled onto her ass. That was more than I could take, but J.D. was faster. His fist connected with the guy before him. I shoved mine into Cole's gut. On my other side, Tanner had ducked, coming up behind his guy for a punch in the kidney. J.D. hit his guy again, then spun for number seven, evening up the odds nicely.
I dared to glance back to check on Cody, and someone managed to land a punch on my jaw. It stung, but not too bad. All I cared about was making sure Cody wasn't coming in to help, because she would. Thankfully, Aubree and Shelby had her arms, and Hannah had planted her mass in front of her. That meant I was free to burn off a little of this tension I'd been trying to ignore.
From the looks of it, I wasn't the only one. Tanner was damned near keeping up with J.D. Jorge was pummeling some pudgy guy. Isaac and Renato were far enough away that I couldn't see them, but none of the local yokels were standing. Not anymore.
"You," J.D. said, throwing a kick into a guy's gut. "Do not." Another kick. "Fuck with my rookie!" he screamed - but Tanner grabbed him before he could connect again.
"He's down," Tanner said. "You won, J.D. Let it go."
"He fucking hurt her."
"I'm fine!" Cody yelled, her high-pitched voice sounding worried.
J.D. just pointed at Cole. "I told you. I warned you. That girl? She's my friend, get me? You hurt her again, and I will kill you, asshole."
"J.D.!" Cody snapped.
He finally stopped, but he still wouldn't look away. Standing so close to him, I knew that hadn't been an empty threat. Not from J.D. Seeing that much rage in his eyes cooled down my own like someone had just thrown a bucket of ice on all of us.
"I'm fine," Cody insisted, finally getting free from her girlfriends to move beside him. She slid her hand in his and tugged lightly, easing him back. "J.D., I'm fine. Sticks and stones, you know?"
"I don't do bullies," he said, his voice soft enough that it wasn't meant to carry.
"I'm a big girl." She glanced over at me. "And I don't want y'all to get hurt for me, ok?"
"That's not how it works," I told her.
Jorge reached up to clasp her shoulder. "Mess with one of us, and you mess with all of us, Cody."
Tanner chuckled as he scratched at the back of his neck. "Guess this means you're stuck with us, huh?"
But it was my eye he caught. I canted my head to the side and shrugged, making it clear that I wasn't upset about it. He almost smiled, but it felt like he understood what I meant. The guys were right. Somewhere in Tulsa, this feisty little girl had become ours. All of ours, and I wasn't really sure what that meant, but I was honestly ok with it.
Because Cody deserved this. She deserved to have friends willing to throw down for her. Guys willing to step up, girls willing to giggle, and more than all of that, this girl deserved a real chance to prove herself. Not to have us carry her. Not to be held back because she wasn't one of the boys.
Cody Jennings deserved to fight her own fights, but she also needed to know that from now on, she had backup. Maybe I'd never really spent a lot of time with half these guys, but clearly we had a lot more in common than I thought, and not just her. Because we'd just stood up for what was right, and with seven guys on the other side, well, that proved that not everyone agreed.
"Get out of here," I told Cole, "and take your buddies with you. But don't forget this. Cody's off limits. If we hear you've given her or her friends shit again?" I pointed over at J.D. "She'll let him go."
J.D. leaned down in the guy's face. "The word 'slut?’ Take it out of your vocabulary. I don't like it, get me?"
"But she -" Cole tried.
J.D. just leaned closer. "Don't care. Unless you're a virgin, you ain't got room to talk. So is that the deal? You all incel, boy? You pissed because you can't get none, and she's got half the country beating off to her face on TV?" He paused, but Cole didn't say a thing. Evidently, that was the wrong answer. "Are you?" J.D. demanded. "You a virgin?"
"No," Cole finally answered.
And J.D. smiled. "Then forget that word, because if you say it again, I'll pull your tongue out of your mouth with my bare hands."
The scariest part was that even I believed him.
