Page 6 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

Chapter Five

Colt

The first thing I remember when I wake up is that Allison got a concussion. My eyes open, and I look around the hospital room, which is empty.

Instantly, I’m worried that something worse happened to her. That her condition deteriorated, or something.

If her brain turns to jelly because I had a bull riding accident that’s really going to affect the family holidays. Plus, I’ll feel guilty. I’ve never really felt guilty before, and I don’t think it would be a good look for me.

I’m joking in my own mind for about thirty seconds before I actually start getting scared something is wrong with her. I’m examining all the lines I’m hooked up to and trying to decide if I can make an escape when she appears in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

I’m holding onto my IV pole, and I guess I look like I’m about to unplug from everything – which I was absolutely about to do.

“Nothing.” I relax back into the bed.

“I was just grabbing a snack and seeing if I’m feeling okay.”

“Well. I thought you died.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No, you didn’t.”

“I thought something happened.”

Her brows knit together, and she’s staring at me like she doesn’t know what to do with me. Fair enough, in this hospital bed hooked up to all this shit I don’t even know what to do with me.

“I don’t really need you to worry about me. Considering I’m not the one who just about got torn to pieces in front of an audience.”

I grimace. “Don’t downgrade me. I was torn to pieces .” I wave my hand up and down over my midsection. “I’m stitched back together.”

She looks at me with a measure of something that might actually be compassion. Hard to imagine on Allison, if I’m honest.

The moment between us is broken by the arrival of my mom and Jim.

“I hear they’re going to try and help you stand today,” my mom says upon entry.

“News to me,” I say.

But I’m ready for that. I’m tired of being in this bed. Hell, I’m tired of being in the hospital. I can’t do anything. I feel helpless, and I hate that. My ass is rotting as I sit here, melding into one flesh with the hospital bed.

The worst thought ever, and I hate myself for having it.

I’m ready to get moving. I’m ready to get out of here.

“Did you know that Allison got a concussion?” I don’t know why I say that.

Except I’m tired of everybody looking at me like I’m an object of pity, and it felt like it might be nice to spread some of that around.

Though I can feel flames burning into the side of my face from the intensity of her gaze.

I don’t even have to look at her to know that she’s wishing I had met a painful end in that arena.

“What?” Jim is immediately crossing the room and moving toward her, and my mom isn’t far behind.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I fainted in the cafeteria yesterday. It’s not a big deal. They didn’t even admit me.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Jim asks.

“Because I didn’t need anything. They just didn’t want me to go back home and sleep in the apartment by myself. But I’m here, in a hospital. There isn’t a safer place to be.”

I can tell that she’s ready to throttle me, but I’m kind of enjoying it. I don’t need to be the bearer of everyone’s concern. But it’s ridiculous, and I hate it.

“It’s not a big deal, and he’s just trying to deflect.”

“Well, I hate to hog all the attention.”

She gives me a murderous glare, and then stalks from the room, Jim on her heels.

“She’s so difficult.” I make a very sympathetic face at my mother, as if I can only offer my condolences for how much of a pain her stepdaughter is.

My mom is staring down at me, and I can see that she’s not amused by the fact that Allison and I are having conflict. But honestly, what else is new?

Allison and I are oil and water. Have been, will be, always.

“You should’ve texted me about her,” Mom says.

“Sorry. I was busy being wounded.”

Mom rolls her eyes upward, like she’s annoyed at God for giving her all of us kids. “I don’t know what to do with any of you.”

“Gentry is fine,” I say.

“He’s out on a fire,” she says. “Which is the one reason he’s not here. And I have to worry about him the whole time he’s doing that. I didn’t think I had to worry about Allison.”

“Yeah, out of the three of us, she’s definitely the one least likely to encounter a workplace injury.”

Of course, I may never actually do my work ever again.

It might be over. I might be over. Done.

Finished. Who can say? I can’t take that on board.

I never won. Not everything . Not like Dallas, who won the championship last year, and I was sure…

I was sure that this was my year. It’s probably going to be Maverick Quinn, which makes me want to commit a murder, because that guy is a prick of the highest order, and I don’t have any patience for his bullshit, much less him winning anything.

And I definitely didn’t aim to retire at twenty-five, with so much left to do.

It makes my gut churn with rage. That feeling of being out of control.

That feeling of helplessness. That maybe wanting something isn’t enough to make it happen.

That working as hard as I fucking can isn’t going to be sufficient here.

It’s bullshit, is what it is.

“Has anyone come and talked to you today?”

I shake my head. “If they did, I was asleep. These pain meds are killing me.”

“Do you want them to stop giving them to you?”

“I’d like to taper off. I don’t want…”

I’m overwhelmed by everything I don’t want.

Again, I am completely overtaken by the unfairness of it all. Here I am, pumped full of drugs, which I’ve avoided all my life, because I’m doing my best to be better than my dad. To be someone that I can be proud of, even if I’m not a Boy Scout or anything.

“We can talk to the doctor about that today,” my mom says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that. I just… I want to get out of here. I need to get out of here.”

“Hopefully, you can. Soon. But not at the expense of your safety.”

“I just don’t like being cooped up like this.”

“The house back in Gold Valley is ready for you. I do think you’re probably going to need some extra help, though.”

“I’m not going to need extra help.”

“Odds are you’re going to be on crutches for at least three months.”

Crutches. For three months. That makes my stomach burn. I’ve never walked on crutches before, but I’ve seen other people do it. It looks labored and slow, and I can already feel my own impatience pushing against that. I can already feel my own irritation at the whole thing.

“You’ve never liked being patient,” my mom says.

I snort. “Who likes to be patient? Maybe some people are better at it than others, but does anybody like waiting for what they want?”

“I think some people have a little bit more acceptance for what life is bringing to them. But you never have.” She looks sad.

“It can be a good thing. I know. It’s been a good thing for you, sometimes, Colt.

Because you’ve made a lot of yourself. Because that irritation and agitation that you feel has pushed you to be exceptional. I know it has.”

“Yeah. So exceptional.”

“Maybe it won’t be a bad thing. You having to sit for a little bit and just… Take what you get. Even for a moment. You’re always doing something. Always moving on to the next thing. Maybe it won’t be bad for you to sit and try to figure out exactly what else you might be able to get out of life.”

“I don’t want much of anything else out of life. I want to win.”

“There’s more to life than winning.”

It’s a very good, very mom thing to say, but my mom wouldn’t know anything about that.

She’s great. She’s strong and ambitious, and she’s my inspiration in many ways, but she’s not competitive.

She has a gentle spirit, and mine is a restless one.

I fear very much that I got it from my dad, and part of me hates that she has to see that on me or anyone else.

Because he just sucks so damn much.

He’s famous, sadly. Like, in a niche way. Robert Campbell – bull rider.

He was a big deal in the early 2000s. Endorsement deals with every western wear company out there. Chewing tobacco, cigarettes, beer, you name it, he had his mug plastered all over the ad.

A mug that looks an awful lot like mine.

He was part model, part bull rider, all fuckboy.

He moved through towns and women leaving wreckage in his wake.

And in my case, a bastard kid he never wanted to deal with.

It’s a weird thing, to look so much like a man you’ve barely ever spoken to. To carry a legacy in your face, your veins, especially into a venue where people do know him.

I feel obligated to keep my mouth shut about my lack of relationship with him. I don’t play up that he’s my dad – but we share a last name, and we share genes that can’t be denied.

We also share more than that. Our ambition, our sport.

I try to take that restless spirit and add do no harm to it, at least.

At least I don’t have a kid to let down and abandon. I fuck around, but I use a condom so that I don’t have to find out. If I’m going to be a rolling stone, I need to make sure that I’m not running other people over.

I feel really strongly about that. I know what I am, but I also know not to hurt other people with it.

My dad also never won the championship. Not once.

He wasn’t as famous for winning as he was for being pretty, and I want to be famous for both. But I can’t do that if I don’t get out of here.

There’s a knock at the door, and we look up to see a doctor standing there. And so begins my physical therapy, which makes me want to punch everybody in the facility right in the face. It’s painful, and it sucks.

And that’s just getting me to walk on crutches.

But it’s the deal if I want to get out of the hospital, and I really need to get out of the hospital.

The wound in my midsection is slowly getting better, but it is causing a huge part of the problem.

If I twist wrong—and trying to maneuver on crutches, on that leg, means I twist wrong a lot— I am assaulted by shooting pains.

My mom is there for all of it. My stepdad is there a lot too, along with Gentry and Allison.

It surprises me that Allison is dedicated to this.

But I suppose it has to do with her being a nursing student.

It makes sense when I think of it that way.

She obviously finds it interesting. And she probably enjoys watching me be tortured a little bit.

I can’t say that I blame her. I haven’t always been nice to her.

There is a sort of false hope blooming with my potential discharge day. Because part of me keeps hoping it’s a finish line of sorts. That it’s a sign things might get back to normal, and yet I can still feel how busted my body is.

I might be headed out of the hospital soon, but I’m not headed back to anything that looks like my life.

The little house in town is fine, and I don’t hate it, but it isn’t me. I’m not destined to live in a suburban cage. I want to have my own land. My own ranch. But right now, even if I had that, I wouldn’t be able to work it. Even if I had that, I wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything with it.

My frustration is like a boiling, burning thing in my already slashed-apart midsection.

But I know there’s nothing I can do about it, even as the anger builds inside of me.

I find out pretty quickly that there are no points for a good attitude. Anger doesn’t help, but it certainly doesn’t stop me from making progress. And if anything, it gives me an invisible enemy to fight, and that’s not the worst thing.

When I finally make it to discharge day, six full weeks after the accident, I feel a certain sense of triumph. But it’s limited.

Because the life that I have waiting for me out there is nothing like the life that I want. Nothing like the life I had before.

I might not be trapped in a hospital anymore, but I’m going to be trapped in Gold Valley.

I’m going to be trapped in a life I didn’t choose.

And other than flat out dying, that’s pretty much the worst thing I can imagine.