"So what now, big shot?"
He sighed heavily. "I don't fucking know, ok? The PBR's trying to downplay this, and I don’t have a clue how to make it hurt." He took one single step closer. "I do know that our ropes won't come back until fifth place." He looked over to the railing, making it clear what he meant.
Austin stood there with his glove already taped on and his rope hanging from his ungloved fingers. The man was clearly ready to ride, and not even trying to hide it. There was just one thing I didn't get. How was Austin infifthplace?
I leaned a bit to look at the scoreboard. There, I could see the scores totaled up for the entire weekend. Friday's scores were on the left. Saturday were in the middle, and Sunday beside that. On the far right was the running total as our scores were all added up for our weekend standing. It looked like, because he'd ridden, Austin hadn't been penalized like everyone else. That was just enough to make his buck-off count.
My eyes closed and I pulled in a long breath, wishing I could scream out all this frustration.
"It's fine, Cody," Ty assured me. "Look at third place."
My eyes jumped there, finding Renato's name. Fourth was Jason, the guy who'd been bucked off and injured. He had a score from Friday, which put him slightly higher than Austin, and that felt nice somehow. Fitting, maybe?
"It's ok," Ty said again, moving even closer. "Renato's going to be on the bullpen. He'll get a chance to say something, and he will. We won't let this go unnoticed. So go back there, put on your makeup, and make sure everyone who's still here knows we're not taking this shit laying down, ok?"
"Yeah," I breathed. "Thanks, Ty. Don't ride well, ok?"
Which made a little smile finally touch his lips. "Promise. I'm going to not ride as fucking good as I ever have. We got this. One way or another, we will make sure of it."
Yeah, but I didn't feel quite as confident. Still, he had a point. I needed some makeup. I also needed to text my father and let him know I was ok. He was watching, so he'd know that, but I still wanted to make sure he wasn't worried about me.
I didn't make it very far before Jaxon - the American one - jogged to catch up with me. "Hey," he said.
"No press," I grumbled.
"And while Austin and Eli haven't ridden yet," Jaxon pointed out, "let's not tempt fate, ok? One murder a weekend is one too many."
"It wasn't murder," I told him. "Casey's death was an accident."
He grunted. "Was it, Cody? Now, I'm sure murder is the wrong word, but that accident was negligence. A man died because no one cared if he was in the way. Well, do you really think management gives a shit if something bad happens to you?"
A chill raced down my spine. "No."
He nodded once. "Me either, so let me be a gentleman, ok? Think of it like me sucking up to your boyfriend."
Which made my head snap over. "Huh? Why?"
"Because Tanner always reminds us that one second is a real long time, and if I can get a free second, I'll fucking take it."
Tanner. He meant Tanner, not J.D. Shit, I should've known that, but Jaxon had always been one of J.D.'s lackeys. I'd been so distracted by the lack of press that I'd almost screwed up!
"Right," I muttered as we reached the warm-up area. "I need to call my dad and let him know everything is ok."
"Is it?" Jaxon asked.
"No," I breathed as I opened my bag and dug my phone out of the bottom.
But there, flashing on the screen was a text from Rhaven. I couldn't see all of it, the notification cut off all but the first line.Still, that was enough to make me glance up at Jaxon as I quickly unlocked my screen.
"Maybe," I corrected, tapping to open the whole message.
Rhaven:
Get the bull riders you can together. Instead of doing the awards, I have a network connection who can get us a press conference. JD is with me. Says we'll meet at your stuff when done. The more riders, the better.
"Maybe?" Jaxon asked after a pause because I'd just fallen silent.
But the frustration I'd had a moment ago was gone. This? This would definitely clear up that we were not simply doing some memorial bullshit. This was our chance to say it all as loudly as possible.
