"The female ones? Yes."
Oddly, that surprised me a bit. I'd just made a subtle hint that he'd been friend zoned already, and he'd rolled with it so easily. He wasn't offended. Nope, Jake was letting me know hewas perfectly ok with being just friends, and combined with this feeling I already had? It felt liberating.
"So, who picks the bar for each city?" I asked as we reached the elevator.
He gestured for me to enter first, then moved in to press the button for the first floor. "It's the one closest to the arena," he explained. "If there are a few, then whichever plays country music. If there's more than one of that? Well, then we just figure it out. But Ty's got the bullfighters, and I know where they're headed.
"Sounds good to me," I assured him. "It's just that sometimes I feel like I've got this touring thing down, and then other times, I realize there's still so much I have yet to figure out."
"But it works for you," he said. "So does that tank." He gave me a little smirk as he made a production of looking me over. "A girl who doesn't need to get all painted up to go out, but looks damned good when she does, and is not only as tough as the men here, but pretty too?" He made a little noise. "I think you're putting the rest of us to shame."
I rolled my eyes at him because he'd just accepted being friend zoned. Now he was calling me pretty? Yeah, I was starting to think Jake was the sort of man who'd flirt with a wall if it helped him out. And that helping? It didn't matter if it was breaking the ice, making people laugh, or hiding his own awkwardness.
Tanner had mentioned Jake was a shadow, the sort of man who didn't stand out. In a sea of bull riders, this flirty thing he did probably was expected. And yet, thinking about what Tanner had told me earlier brought up another question.
"So..." I paused, trying to figure out how to ask this gently. "How do you think the other riders are going to take things this weekend?"
"J.D. and Tanner?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"No fucking clue."
"But how areyoutaking it?" I pressed.
He scoffed. "Believe it or not, I've had gay friends. The bigger the city, the more normal it is for people to think nothing of it."
"And I came from a real small town," I pointed out.
"But you're still ok with it," he countered just as we reached the first floor. "But hint about it." He gestured for me to go first, then set his hand in the middle of my back to guide me toward the door. "Make it clear Tanner doesn't own you, or that you think two men making out is hot, or something. Doesn't even matter what."
Yeah, but there was one big problem with that. "I don't want to out them."
"You're not. It's more like setting the stage."
And then we were at his truck. Surprisingly, Jake opened the passenger door for me, waited for me to get in, closed my door, andthenheaded around to his side. Combined with the way he'd pressed his hand into my back? It made me feel something I wasn't used to: girly.
On the short drive to the latest bar, Jake told me about how he'd signed with Max. I wasn't shocked about that, but when he told me Deviant already had an offer they wanted him to look over? Well, I couldn't decide which one was leading the other, but Max and Deviant were starting to make a very nice pairing. I also told Jake to take it.
We'd just pulled into a parking space at the bar. He gave me a look before getting out, but waited until I joined him to share his thoughts.
"Of course I'm taking it. They're offering good money and asking very little. Hell, Cody, I even got to pick which variant of the logo works with my gear."
"They have options?" I asked, a little surprised at that.
Jake nodded. "Yeah, like five of them. One is rainbow, oddly enough."
"Huh," I said, because I hadn't expected that.
But before I could say more, we entered the bar and were spotted right away. "Cody!" someone bellowed cheerfully.
I scanned the crowd quickly, finding Jorge and Isaac up by the bar. "Matadors!" I called back
Which made at least a dozen cowboys also call out, "Matadors!"
"I need to buy you a round!" Jorge yelled.
"Oh, me too!" Isaac added.
