They got through breakfast without setting anything else on fire, got dressed, and then suddenly it was time to ride. “You ready, Mini?”
“Yeah. Yeah, cowboy. I am.”
Fuck him.
He really was.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Holy shit, he’s gonna do it!” AJ sounded utterly floored, which always made him sound a little like that old Howdy Doody puppet had made a baby with Matthew McConaughey.
Bax just nodded, eyes on Jason as he spun up to five and a half seconds on the old but not too placid practice bull.
Mini had been getting on bulls again for a few weeks now, and he was making some rides. And Bax was damn fucking proud of him, even if every time he watched it, he wanted to puke his guts out on his boots.
Hell, half the time he did it, Mini spewed chunks. The fine bastard was going to have to learn to keep his goddamn eyes open. When he did that? He looked like classic Jason Scott. Balanced. One with the damn bull. A champion.
“It’s still weird, eh?” AJ leaned against the fence, banging on it, encouraging Jason to head their direction. “This way, man. Don’t fall over your bullrope!”
Denver moved in so he could get the bull moving away from Jason, but that old boy wasn’t going to try to hook anyone. He just wanted his grass and hay.
Jason came jogging up, managing to stop short of the fence. “I looked all right?”
“You looked grand, Mini.” He wanted to grab Jason and run, but he clapped a hand on that skinny-ass shoulder instead.
“Good. Good. I want to do it again. It felt pretty good, you know? I mean, I felt like my mind was in the middle.”
Bax thought he was going to scream. He didn’t, though, because he didn’t want Mini to believe for a second that he doubted. “All right, but you got maybe one more round before I’m gonna need lunch.”
There, that was a compromise, wasn’t it?
“Cool. That works. I could so eat.”
Well, that was surprising. Nine times out of ten, Mini turned food down these days, especially if someone was watching.
So this was a damn good thing.
“All right, Aje. Load ’em up again.”
“Den, let’s give him Ole Miss.”
Denver glanced at his brother. “You sure, man?”
“Granny could ride him, for fuck’s sake.”
“I don’t want a granny bull.” Jason’s eyes moved as if he was searching for AJ.
Bax rolled his own eyes. “He spins, Mini. Flat, but he spins. You need to work on that.”
“You know it. I need to make sure I got all my bases covered. The spinning is hard, jostles my innards somehow.”
“Well, sure.” AJ sounded completely unsurprised. “You got to be able to focus your eyes on a point to be able to spin, and you cain’t.”
“So what do I do? I gotta reckon this.” Mini blew out a frustrated breath, then his lips twisted. “Bax? What do you think?”
I think you need to stop asking me to deal with things I don’tfucking understand. All I want is for you not to fucking get hurt again.
When he answered, though, he tried for calm and reasonable.“Well, when you was riding before you used balance, right? So how did you do it? Did you focus on something?”
