Page 14 of Drunk Dialing

Because if he was, he wasn’t the man he wanted to be.

He wanted to be the man that Treat seemed to be looking for. God help him, if he wasn’t, he was going to…kick his own ass. No way could he kick Treat’s. Physically or emotionally. The man was a rock.

He just wanted to bring something to the table, dammit.

He took a deep breath, then let it out. He was a good rider. He had sponsors.

His phone dinged.

Where did you go?

Heading for my truck, goof. I got a meet w/Angela about getting a check for the last commercial at 10. Lunch?

Sounds like a plan, baby. You want me to come to you, or will you park your truck here?

I’ll just head over to you.

Unless there was a need for Treat to be back at the fairgrounds today.

You got business here today?

Yeah. I’m interested in buying some calves, maybe a colt or two.

Then head my way. We’ll grab something here.

They could wander around the Expo, look at all the vendors. Just fuck off for a little while.

They hadn’t done something like that in a long time. Maybe ever, when he thought about it. Just walked around like two dudes.

It had been too hard really, to appear like guys, like friends. He wanted contact. He wanted to reach out and just touch Treat’s wrist or call him baby.

Hell, he just wanted to look, to stare at Treat and let the world be jealous of the fact that this man cared for him.

Oh, he knew he couldn’t. That was a death sentence at worst, and a sponsorship disaster at best. God knew, he couldn’t afford that.

But how was he gonna do this? How could he even try to do this?

Jake was gonna have to learn. He was gonna have to learn how to not look and not touch and not say the things he wanted to say unless they were in private.

It was a heavy damn weight to bear, but he was worth it. Treat was worth it.

All right, I’ll get a shower and get ready and head out that direction. You holler when you get done with your sponsor meeting, and we’ll hook up.

Lord, have mercy.

Sounds good. I’ll see you around noon.

He stuck his phone in his shirt pocket, leaned back and closed his eyes a second.

Every so often Jake thought that the world was moving too fast for him. That everything was zipping around, and he couldn’t quite focus. If he stopped to think, even for a second, he was behind.

And so he just stumbled through everything, focused only on keeping his feet.

Nobody else seemed to be there with him. Everybody else seemed to know what the fuck was going on.

But not him.

He was just wandering from one eight-second ride to the other, from one check to the next. From one arena to another, praying he didn’t get anything broke, that his truck stayed running, and that he got a rank bull.

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