Page 3 of The Hearts We've Broken
“Yes, sir.” My chin was still dipped down, but my eyes flicked up toward his. “I understand if you don’t need help or don’t want to hire a stranger.”
“Do you have bartending experience?”
I nodded. I’d done some bartending when I was in school at Sapphire Gulch University. The college bars tended to be packed, so I knew my way around a bar. I could hold my own practically anywhere.
He paused for a beat, tilting his head to the side as he stroked his short beard. “When can you start?”
I blinked a few times. My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out at first. “A-as soon as possible.”
“Why don’t you come by tomorrow night, Juniper, and we’ll get you started? My name’s John, but everyone ’round here calls me Rudy.” He reached out his hand, and I took it. “Welcome to Miles City.”
CHAPTER TWO
mikey
I’ll see you around? Maybe we can do this again sometime?” the busty brunette I’d just hooked up with asked as I tried to usher her out of my trailer as quickly as possible.
Doubtful.
“Yeah, see you around.”
She looked over her shoulder to shoot me a grin and a flirty little wave. I returned a fake smile and closed the door, my shoulders immediately slumping as I let out a sigh.
Reminder to self: double-check girls with the hot-crazy scalebeforetaking them home.
Don’t get me wrong, she was cute, but she was also a stage-five clinger. Most girls understood that I was here for a good time, not a long time, and they were okay with that. But some got to the point of being borderline stalkerish. It only took a few of those for me to stop giving out my phone number.
Luckily, most of the crazy ones were only passingthrough; I didn’t mess with locals. Well, sometimes I messed with locals, but only when they were in it for the same thing as me. One night. Or on very, very rare occasions, a week max.
The guys gave me a lot of shit for it. They’d joke,Man, you’re thirty. Have youeverhad a girlfriend?Or they’d twist it around to say hell would freeze over before I’d ever be in a stable relationship.
They failed to consider that Jake was twenty-eight and still single. I mean, shit, Reid didn’t actually start dating his girlfriend, Isabelle, until he was twenty-seven, and I’d never even seenHayden so much aslookat a girl. Colter was the only one out of our group who was on a semi-traditional path, meeting his wife, Ellison, when he was twenty-six. I also had to cut him some slack since the first girl he was engaged to at twenty-four didn’t work out.
I just considered myself a late bloomer. Besides, I was already married to the thrill of bull riding. And I wasn’t a cheater.
In a couple weeks, we’d be heading down to Texas for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and man, was I ready. For the bull ridingandthe women. Mostly the bull riding, though. I was entering this season with a vengeance.
At the age of thirty, I was supposedly on the downhill slope of my bull riding career. At least, according to the media, I was. They assumed because I wasn’t ready to settle down, I was distracted, and as a result would continue to have a mediocre career—never quite making it to a gold buckle—until it eventually fizzled out. They claimed I’d be better off retiring now while I still had a shred of dignity.
Everything they said was bullshit, though. Yes, thirty may have been the average age most bull riders retired, but, in my opinion, I hadn’t sustained severe enough injuries to retire. I was determined I’d make it to a world championship one of these days and prove them all wrong. With or without a ball and chain.
Besides, last year I’d made it to the NFR, so that was already proving them wrong. You don’t get to the top fifteen in the world with amediocre career.
After throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I hopped in my pickup to drive over to Reid’s place. There was a slight chill in the air when I escorted that girl out of my trailer, so I reached into the backseat to grab a hoodie to put on when I arrived.
The guys were all gathering to get some practice in before we hit the road. I technically didn’t have to be there since my training was a bit different from theirs, but I liked the company. And they liked having someone to open the chute.
Gravel crunched under my tires as I pulled into Reid’s driveway. Hayden and Colter’s pickups were already here, but Jake’s wasn’t, so at least I wasn’t the last to arrive. I shrugged on my sweatshirt and shut the door to my vehicle, not bothering to lock it. The last time I actually happened to lock the doors, my keys were inside. I liked to think I learned from my drunken mistakes…at least sometimes.
As I approached the arena, the sound of hooves against the dirt and some whoops and hollers from the boys greeted me.
“Nice of you to show up!” Jake called out to me in a teasing manner.
Well, shit. He must have gotten a ride with Hayden.
I threw my hand up in a wave, not bothering to walk any faster. “What can I say? I was preoccupied.” My lips quirked up in a grin.
“No surprise there.” Hayden chuckled.
