Page 95 of Always Salty

I giggled.

When I’d first gone to nursing school, I’d been determined to never, ever let anyone know my real name. Announcing that it was ‘Tequila’ always raised questions and I detested my name.

When my parents had decided on a name for all of us, I had no clue what they’d been thinking.

Mom had a love for the rodeo, and when she’d been pregnant, she’d watched 8 Seconds on repeat because she adored Lane Frost and everything he represented. That’d led her down a rabbit hole. Per my parents’ agreement, Mom named all the boys, and Dad got to name the girl.

Mom gave all the boys pretty cool names, albeit a little bit odd since we were so far removed from anything resembling a rodeo life. Meanwhile, when Dad got to name me, Mom and Dad had been in a very bad place.

According to my brothers, Dad had hated Mom by that point, and the only reason he still ‘tolerated’ her was because if they divorced, half the company would go to her.

Needless to say, when I came along, Dad had named me after something that he felt would be a big ‘fuck you’ to our mother.

Mom had rolled with it, and she’d been the one to start calling me Keely.

“Keely,” I reminded her.

She winked. “I know. But to me, you’ll always be my Rose.”

I’d gone by the name Rose for four years, so I’d still answer to it, even though I’d grown up a little bit since that day we’d trauma bonded together.

From then on, I’d never gone by Rose again, and my nursing friends had gone with it.

Val, however, was the lone holdout.

“I was wondering if you could open the doctor’s sleeping lounge for me. I wanted to go scare the shit out of my brother,” I teased.

Her eyes twinkled as she got up and walked to the door.

Val smiled at Copper, who nodded back at her in greeting.

“Just don’t tell him I’m the one that let y’all in,” she whispered as she ran her badge to open the door.

Copper caught the door and quietly pushed it open.

And, as if we were on the same page like we were when we were teens, Copper and I both took a running start toward the bed that was in the corner of the room.

A masculine curse, followed by a panicked squeak of surprise from a female throat, had both Copper and I pulling back.

A light switched on, and suddenly I was losing all the color in my face.

“Chevy,” I breathed. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

Copper didn’t say anything to the woman that he was straddling, most likely because he couldn’t form words.

“Shit,” Chevy said. “Copper…”

But Copper was up and moving out of the room in the next breath.

Chevy cursed and pulled away, practically throwing me to the floor in his haste to get to our brother.

I stood up on shaky legs when I saw Reign Lake staring at me with shocked eyes.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was ashen.

“Was that Copper?” she asked breathily.

I swallowed hard. “Yep.”

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