Page 64 of Second Rodeo

“No bad blood or anything,” Hayes continues. “I was happy for him. They got married. I sat at their wedding as his best man, watched them say their vows, and took shots with him afterwards.” His voice tightens slightly. “You’re right—marriage was never something I wanted. Not for myself. But I can appreciate why others might want that.”

He pauses, his gaze distant now, staring at something I can’t see.

“My dad…” His throat works around the words, like they physically pain him. “My dad wasn’t a great father. He wasn’t a great husband. My mom left him and me when I was little. Thenhe met Seth and Scarlett’s mom and got her pregnant. Maybe he thought he’d get a do-over with her and his new kids. Maybe he thought he could fix the mess he made the first time around, be a better man. Or maybe he never even cared to try, but he didn’t change his stripes.”

Hayes lets out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “He was a shitty father to them, too. A shitty husband to their mother until she…took her own life and left all three of us to be raised by a single, fractured father.”

My chest tightens. “Hayes…” I reach up, touch his face, brushing my thumb along the sharp line of his cheekbone.

No wonder he’s closed off. No wonder he’s afraid of commitment. His only examples of family and marriage were built on abandonment and destruction. The two mothers he had, both left him in different ways and his father never showed him an example of how to be a husband.

He exhales slowly, pressing into my touch like he needs it. “Yeah. So, watching Samuel and Vanessa get married? I was happy for them. Genuinely. And it felt like a new beginning for me too. I retired shortly after, started medical school and left the whole bull riding world behind.” His eyes darken. “Then a few months later… I got the call that he’d been killed on a ride.”

My stomach plummets and I press a firm hand to his chest. “Oh my god.”

Hayes nods once, staring at the ceiling like he can still hear the echoes of that phone call. “It sucked. It was tough.” He swallows hard. “It was my ride, too. Well, would have been. That bull was a mean one, Samuel didn’t know how to handle him. He shouldn’t have been on it. I told him not to take the ride if it was with that one, but he clearly didn’t listen.”

I go still. “You were supposed to be on that bull?”

His eyes flick back to mine. “Yeah.”

I don’t know what to say. What could I possibly say to that? I do the only thing that feels right. I wrap my arms around him, press my forehead to his, and hold on.

“Well… after that, Vanessa and I kind of got back together.” Hayes’ voice is quiet, almost reluctant, like he’s pulling the words from a place he doesn’t visit often. “I think we were just thrown into it—grief does that. We were both wrecked over what happened with Samuel. I was in med school, working my ass off in Charlotte and she was in town. Despite feeling a connection with her, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere because the connection was to Sam, not her. But she wanted more. So much more, and I knew that too.”

His hand flexes against the sheets, like he’s gripping something invisible. “And I felt guilty. Constantly. For not being able to give it to her. Or maybe… for not wanting to.” He exhales sharply. “I always figured I’d be a shitty husband. A shitty father. So, I didn’t want to subject any woman or kids to that, but I felt like I had to be there for her while she recovered from Samuel’s death.”

I nod my head, because now I feel like I’m finally starting to understand him better. The deep, unresolved wounds that Hayes has been carrying since childhood. The reason he keeps women at arm’s length, always afraid of letting them know.

“When I ended things with Vanessa, she told me I’d never be able to give a woman what she really wants,” he says, voice flat, detached. “Because I’m too damaged and that I shouldn’t have started a relationship back up with her again if I didn’t know I could commit to marrying her someday.”

I freeze.

That might be one of the most fucked-up things a woman—one who was supposed to love him, who once loved his friend—could have ever said to him. And it doesn’t take much to see how deeply those words cut but also, I hear the hurt in the words she shared. I’m sure she was acting in her own pain too. A mistake made she made because she wanted to feel closer to her husband.

He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, like he’s long since accepted it.

“So, you know… she ended things. And honestly? It was the right thing for her to do. Last I heard, she got remarried a year ago. Probably happier. Probably with some guy who can give her everything she’s dreamed about that I couldn’t.”

He rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling, his expression unreadable.

I watch him in silence, my chest tight with things I don’t know how to say. The loss of his friend. The guilt that he carries which feels misplaced, but real. And Vanessa—someone he obviously cared for, maybe even loved, but could never let himself fully have.

And then there’s me.

Us.

What we did last night. What we did tonight. What we are to each other.

Will I be another Vanessa? Will I get too close and fall hard, only for him to push me away?

Will he ice me out so hard that I’m forced to be the one to walk away first? Will I end up finding my realperson, my truelove, and look back at this time with him as just another mistake I needed to make?Will I be like that woman in the brewery,talking about years gone past and how he was the best fuck of my life?

Maybe.

But for now, it’s a risk I want to take. Even as I tell myself to keep my guard up.

I stay curled on my side, watching him as he stares at nothing, both of us lost in thoughts we won’t share aloud. Tomorrow, we get remarried. And after that? I have no idea. I know what I want but it doesn’t seem like he’s capable of giving it to me and I don’t think he knows what he wants either.

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