Page 9 of Hung Up
Jesse’s eyebrows furrow despite the sly smile pulling on his stupidly tempting lips.Of course the cockiest guy here has a reason to be.He rests his chin in his hand and studies me, and I find myself shifting and averting my gaze. I pick up my pen and draw a random doodle on my paper before he breaks the silence.
“I do have to get going. Have a ride and all that.” He pushes away from the table and slides out of his chair, but I refuse to look up. “Thank you for humoring me. I know that you already knew all there was to know about me.”
That causes my brows to lift as I tilt my head up to look at him. “I’d say your reputation precedes you, but I’m a terrible liar. Best of luck on your ride tonight, Pretty Boy. Tell Kai I’ll be waiting for him when he’s done.”
“Saving the best for last?” He pulls the door open but keeps his eyes on me.
“Something like that.”
Jesse beams and tips his hat at me before slipping out of the room.
The tension I didn’t know I was carrying leaves my shoulders the second I hear the door latch behind him. Slumping back in my chair, I run my hand down my face for a brief moment before glancing down at my blank notepad. Clearly, jotting down notes so I wasn’t going into this interview blind and stupid wasn’t going to happen.
That damn cowboy.
Realistically, I know I have no one to blame but myself for being so easily distracted. I let his smooth-talking suaveness awaken the confrontational, can’t-let-anyone-else-get-in-the-last-word part of me. Is it a defense mechanism? That’s what my therapist says, anyway. But is it really? I don’t know. Jury is still out.
What I do know is that I need to lock it down. I cannot let everything that led up to this point get in the way of me doing my job. Not my lack of knowledge, not my inability to listen fully, not the sign on my forehead that reads ‘I don’t belong here’, and certainly not these damn bull riders. Do I have something to prove? Not necessarily. If I do, it’s to myself that I can still step out of my comfort zone and complete any project or assignment that’s handed to me. And maybe to Alicia, too. And my team. And my father.
Well fuck me. Maybe I do have something to prove.
A sudden knock on the door causes me to jump, glancing over my shoulder. My brows furrow as I slide out of my chair and make my way over, wondering if the door is locked and Maxine can’t get back in. But when I pull the door open, relief flows through me in waves as I see that familiar, shiny, dark brown hair.
“Couldn’t let you go through this alone, could I?” Rylie throws her arms around me before I can stop her. “And what are you wearing? You know where you are, right?”
“I do now,” I grumble, peeling myself away from her embrace. “I didn’t need saving, you know.”
Rylie shrugs as she leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms in front of herself. “I’m not here to save you. I’m here strictly in a friend capacity. And to give you this.”
She extends a folded piece of paper I didn’t realize she had been carrying. I flip it open and glance over the contents. It’s a schedule with the times and locations of all the rides, along with names of contacts for media, should I need assistance, and my flight and hotel bookings for each stop along the way. Folding it back up, I turn and toss it on top of my notebook before noticing that Rylie is still leaning in the doorway.
“Do you need an invitation?”
“I thought we could go watch. You’ll learn a lot more out there than you will in here.”
Tipping my head back, I glance up at the ceiling for a moment to prepare myself. Even though I’ve been doing this for years, despite the fact that I have been on the field for something as big as the Super Bowl and on the bench for a Stanley Cup final game, loud crowds can sometimes get the better of me. Not in the ‘I’m about to have a panic attack’ type of way, more the ‘can I just get one moment of quiet to think, please’ kind of way. However, Rylie doesn’t give me more than a few seconds to prepare as she grabs my hand and drags me out of the media room.
The second we step out of the room, my senses are overwhelmed. There are people milling about while others are running, horses’ hooves smacking against the concrete floor. So many side conversations are happening that everyone has to keep talking louder to be heard over the people around them, and it only gets worse once the cheering starts from the stands. Rylie’s hand is wrapped tightly in mine as she maneuvers usthrough the throng of workers and riders, pushing her way through so we can get to the tunnel that leads out to the arena.
Blinding lights hit my eyes, and I shield them with my hand for a moment before my pupils can adjust. But once they do? I’m greeted by a sight I can safely say I have never seen before. Across the arena from us, past all the dirt and cheering fans, there’s what appears to be a holding area—which, thanks to Max, I know is called the chute. Because not only is there a bull thrashing around inside it, there’s a rider holding onto the side rails as he lowers himself down as carefully as possible.
I cast a glance up at the jumbotron and see Kai’s name plastered on it with his stats of the season thus far. Alongside it? The name of the bull he drew for tonight, along with the bull’s stats: only one rider in the last three years has stayed on for the full eight. Just as I bring my focus back to Kai, the door flies open, and the bull comes tearing out, throwing and contorting its body in all sorts of ways to try to get the rider off its back. Truthfully, I can’t even fully describe what I’m watching. What I do know is that I’m in complete awe. The way his body moves with the bull, how calm and focused he appears? Couldn’t be me.
The sound of the buzzer startles me slightly and Rylie laughs from her spot next to me. Kai somehow gets himself off the bull unscathed, rolling in the dirt for a moment before he leaps to his feet. Others begin to usher the bull back into the enclosure just as Kai turns to the stands, grabs his hat, and chucks it into the air. The noise coming from the crowd is deafening.
“Go interview your boy,” Rylie tells me, bumping her shoulder into my own to get my attention. “Alicia only wanted you to get your feet wet tonight, so one written interview is fine. Next weekend is when you’ll really start.”
“That would’ve been nice to know before I spent the last two hours of my life trying to cram in all this information,” Icomplain, spinning on my heel to make my way to the other end of the arena for my interview.
Rylie calls after me, “If you had checked your phone, you would’ve known.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn the corner and begin the walk to the other end of the arena. The closer I get, the more the crowd down below switches from those in hats and boots to those with chaps and vests. I spot Kai talking to who I believe to be Wyatt on his right, and on his left is none other than Jesse. Plastering on a smile, I approach the trio.
“That was a great ride, Kai,” I say, making all three men turn and look at me. “Do you have a minute?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, kid,” Jesse says as he bumps Kai’s shoulder. “She’s saving the best for last.”
He turns to me and winks, but before I have the opportunity to reply, Kai says, “Then why does she want to talk to me now?”
