Page 11 of Let Her Buck

I don’t speak for a second. My hands curl into fists against my knees.

“I know it’s not the same,” I say finally. “But I get it. To an extent, I understand what it feels like to despise something you used to love, yet be unable to totally turn away from it.”

She glances at me, brows lifting.

“I used to love the idea of marriage, you know—a family of my own.” I shrug, ignoring the knots in my stomach. Being vulnerable doesn’t come easy for me, never has. But something about Laney touches the rawest part of my soul. I want to bare myself to her, just as she has to me.

“I never had a family. Not really. Grew up in the system, bouncing from house to house. Sometimes good, sometimes real bad. I used to look at kids my age and wish I had what they did, a family. So I chased it. I met a girl and we hit it off. I thought I could finally have that one thing I always wished for. But she ended up cheating on me. She got pregnant and they got married. He left her eight months later, heavily pregnant.”

“What?” Laney gasps, staring at me in disbelief.

I shrug. “After that, I never thought of marriage the same way. I thought having a family wasn’t meant for me. The one thing that felt like mine was the ride. It gave me something I could hold on to. Something that didn’t leave.”

“You love it,” she says, quietly. Not a question. A truth.

“Yeah…it’s all the companion I need.”Or so I thought.“The risk, the rhythm, the fight to stay on a beast that could crush you in a second. I know it sounds messed up, but it’s where I feel closest to…I don’t know. Something real.”

She doesn’t answer right away. The Ferris wheel clicks beneath us, dipping slowly.

“It scares me,” she says. “Watching someone I care about get on the back of a bull. Knowing what can happen.”

“I want you there, Laney,” I say. “I know it’s a lot to ask. But I want you to see it through my eyes. To understand why I keep getting back on.”

She bites her lip, thinking. “I’m not sure I can,” she says with a soft sigh, shaking her head slowly. “You know, earlier…a rider was thrown off, and all I could see was my papa’s body flying in the air. What if…”

“I’m not going to die just hours after meeting the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life,” I say, chuckling when she rolls her eyes playfully at me. “I’m serious…I’ll do my darndest possible best to make it to the finish line.”

I mean it. I won’t go and die now. Not when I’ve just found something to live for.

Laney doesn’t say anything for a while, but I can see the battle going on inside her head

“I’m not asking you to love it, Laney,” I say gently. “Just…be there. For me.”

“And then what?” she whispers. “What happens when you ride off to the next town? When the lights fade and the fairgrounds are empty?”

The ache in her voice guts me.

“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I know this—what just happened up there…” I nod toward the sky. “That wasn’t nothing. You felt it. So did I.”

She looks down at her hands. “It was supposed to just be a fleeting memory.”

“Maybe it’s more than that.”

She sighs, like she’s holding the weight of a thousand what-ifs. “Sweetheart Bend is my home. My whole life’s here. It’s where my friends are. Sadie. The music. Everything that ever mattered.”

“I don’t have a home,” I say. “Never did. Not until tonight.”

Her eyes flash up to mine, wide and uncertain.

I lean forward just enough for our knees to brush. “I’m not asking for forever, Laney. Just tonight. And then we’ll just…see what happens.”

She swallows, hard. “You make it real hard to say no, cowboy.”

“Good,” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her knuckles. “Because I’m not planning on letting you go just yet.”Or ever.

The wheel lurches softly, and we start our descent back to the ground. The night feels heavier now, like the air’s thicker, like something’s shifted between us.

Maybe it has.

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