So I rode. I rode fuckin' hard. I rode the shit out of that bull. When he landed, I pushed my ass into his back, forcing him into the spin I wanted. Speed Bump immediately turned into my hand, but I felt his heels fly up high enough to make both him and me tip. Damn, he was trying to flip himself over!
But I had this. Pulling my legs up, I tried to get my knees up by my ears. Who knew, maybe Tanner was into that shit. I knew the judges were, and seeing this fancy fucking pink shit flapping at the edge of my vision was kinda nice.
I barely thought that before the bull decided to double down. It was like he was making me pay for not being all-in with him, because he doubled back, spinning the other way, out of my hand. Muscles screamed in protest. My back popped when thebull's feet hit the ground, but he was right back up before I could decide if that hurt or felt good.
"C'mon," I grunted out between my clenched teeth. "Do it!" And I dug my heels in as hard as I could.
The bull launched, getting all four feet off the ground one more time, and leveled out at the top. I spurred, getting my legs off him so far the judges would definitely see air between me and this beast. This was the photo op the fans loved. This was the winning moment.
We crashed down together. Both the bull and I grunted as the air was forced from our lungs, and then he reared up again, still trying to make that left-hand turn. I flung my off-hand, trying to give my sore side a break, but it weren't helping none.
My side was protesting real bad. My abs were burning, but just when I was sure I couldn't take anymore, the buzzer went off, declaring I'd ridden to eight! I was done! I also neededoffthis bull real fuckin' bad.
With my free hand, I flipped the tail around. The other simply let go, and I didn't waste time planning my dismount. Nope, I knew I'd be ok. Tanner was there. He'd get me. He always got me.
Speed Bump bucked again.
I flew, tossed into the air by the bull's ass. When the lights were under my feet, I knew I'd just done a sad little flip, and that meant this landing was gonna hurt, but I was done. I'd made eight. I'd done a full ride!
"Ho!" one of the guys yelled, just as arms grabbed me.
Together, I crashed into the dirt with another guy. I was pretty sure it was Tanner, until he let go. I rolled, about to say something, and got a face full of yellow, orange, and red. Fuck, that was Isaac.
"J.D., you good?" he demanded.
"Yup, go!"
Immediately, Isaac took off. Thankfully, Speed Bump weren't the kind to come back for me, because I moved slowly as I tried to make it to my feet. My fucking knee popped so hard it almost buckled. My whole side was burning, and my shoulder had that used feeling like it was gonna hurt later. In other words, I was not going anywhere fast.
"J.D.!" Tanner barked, making me look up to see him walking over and the bull gone. "You good?"
I waved him down, then forced my body straight. Oh yeah. I needed my vape real bad. "Old!" I called back.
Which brought a smile to his face. I sauntered that way, intending to meet him halfway. When I reached up to take off my helmet, that side protested, so I used the other. Wasn't as easy, but I was damned good at makin' do.
I barely had that over my head when Tanner stopped dead in his tracks, looking over my head. That wasn't good. Turning, I looked for the scoreboard, but my name wasn't at the top.
I was too tired to try to find it, so I turned a little more, checking the big screen on that side of the arena. It showed me paused on the dirt, and along the bottom was my score: 71.25.
"The fuck?" I breathed, checking the details of that.
They always broke it down. We didn't always look, because it didn't fucking matter. Half of that was the bull's performance, and the other half was mine. I knew I hadn't beenthatbad, and this bull was the second best in the world, so how the fuck did it add up to a measly seventy-shit?!
And the moment I saw it, I understood. The bull score was sitting at 47.75. The rider score? They'd given me a mere 23.5. Twenty-fucking-three-point-five. I read the numbers again and again, trying to make them make sense, because I'dneverscored that low in my entire career, professional or otherwise.
"Eli said they hate gay more than girls," Tanner said softly as he passed over my rope. "I think the PBR just proved it's true."
"Fuck the PBR," I growled, staring right into the bullpen where the judges were watching me like they were bored. "This means war."
Chapter 62
What.
The.
Fuck?!
The moment J.D.'sscore posted, my mouth flopped open in shock. I couldn't even scream about it because I was honestly too shocked. Seventy-one point twenty-five was bad, but onthatbull? Yeah, I had to look at the breakdown to figure out where things had gone wrong, because I'd honestly expected something in the nineties.
