“I’ll ask Momma if she wants anything, but I think we’re good here. We’ve got Sprite coming out of our wazoos. Stephen stopped at the Costco and bought like eighteen cases.”
“Okay, well you let me know if anything changes. I don’t want y’all to be stuck in there and not have anything. I can even put a mask on if I need to. I’m not going to have y’all starving or expiring from the stomach flu.”
“Nah, we got this. You just stay safe and don’t infect everybody else, right?”
“Right. I’ll get the girls from school, and I’ll scrub them within an inch of their lives so maybe they don’t have it on them.”
“Good man. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Tell everybody to feel better, honey.”
“I will. Bye.”
He hit end on the call and shook his head. Lord help him. That was all they needed was to have everybody at school be all sick. They had so much Christmas shit to do and so many parties to go to. He was just not looking forward to that.
His phone buzzed, and he looked at a text coming in from Cam.
Mitch knew that because he’d been watching the stats come through the website. He knew Cam was doing well. He might end up in the money overall.
It didn’t matter if he didn’t, though.
The fact he’d come up top three in two nights meant he was making some cash.
he texted back. He knew not every rider went every day.
His heartbeat kicked up because that was the first time he’d seen Cam put it in writing. And it was pretty damn amazing. He cleaned up the sink and headed off to do the next chore, but he was ready for Cam to come home.
Chapter Twenty
Cam was heading back to the pens behind the arena to get Fire some feed and make sure he had water when his buddy Dale Brooks stopped him with a shout from across the times event gates.
“Cam! Hey, man, I got a favor to ask.”
Aw shit. Here it went. He’d managed to avoid most of the guys who always needed favors for four days. Looked like his number was up.
“Hey, man.” They shook hands after Dale jogged up to him. Lord, that was a big boy. Cam wasn’t small like a roughstock guy, but Dale was a bulldogger, and he had some heft to him.
“My hazer is sick. Food poisoning from the cheap-ass shrimp buffet last night. You think you could stand in?”
He pondered that, chewing his lower lip. “Not on Fire. I tried hazing on him once, and he bit the bulldogger’s horse.”
Dale hooted. “Sounds like your damn gelding. You could use Terry’s horse. He already gave me permission.”
He fought not to sigh. It was what? Twenty minutes of work from saddling the horse to finishing the run? “Okay, yeah. Sure. When are you up? I don’t have a day sheet yet.”
“I’m doing my run, third in. I really appreciate this, man. It should be just up-down, you know? I wrestle that bitch to the ground, and then we’re done.” Dale grinned at him, one gold tooth shining.
“Yeah, no problem. It ain’t no big thing. I’m happy to help.” Besides, at some point, he’d need a favor of his own, wouldn’t he?
