Page 42 of Buck This
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll run.”
She dropped her gaze to her lap. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it then.”
“You really don’t give a shit about it all, do you?” he asked.
She didn’t know what he meant.
“I could be the number one bucking bull shifter in existence, and you wouldn’t care at all about how many likes or follows or events I booked.”
“Mmm, would those things make you happy?”
“If I said yes, would you care then?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Only then.”
He nodded slowly, watching her. “One more day of playing house.”
“One tiny day.” She banished the hurt from her voice. She wasn’t ready to be separated. This had been the best and most beautiful distraction of her life.
She would miss feeling excitement like this. She would miss feeling the intensity of feelings. She would miss learning about this world, and the people she had met in it.
She would miss Buck.
“This has been really fun,” she murmured.
“It ain’t over yet.”
She grinned. “Damn right. You have finals to crush.”
He snorted. “It’ll be a miracle if I place at all.”
“I have faith,” she said, pushing the door open.
Buck grabbed her hand and stilled her. “Why did you just say that?”
“Because I really do have faith in you.”
A frown was etched so deeply into his handsome face.
“What?” she asked.
Buck swallowed hard. “Someone I knew used to say that.”
“Well, she sounds like a genius.”
“He was my brother.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. He used to say he had faith in me. He said he just knew I was going to be something big someday. He’s been on my mind. Before every buck, he would say, ‘Push the hurt down to your toes and buck strong.’ Sometimes I can still hear him saying it when I’m about to buck.”
His phone dinged with a text message, and he checked the glowing screen. “Quickdraw says I better be in bed already or he will personally beat the shit out of me.”
She laughed and got out. “Come on, big fella. Bedtime. Quickdraw is probably terrifying in a fight.”
“Actually, you can find some of his brawls on the internet.”
