Page 21 of The Wildest Ride

She had nearly been punched in the face, mistaken for a man by every single person she had encountered, mistaken for a child by a few, insulted by Hank DeRoy, and lectured by AJ Garza—and the competition hadn’t even started.

The fact that he had used her own granddad’s words against her was merely the salt in the wound.

And then the stadium horns sounded, startling her.

The twenty-minute warning.

Fantastic.

It was time to get ready to ride.

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AJ’s mind should have been on riding a bareback bronc. Instead, it was on the kid whose head he’d saved from getting smashed in.

All of AJ’s instincts said something was off there, and notoffin the sense of a skinny Black kid with a dramatically long double undercut and a Native-style vest competing at a PBRA rodeo. As a former skinny Black kid who had sported a mini fro and a vaquero shirt and had gone on to become one of the PBRA’s most decorated winners, he didn’t see anyoffin that whatsoever. But his instincts were telling him that something was definitely off—and one didn’t become a champion bull rider without listening to their instincts.

He, Diablo, and The Old Man had arrived at the line just in time to catch Hank’s big words and see the kid knock his hat off.

The rope skills were impressive.

The kid’s ability to weave in and out of the melee had been even more so.

AJ had almost laughed, watching as the kid nearly broke out, scot-free, from the rumble he’d created. He had been surprised when the kid had then gone back in. Following his line of sight made the reason obvious, though.

One of the registration girls had gotten stuck in the middle of the fight.

At that point, AJ didn’t think. He moved.

As if his change in energy broke through his cloak of invisibility, people simultaneously recognized him and got out of his way.

Diablo and Henry kept pace behind him, backing him up without needing to know why.

He made it just in time to stop the kid from taking a brick fist in the temple.

Using the attacking cowboy’s momentum against him, AJ knocked him on the ground at the same time as he reached out his other arm to catch the kid.

The kid couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, but he bounced back from the tumble quick, jumping to his feet with a thank-you and a scan of the area before he turned back to face AJ.

AJ read it all as the signs of someone hungry and used to fighting to eat.

Whether the hunger was for glory or something else was hard to tell. Cowboys the kid’s age tended to confuse the two.

If it was the former, CityBoyz had no place for him.

If it was the latter, there might be something there. But only if AJ could figure out why his instincts were shouting that something wasn’t quite what it seemed.

A little hotshotting could be forgiven—it was part of the game, after all. Based on the exaggerated once-over he had given AJ, the kid had that part down pat. That kind of arrogance could eventually be molded into a strength.

In its rough form, the posturing had just given AJ time to take his own measurements. Enough time to note the kid’s narrow, almost delicate frame, as well as the neon-yellow athlete’s tape peeking out from under his sleeves. His lack of height was unfortunate but could be worked with. There were plenty of short cowboys.

AJ frowned.Delicatewas not usually a characteristic of the next great rodeo star. Combine delicate with hot-tempered, and it wasn’t a great recipe for a successful Black cowboy, either. One needed broad, steady shoulders to bear the yoke of being an example. And a target.

But there were plenty of skinny Black cowboys who could still get the job done. The hall of greats was peppered with the tough, rangy little bastards.

It wasn’t size or color that mattered in the arena. It was the try—the spark that signaled an unbreakable will.

A man had it, or he didn’t. The kid had it.

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