Page 26 of The Chances We Take

He shrugged. “Probably. I was gonna teach you first, though. Wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself.” Then he winked, taking the rope out of my hands.

I crossed my arms, waiting for him to show me.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gonna rope with your arms crossed like that?”

I uncrossed my arms to make awhat?gesture with my palms up.

“Well, come on, now, Lawsy, she’s gonna need a rope. Why’d you take it from her?” Colter laughed as he came over, snatching the rope back out of Reid’s hands and placing it in mine.

Reid rolled his eyes. “Well, I was gonna show her first and then give it back, smartass.”

“Didn’t look like it,” Jake chimed in from where he was standing over by the other trailer that he, Hayden, and Mikey were sharing.

There was no need for all of the guys to bring their own horse trailers when they weren’t traveling long distances. And even when they were traveling far, they still tended to share. So Hayden and Colter brought theirs, and the rest of us split up between the two. Colter, Ellison, Reid, and I would all be staying in Colter’s trailer for the rodeo. Luckily, it had a pullout couch and the table converted into a bed, so Reid and I didn’t have to share.Thatwould have been awkward.

“You want to be target practice for her?” Reid called, to which Jake shook his head. “Didn’t think so, so shut it.”

“It can’t be that hard.” I rolled my eyes. I swung the rope over my head dramatically, like I’d seen people do it in the movies.

Both Colter and Reid started laughing.

“What? That’s basically what you two do.”

“Ouch,” Ellison said with a laugh from her lawn chair.

“First of all, you don’t even have a loop right now, so unless your goal is to whip someone, that needs to be fixed.” Reid once again took the rope from me, unraveling it and showing me the knot at the end. “See this? That’s the honda.”

He then flipped the rope so it ran through the knot, forming a loop. As he pulled, he widened the loop, making it look more like how it did during rodeo competitions.

“You want it to be pretty big,” he explained as he adjusted the rope to his liking before showing me. “Then you hold the rope down here, away from where the rope runs through your honda, and that’s your spoke.”

I wasn’t going to lie, most of what he was saying was going over my head, but I kept listening to him. He was a good teacher, so I had to give him that.

“When you swing the rope, you only use your wrist, notyour whole arm, otherwise your rope’s going to get all wonky. And then you watch the honda to know when to throw it at your target.” He demonstrated by tossing the rope at Jake, who was walking over to Colter.

“Ay! What was that for?” Jake yelled as he got caught in the rope.

Reid shrugged. “Easy target.”

“I bet we’ve got a roping dummy around somewhere,” Hayden suggested from behind me. “Let me grab it.” He didn’t wait for a response after his offer, already heading over to one of the trailers. Sure enough, he pulled out the “dummy,” which really was just a plastic steer head attached to a bunch of PVC pipes.

“Isa, here.” Colter tossed me a thin, black cotton glove.

“What’s this for?” I inspected it. It looked like a normal glove you’d wear in the winter, but it was summer, so I didn’t know why he was throwing a glove at me. “Where’s the other one?”

“You only need one,” he replied. “It’s for roping. Put it on your right hand.”

All right.I slipped the glove on my hand as Hayden set up the roping dummy in front of me.

“Here you go, Short Stack. Give ’er a whirl.” Reid winked as he handed me the rope he had used to catch Jake. He’d adjusted the loop already—thank God—so I didn’t have to.

I stood, giving myself enough slack between the coils of rope in my left hand and the loop in my right, like Reid had instructed, and slowly swung the rope over my head. It was a lot harder than it looked, especially trying not to use my whole arm. I gave it a half-assed toss and—shocker—I missed.

“Don’t say anything.” I side-eyed Reid when he walked over to me.

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