Page 52 of The Wildest Ride

Lil sighed, moving to excuse herself from the bar, but Hank stopped her with a hand on her elbow. Her body went still.

The hair on the back of AJ’s neck stood up and he rose from the bar stool, taking a step forward without meaning to.

The energy shifted in the room, tension cast like a fishing net over every soul in the establishment. The cameras zoomed in, the background arguments of the cameramen about angles and lighting mingling with the warbling of the jukebox to make a strange buzzing backdrop for a scene that seemed like it needed someone to step in and say something but was generating an audience instead.

These were the moments reality TV lived for, a room full of mostly hotheaded testosterone-led young men on the edge of their seats. It was a new kind of spectacle for rodeo, though.

Not the hotheads, and not even the potential for a fight that everyone was aware of, bubbling under the surface—that was as commonplace at the rodeo as it was wherever there was beer and loud music—but the underlying hunger for it, the desire for sensation, no matter how tawdry.

Rodeo, after all, was family friendly. Buckle bunnies might chase cowboys, but that was a story for insiders. The official line was the bright, wholesome, rodeo queen and the cowboy married to the sport.

But here, amidst the neon and brass and wood, the crowd’s desires were more salacious.

Lil’s nostrils flared, her lips pressing into a thin line of irritation before she recovered enough to lift one corner of her mouth into a lopsided smirk. “In fact, he is, DeRoy, but only since he robbed me of a good night’s sleep in my rightful bed. You see, the only kind of man that bothers me—really, the only kind of man I notice—is the one sitting higher than me in the standings.”

A chorus of playgroundoooo’srippled through the bar, but the insult rolled right off him. His smile was as saccharine and heavy as the Kentucky gentleman in his voice. Smacking his lips, he let out a longhmmm. “Princess, you sound like a woman looking for a firm hand and I just happen to be famous for my grip.”

A spattering of chuckles met his statement, but Lil just snorted, cringing.

AJ’s reaction wasn’t so casual.

Once again, he was moving before he processed his intention to do so, closing the distance between himself and DeRoy at the same time as he wedged his body between Lil and Hank, subtly blocking her from both the cameras and Hank’s flirtations.

“The standings indicate that between the two of you, hers is the stronger hand, Hankey, which puts you out of the running.” AJ kept his voice light, though his muscles were as taut as if he were in the arena. A handful of cowboys in the room hissed, likely Hank’s pals, while the rest laughed at what they thought was a light razz.

But instead of backing down with a bunch of hot air, as AJ expected of Hank after years of push and pull and despite the obvious height and weight AJ had on him, this time DeRoy didn’t back down.

They’d competed against each other for nearly all of their adult lives and never once had they progressed this far down the path of physical violence, despite having exchanged fighting words on many an occasion.

AJ shouldn’t have been surprised that it was happening now, though.

Some men couldn’t help acting like fools when women were involved.

But understanding that didn’t mean putting up with it.

Rodeo was rodeo, and this was rodeo—even if it was a dive bar in Ardmore.

And whether Lil liked it or not, AJ was obligated to look out for her. The Closed Circuit might not be her first rodeo, but it was her first PBRA rodeo, and the difference was the same as the difference between indie film and big budget Hollywood. There was real money to be made in PBRA, even when it was the pet project of an eccentric producer, as the Closed Circuit was. And where there was money to be made, there would always be sharks in the water.

Lil might put up a tough front, but she was sheltered and, he suspected, naive enough to fall into a trap before she knew to be wary—a trap like DeRoy.

It wouldn’t happen while he was around, though, and if Hank didn’t know how to quit, AJ would just make sure he was around all the time. It was as simple as that.

“Garza, you jump in so much, I might think you were jealous of this little thing going on between me and the first lady of rodeo.” Hank smiled at Lil around AJ’s form, and AJ wondered if the expression ever worked to pick up women, transparently sleazy as it was. There was nothing but bedpost notches and a big picture of himself hidden behind Hank’s baby blues.

He looked the part of the golden son of the south, which should have been enough to send women running, but, like the cronies he collected everywhere he went, Hank never appeared to lack for female company.

With an easy chuckle, AJ shook his head, opening his mouth to say that he didn’t mind at all what the first lady of rodeo was into, so long as he didn’t have to deal with its breathing in his face, when a new voice broke into the conversation.

“Now, Hank DeRoy, I am wounded!” Sierra Quintanilla’s words, perfectly pitched and utterly feminine, carried high over the crowd noise, laden with coquettish offense. “Lil Sorrow might be our brand-new feminist icon, but everybody knows thatIam the first lady of rodeo!”

Hank was smooth when he turned to Sierra with a tip of his hat. “Pardon me, Miss Sierra. What I meant to say was the first lady of rough stock.”

AJ almost snorted, but held back in respect for the rodeo queen’s efforts.

As far as expert redirections went, hers had been well done. AJ didn’t know how calling Lil a feminist icon would go down, though. He was a feminist himself—his mama would accept no less—but he also knew, just like Sierra did, that this wasn’t a crowd where the label was considered a compliment.

Sierra’s interruption, followed by her abandoning her position in the center of the line dance, surrounded by cowboys on either side, to cross the room and give Hank a theatrical punch in the arm, gave Lil enough time to reach over and pinch AJ’s biceps.

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