Page 8 of Maverick (The Bull Riders #3)

“You’re acting like I asked you to come over here.”

“You embroiled me. You embroiled me in this last night, and now you’re living in the consequences. It is what it is, little girl.”

“Don’t you care that people are going to think you–”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m happy to confirm the villain narrative. You seem to think I give a single shit about my reputation. I don’t. The only thing I care about is winning. And making friends doesn’t help you win.”

“The only thing you care about is winning and apparently who I have sex with for the first time. Are you going to find me a candidate? Are you my cowboy pimp?”

“There’s an idea.” I dig into my plate of food.

I don’t say anything. I don’t feel like it’s incumbent upon me to keep the banter going.

“Why are you such an asshole?”

“Childhood trauma.”

“Did you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Then why are you sitting with me?”

“You know why. Don’t play stupid games.”

“Well. I’ve already played stupid games. And won very stupid prizes.”

I raise my head and grin. “The stupidest.”

“So… You nervous for tonight?”

I laugh. “No.”

“After Colt’s accident, didn’t you think…”

“What? Didn’t I worry that I could get injured? It’s always a possibility.”

“But didn’t seeing it like that…”

“No.” It made me think of other things. But not myself. Maybe because I have deeply fatalistic feelings surrounding my own physical safety. Who’s to say?

“I don’t ride bulls because I think it’s safe. Are you in the rodeo because you think it’s safe?”

“No. I’m in the rodeo to prove to my parents that I’m not a fuck up. That I can do things. That I am as good as my sister. That I matter… By the way, that’s a dumb thing to do.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you can’t use a yardstick people don’t acknowledge to measure yourself if you want them to think you’re enough.”

The breath hisses through my teeth. “Yeah. Bummer. I get that.”

“My parents are rich.”

“Yeah. No shit. I figured.”

“You don’t have to be like that.”

“I’ve rarely known people to be neck-deep in horsemanship without a bit of money. Especially not the kind you’re talking about.”

“What about you?”

“Oh hell, I’m from the streets. I mean, not literally, but close enough.

” I don’t really think much about it. It’s not that deep, after all.

I grew up in a meth house with Thomas the Tank Engine blankets for curtains.

A single wide trailer with fake wood paneling that had holes punched in it for my dad’s fist. The only thing he left behind.

Probably died in his car on the side of the road after a bender.

Who’s to say? And who would ever know? He was a nobody, and there was no legal paperwork to link him to my mom beyond my birth certificate.

By the time I was seventeen, my mom was so lost in addiction that meth psychosis was basically her whole personality.

It’s not that deep because I don’t let it be.

It’s not that deep, because I found something to do that wasn’t getting blasted out of my mind to avoid living.

Life is fucking painful. I’m well acquainted with that.

I’ve had more of the bad than the good over the years.

And that’s the truth. But I figure that’s the cost you pay for renting your piece of space on this earth.

Nobody ever promised you a rose garden, after all.

Getting wasted to avoid it is the coward’s way out.

I’ve done that too. I lost myself for a minute.

But I came back out of it. Mainly because I saw myself in the mirror one day and realized that only a prescription on the bottle separated me from being my mother. Different drugs, same effect.

“How did you get into this?”

“The way a lot of us do. It was either that or entirely self-destruct. Honestly, something like this, an adrenaline rush, it suited me. I got involved through my high school. It was about the only thing that could ever make me like school. There was a youth rodeo association, and it’s what saved me.

It’s what gave me a reason to do anything.

To care about anything. To live. And it felt like a reckless way to do it, so it really got me. ”

“And your mom… Like, signed a permission slip for you to ride bulls even when you were underage?”

“I forged her signature.” The idea of my mom actually doing any of the paperwork that she was sent is hilarious.

Silence settles between us. “Why the rodeo?”

She shrugs. “It was still horses, but it was in a sphere where my parents weren’t known at all.

They’re really influential in the dressage world.

They have a huge facility. My dad is a veterinarian for champion horses, my mom is an Olympic champion.

Everybody knows who they are. They would have clinics on our property and demonstrations.

Horses and riders would come from Switzerland, from Germany, all over, and do demonstrations.

It was a big deal. There was a guy who came to our ranch to do clinics once a year, who was actually a Baron. ”

“So you’re basically horse royalty.”

“I guess.”

“And it’s an heir and a spare situation?”

“Yes,” she says. “It is. Except I’m the oldest. So, you would think I would’ve been the heir. But no. I’m not as malleable as she is.”

“She’s getting married already? How old is she?”

“Twenty-three. And yes. She’s been dating the son of…

Well, the Baron, since high school. He’s like five years older than her, and somehow, my parents are okay with it because of who he is.

But that’s the horse world. It’s all a mess.

And… I don’t know. I just thought that if I sidestep them, found my own thing, then I would be okay in the way that I needed to be. ”

“I see.”

One thing I’ve never had to worry about is fitting in.

Conforming to anyone’s standards. I just had to figure out what the hell my own standards were.

And then when I met Sadie, I cared. I wanted to figure out how to be the right kind of man.

The right kind of husband. I didn’t want to blow this thing that I never even imagined I would find.

So I spent years being the best I could be. Punctuated by failing that – having cracks in my facade where I’d let that fucked up kid from the trailer with a meth head mom come out. The far-too feral boy who didn’t understand things like birthdays, holidays and matching silverware.

But I tried. I tried to be softer for her. Tried to hide the darker, sharper parts of myself.

Sadie was sweet. Her family was protective and close. When I met her, she’d only had one other boyfriend, one she’d been with since high school. I wanted to match her energy; I didn’t want her to match mine.

I didn’t want her to get dragged into the darkness.

But I was sure that if I was with her, if I wore the mask long enough, it would become who I was.

As soon as she died, I went straight to hell.

I wasn’t changed at all.

I was shitty Maverick Quinn, like I always was before.

“Well. I guess I’ll see you… Around.” I shove the last of my food in and stand up. “We have an event to prep for.”

“Yeah.”

She looks worried.

“What?”

“I don’t think I can dig out of the hole that I put myself in last night. Unless a whole bunch of people implode tonight.”

“Hey, it’s been a hard few weeks. With your friend getting injured and all.”

I start to say something that she might find relatable. Draw a parallel back to Sadie’s accident, but I don’t. It’s not something anyone here really knows about. But I’ve always kept my private life private.

Even when I was married, it was only ever a ring on my finger, not a conversation I had with people around me.

Then I was gone for a few years, and when I came back, I didn’t have a ring.

If anybody wanted to bother to look up the reason why, I’m sure they could find it using my name and seeing if there were any articles. But… I don’t know why anyone would.

They haven’t , at least not to my knowledge. Because no one has ever offered me so much as a single condolence.

Not that I want them.

And so I don’t say anything.

“You’ll be good,” I say. And then I go off to finish up my pre-ride rituals. And if my hand still burns from where it made contact with her, I don’t think about it.

I’m really good at not thinking about things I just don’t want to deal with.

Stella will be no exception.