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I tilt my head at his vagueness. “Is it bad luck to tell me what your superstitions are?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never spoken them out loud. Which means I won’t be doing it today. Afterward . Afterward, we’ll have the conversation.”

He doesn’t leave me alone without making sure that I’m settled.

He puts me in the corner of a space that’s something like a green room and gives some information to a woman who seems to be in charge of the area.

After that, I’m given water and offered food continually throughout the day, while I wait for the rodeo to start.

Then I’m ushered to amazing seats that give me a prime view of all the proceedings.

Until last night, I’d never been to a rodeo. This is quite literally my first one.

Today, it feels no less electrifying as I sit there watching as rodeo royalty rides out on their horses, flags held up in the air and streaming behind them.

There’s a stirring rendition of the national anthem, followed by Friends in Low Places , which I don’t know, but everyone in the crowd seems to know.

I feel like I’m missing an important piece of the culture with that one.

The bareback bronc riding is first, and that’s enough to get my adrenaline pumping, my pulse ratchets up, and doesn’t go back down.

Not during the calf roping, the steer wrestling, or the saddle bronc riding.

Barrel racing is right before the bulls, who are the grand finale of the night.

I’m captivated by the fierce, strong barrel racers.

How they guide their horses with speed and precision.

When Stella Lane is announced, I jump to my feet and cheer for her. Like she’s been my best friend for years, and not just a girl I sat and had lunch with. All her strength is on display as she steers her horse around the barrels, leaving each one standing, every turn tight and fast.

Her score puts her in second place, and she’s grinning from ear to ear when she finishes.

I’m disappointed for her that she didn’t get first. I thought she was better. Not that I know anything. But still.

When it’s time for the bull riding, I actually feel dizzy.

Dallas could get hurt.

That gut feeling that gives me is heavy, and the weight lodges down in my stomach. What would happen if he did get hurt? I would take care of him, obviously.

Well. He has a family.

He also does this all the time without me sitting here.

Manages to navigate his career just fine.

But Colt’s story about breaking his jaw is reverberating inside my head, a reminder that injuries are probably extremely common in this line of work.

I swallow hard and wait. The first rider gets bucked off the bull in less than a second.

I gasp, even though I should probably be cheering for his downfall since that makes things easier for Dallas .

I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.

The next rider up is Maverick Quinn, and in my heart, I root against him.

I can see why he’s the beloved villain of the circuit.

There is something magnetic about him. The animal that he’s on gives him a fierce fight, but he stays on for the full eight seconds.

Jumping off and turning his back to the crowd as he walks back out.

Every footstep shows that he thinks he’s the best, his stone-faced refusal to acknowledge the people cheering for him giving the impression he believes the adulation is his right.

His score is high enough to put him in the top, for now.

But when Colt and Dallas talked earlier, it sounded to me like they expected that.

To be somewhere in the top three along with him, and that’s what they need.

I want Dallas to win.

There are three other riders I don’t know, and only one of them manages to get a score. Then Colt is up.

His bull bursts out of the gate, explosive movements and twists and turns, jerking his body all around.

But he stays on. It’s the most intense ride that I’ve seen tonight, and he completes it beautifully, eight seconds flying by quickly before he jumps off and pumps his fist in the air, hyping up the crowd and drinking in the attention with a giddy kind of joy that feels infectious.

If Maverick is the villain, Colt feels like the affable golden retriever mascot. Colt moves into first place, ahead of Maverick. Now, only Dallas is left.

I’m not sure I can watch. Honestly, I feel like I might throw up.

I don’t know how anybody does this all the time.

How they watch people they care about put themselves at risk like this, and then there’s the element of competition on top of everything else.

It isn’t enough to just not die. You have to win, also .

Well, I don’t need him to win.

But he wants to win. That matters to me. It matters to me a lot.

I can see him, on the back of the bull, adjusting the straps beneath his hand. Adjusting his positioning. His body jerked violently as the animal kicks in the chute. But his face is determined. Set. He’s ready, and I can feel it echoing inside of me.

I can still feel him. Like we’re still connected by an invisible string. The same one that has always tied us together.

He draws a breath in, and I match it. Then, the gate is open, and the bull bursts out into the arena.

He isn’t doing quite as much as Colt’s, which gave him a wild ride.

But it’s still intense, Dallas’s body jerking hard with every movement, and I wonder what the hell that does to your back after enough years.

It makes me weirdly angry. Watching this animal do that to him. Watching him put his body through it, his precious body that I care about so much. It’s so weird.

But then, we’ve already established that I’m weird. Most especially about him. Possessive and definitely not logical.

The seconds are moving too slowly. I can’t breathe. And then, we pass eight. He made it.

He jumps off the bull, and the animal turns around and goes straight for him.

I stand up, shouting something. He jumps up on the side of the arena walls and narrowly escapes getting clipped by the horns.

The bull fighters are doing everything in their power to lure the animal away, but it’s far more interested in digging a chunk out of Dallas than in going quietly back into its pen.

Finally, two men on horses come out, and one lassoes the bull right around his horns, pulling at him insistently while the bull stands there, four feet planted on the ground, pulling back away from them.

The other rider moves around the back, and finally, with some reluctance, the bull moves back into the chute.

Dallas jumps off the wall, the crowd cheering wildly, and finally, I can breathe again.

He waves and looks up at the scoreboard.

They rank him second, and I can see the irritation on his face with his friend’s name above his.

But he’s qualified. As far as I know. I’m selfishly so pleased, because that means he’ll be home until the championships. I don’t know when those are.

I have him now. And I don’t have to watch him do that again. I feel sweaty, drained, like I’m the one who just finished riding a two-ton animal.

I know where to find him because I did it last night.

I walk out of the stands and head around to the side of the arena.

He’s back there, letting out a hard breath, taking his hat off.

Colt is standing next to him, grinning like a fool.

Maverick is nowhere to be seen. As annoyed as Dallas is to come in second to his friend, I imagine it’s nothing compared to how irritated Maverick is coming in third to two people who don’t like him.

Of course, that’s all speculation based on my assumptions about the dynamic between everyone. But I’m unerring in my assessments most of the time.

I don’t plan my next move. My body just acts, launching across the space between me and Dallas. I wrap my arms around his neck. “You’re amazing.”