Page 86 of The Wildest Ride

AJ ignored her arched eyebrow, saying, “He and I were both in the first cohort. Diablo was there by order of a judge. I was by my mom.”

Lil chuckled to herself. “Because you were an angry twelve-year-old? Your mom was hard-core.”

“No, she—” AJ stopped with a frown. He didn’t generally get this deep into how he got into bull riding.

Lil watched him expectantly and he wondered what he was going to tell her. That his dad had died and it had been AJ’s fault, but that it’d happened when he still hated his dad for breaking their family apart? It was a part of his story he didn’t share with people, but the words were on the tip of his tongue.

Rather than let them out, he said, “She knew I needed a big outlet. My dad had died and I had a lot of anger.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her low voice went even huskier with empathy and the growling thing inside of him found the effect was strangely soothing.

He smiled. “The bulls worked. I was hooked right away. Fortunately, I had a knack for it and that’s all it took. Drive, knack, practice, and the rest is history.” He was proud of how he muscled the story back to its normal track of general positivity, emphasizing that anyone could do what he had done.

Lil said, “I’m sorry your dad died.”

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Hard for a kid.” She was a terrier, even when she didn’t realize it.

He looked away. “Hard for anyone.”

“And Diablo?”

“He was a delinquent and the judge was a redneck.”

Lil snorted. “That sounds like a country song.”

“He’s a lawyer now.”

“Fancy.”

“He thinks so.”

“What did your dad teach?” she asked.

She was good, keeping him off balance by jumping around.

“He taught Chicano Literature at the University of Houston.”

Lil whistled. “Really fancy.”

“He thought so, too. Thought so so much that he couldn’t fathom why my mom would leave her position teaching Spanish there to go take a leadership position at a community college.” The words poured out from his mouth, unplanned and far too revealing.

Lil’s eyebrows drew together. “Her job sounds fantastic, though.”

“It is,” AJ agreed. “It’s perfect for her. It didn’t fit his sense of pedigree, though.”

“And so he divorced her?” As usual, Lil’s expression and voice gave her away. She didn’t approve.

He appreciated not having to play guessing games.

“No,” he said. “She divorced him after he decided to soothe his bruised ego and thinning hair by having an affair with a graduate student.”

They rode a few yards in silence before she spoke again. “That’s so cliché.”

It wasn’t what AJ had been expecting and it broke the tension in his chest. “I said as much to him. At a high volume.”

“I would’ve been angry, too.”

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