Page 95 of Rough Ride

“You think you can get away with this?” I laughed in disbelief. “This is bribery. Extremelyobviousbribery.”

Salmon frowned. “Bribery? Oh no, of course not. That’s an offer for you boys to be officially sponsored by my foundation. Shoot a commercial or two, come down to the foundation once a year and get your picture taken. It has nothing to do with your rodeo performance, Iassureyou.”

His cruel smile never touched his beady eyes.

“We can’t be bought,” I said, lowering the check to my side.

“Yeah, we can’t!” Eli agreed. Then he glanced at me and said, “Wait, we can’t?”

I gave him a hard stare.

“I mean, yeah!” Eli turned back to Salmon. “We can’t be bought! This is what I think of your offer.”

He then wiped the check underneath his balls, crumpled it up, and threw it across the room. It bounced off Salmon’s chest and landed on the floor.

One of the bodyguards growled and moved forward with more speed than I would have ever expected from a man his size. In the blink of an eye he had grabbed Eli by the neck and shoved him up against the wall.

“Careful,” Eli croaked out while the fingers tightened on his neck. “Our dicks. Are touching. And I like. It rough.”

Somehow, he even managed to wink.

“Jasper!” Salmon snapped.

Like a trained dog, the bodyguard let go of Eli and returned to his master’s side. Eli rubbed his neck.

“I hope you’ll consider my sponsorship offer,” Salmon said, voice devoid of any pretense of friendliness.

The locker room door creaked as they left. But the one bodyguard lingered long enough to say, “Personally, I hope youdon’ttake the offer. I’d love to come back here and smash your kneecaps into tortilla chips.”

As the man followed Salmon out, Eli blew him a kiss.

As soon as we were alone, I slumped down onto the bench and let out a long exhale. Part of me had legitimately feared we might not make it out of that locker room alive. For a few moments, I focused on steadying my breath the way I did after a particularly dangerous bull ride.

Still naked as the day he was born, Eli ran across the room and grabbed the balled-up check, unfolding it and smoothing it on the edge of the sink. “Do you think they’ll know I wiped it on my balls?”

“They? Who’s they?”

“The bank,” Eli replied, finally grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his midsection. “Wearegoing to cash these, right? What other choice do we have?”

I stared at the check in my own hands.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

42

Sophie

Johnny, Eli, and Claire—the reporter from the Fort Worth Star Telegram—met at my apartment Thursday night. I put out a bowl of chips and salsa, and handed out bottles of beer as we gathered in my living room.

“Is Sawyer Easton coming?” Claire asked. “I was hoping to discuss his side of all of this as well.”

“I invited him, but he hasn’t responded,” I replied, pulling out my phone. “I’ll text him real quick.”

“We haven’t seen him around the rodeo camp much, either,” Johnny said. “I think he’s been tending to his horses when everyone else is having their practice rounds at Dickies.”

“I guess it’s a good thing he hasn’t gone home yet,” I said. “Let’s just start without him. Claire?”

The reporter opened a small spiral notebook and flipped back a page. “I’ll jump straight to the extremely unhappy conclusion. Our editor won’t let me run a story like this about Salmon unless it’s absolutely bulletproof.”

---