Page 3 of Hung Up
He chuckles and tries to cover it up with a cough, and my gaze narrows at him. Shaking his head, he gestures behind him. “Just follow this hallway. You’ll pass three other checkpoints that aren’t currently occupied before you hit any of the gathering rooms. One of them will be labeled media. I suggest you make yourself at home.”
Before I can ask him what the hell he means by that, his phone starts to ring and he doesn’t bother giving me anymore of his attention as he answers it. I roll my eyes as I walk past him, following his directions. Once I find the rooms he was speaking of, I see a piece of paper taped to a door that simply reads ‘media’, scrawled with what appears to be black Sharpie.
Just as I reach for the handle, the door flies open and I startle back a few steps. A girl a few inches shorter than me looks around frantically before her gaze falls to me, scanning my outfit as I do the same to her. She’s wearing a red and black checkered flannel with a pair of dark jeans and a bandana wrapped around her neck. Once we make eye contact again, she gives me a shaky smile, smoothing down her red hair.
“I’m so sorry, my boss is riding my ass and needs me to—” She trails off, shaking her head and squaring her shoulders. “Hi, I’m Maxine, but everyone calls me Max.”
“Faith,” I say, readjusting my bag on my shoulders.
“Are you here for the PBR?” she asks, her brows furrowing as she glances down at my pantsuit.
I release a frustrated sigh, placing a hand on my hip. “I’m here covering the event, yes. Why does everyone keep looking at me like that?”
“It’s just—” She clears her throat. “It’s just that you’re not what we normally see around here.”
“What do you mean?”
Maxine smiles and surprises me as she reaches for my hand. I allow her to lead me down the hallway, toward the sound of voices. As we turn another corner, I spot a group of about five men standing in a circle, their laughter echoing off the walls. They’re all wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and hats, but only one is wearing a flannel. The other four wear long-sleeved shirts of various colors with patches on the sleeves and the fronts.
“Why hello there, Max,” one of the men says before we can walk past them. His eyebrows lift as he turns to me. “Who is your friend?”
“This is Faith,” she informs him, looking up at me with a soft smile. “She’s covering the tour, so be nice.”
The man chuckles. “I’m always a gentleman.”
“Alwaysis a bit of a stretch.” Maxine tugs my hand. “Just like youalwaysstay on ‘til the buzzer.”
The other four men laugh loudly, jostling his shoulders as she drags me away.Stay on ‘til the buzzer? What the hell have I gotten myself into?
We exit the hallway and enter a large open area underneath the stadium seating, and my eyes widen. Horses are being led through the area by rope, and off to my left is a weird-looking corral-type thing holding tiny cows. I look down at Maxine, but she stares straight ahead as she leads me toward the tunnel.
“This is what I mean,” she says once my eyes adjust to the light. The arena floor is covered in dirt, and there’s two men riding horses as they face off against a cow. I look up at the scoreboard in the middle of the arena, my brows furrowing as I read the sign.
PBR: Unleash the Beast
“What does PBR stand for?”
Maxine bites the corner of her lip. “Professional Bull-Riding.”
“Excuse me?” I sputter, my mouth falling open slightly as I turn back to the arena.
“When they said we were getting a new reporter to cover the race to the championships, we weren’t expecting a city girl.” I turn to her, and she immediately starts to backtrack. “I didn’t mean it like that, we just… Well, I guess I kind of did. I’m sorry, that’s rude of me.”
My shoulders slump. “You aren’t wrong, though. I don’t know shit about bull-riding.”
“How’d you get this assignment? Did you piss someone off?”
“No,” I say through my surprised laughter. “I just didn’t bother to ask any questions when I volunteered. I heard four months of exclusive access and blacked out.”
She bumps her shoulder into mine. “Well, I can help you. I can teach you everything you need to know about bull-riding and get you familiar with the riders currently leading the standings. Those are the only ones you’d be talking to this weekend, anyway.”
“In two and a half hours?”
“Don’t worry,” Maxine tells me as she links our arms together and leads me away from the arena. “I talk fast.”
2JESSE
SACRAMENTO
