"Buy me some nachos and I'll go right now," the other guy said with a smirk.
Clay leaned forward so he could pull out his wallet, then passed over a twenty-dollar bill. "Biggest coffee you can find? My flight was a redeye."
"Got it," John told him, pausing to smack my arm on his way past. "Hope you ride today, Jake."
"Same," I told him, waiting until the door closed behind him before turning to my brother. "Clay, I really do want a song."
"Are you riding?" he asked.
I grinned. "Oh yeah. The wolf pack is back, so that's the plan. I mean, unless they fuck us over again."
So Clay turned back to his laptop. "Ok, what song?"
"For Cody Jennings you need to play America's Sweetheart."
He gave me a confused look. "That's not country."
"Close enough," I assured him, "and AC/DC isn't country either."
Clay made a note. "Ok, I can do that. Just so you know, this one isn't on our usual play list. I'll have to go through it to find an eight second clip of it, so you'll owe me."
"Ok?" I asked. "What do you want?"
"I want to know what's going on," he said, lowering his voice. "Jake, that strike? It rattled Dad. He was frantic, trying to figure out how to get men back on bulls because the PBR was bleeding money."
"Good," I said.
"Yeah..." He leaned to check the door, then relaxed back into his chair. "Look, it sounds like that game company sponsoring Cody? They strong-armed him into putting Tanner back on the dirt. He didn't say what threats they used, but it would've been ok."
"Except?" I asked, catching that caveat.
"Well, Dad wanted him back after Casey Davis died," Clay explained. "So it was a win-win sort of thing at first."
"Wait, he did?"
Clay nodded. "Getting the regular bullfighters back was pretty much his only option. But then, during the break? Yeah, stock contractors freaked the fuck out. They were threatening to sue for breach of contract and pull their stock. I'm talking the big names, too."
"Speed Bump," I said. "Yep, I know about that. Don't tell Dad, but Ty and Peter McClain were in the middle of that."
"Shit," Clay breathed. "Ok, that makes more sense then. But yeah, that pressure convinced Dad he had to get Tanner, Jorge, and Isaac back. Cletus was pushing too, so when Deviant made their sweet deal?"
"How sweet?" I asked. "Oh, and in full disclosure, I just signed with them."
"Nice!" Clay said. "Well, Deviant bought signage on basically everything, is sponsoring a few shows, and it's the sort of deal Dad's not used to seeing."
"So what's the problem?"
"Well, Sousa and Haynes told him to watch himself. They said he was being a dumbass. Not in front of Deviant oranything, but when they were talking about what they needed. Dad bitched about how they were ganging up on him, and how no one respects tradition anymore, and that sort of shit."
"Which makes it sound like he's being pushed out," I realized.
But Clay made a face. "More of a disagreement about this. Jake, the judges? They want Tanner gone too. They were pissed about some gay guy working in the P-B-fucking-R."
"Dad said that?" I asked, needing to be sure.
"No," Clay assured me. "I overheard them after the last event. There was a big meeting over how the PBR was going to handle Casey's death. I guess Cody Jennings made a stink on the news, and it hit the organization hard."
"It should've!"
