Page 41 of Buck This
“It’s bulls versus riders, Torrey. You know what? Forget it. If you don’t understand that without me having to explain it toyou, you aren’t the friend I thought you were. You sure changed fast,” Reece said, backing away.
Torrey wanted to call her out. She wanted to explain to her just how distant she’d felt since Reece had met Cobalt, and now Reece was giving her shit for being distant for one day? When Reece hadn’t even wanted to sit with her in the bleachers? She really wanted to call it out, but in this moment, she realized Reece wasn’t ready to hear it, and until she was, Torrey would only be met with defensiveness.
“He’ll probably fuck three of them tonight,” Reece said cruelly. “That’s what the bull shifters do. They buck to fuck. That’s the saying. Everyone knows it. You’ll just be another notch on his belt in some town he won’t remember in three months.”
Oh, it stung. Oh, it stung so freaking bad. That last word Reece just had to get in, taking a jab at something Torrey was already growing an insecurity for…it hurt.
Reece had always been self-involved, but she’d never been cruel like this before.
When Torrey looked at Buck This again, his eyes were locked on her.Are you okay?he mouthed.
“Yeah,” she lied. “I’m going to get a drink.” Really she just needed to get away from the crushing crowd and her spinning thoughts.
“What?” he asked, cupping his ear to hear her over the noise.
She pointed to the autograph section and mimed taking a drink.
He gave her the thumbs up and said something to Raven, who was standing nearby.
Immediately, she moved toward Torrey with a big old smile on her lips. “You ready?”
“Did he send you to babysit me?” she asked, feeling low.
“What? No. You don’t need a babysitter. He asked me to see if you needed anything and to tell you he’s about to quit the circuit completely if he has to take, and I quote, ‘One more goddamn selfie.’ He’s going to meet us at the truck.”
“Sounds good.”
“Hey, are you okay?” Raven asked.
“Oh yeah. Just tired.”
“It was a long day,” she agreed. “A good one, but a long one.”
Chapter Eleven
“You got some Buck of the Night award,” she murmured as Buck pulled his truck into the parking space beside her car. “They announced it to the crowd and everything.”
He shook his head in disbelief and cut the engine, then relaxed back into the seat, staring at his RV. “Tonight feels like a dream.”
“What do you mean?”
“I keep having flashbacks of certain moments and I feel present in those, and then others, I feel like I was watching myself from outside of my body.”
She smiled and reached over the console to rub his arm. “That was really you. Now you know.”
“I know what?” he asked, rolling his head until he faced her.
“You know you have it in you. You know you can. That’s a powerful moment when you take that shackle off. You don’t have to hold yourself back anymore.”
He huffed a soft laugh. “I can do it with a few of the biggest legends in the game, and you leading me into a chute. Credit where it’s due.”
“It’s still you,” she said softly.
His chest rose as he inhaled deeply, and he surprised her by lifting up her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Thank you for staying.”
“What was your favorite part of the night?” she asked. His answer was important to the piece of her heart that loved him already.
His eyes softened. “I don’t want to tell you.”
