The math is brutal.
I close the app.
Set the phone down on the bed beside me.
And sit there in the quiet, the weight of it pressing down on my chest until I can barely breathe.
We're still training. Still working toward something that might not happen.
Eli said we keep going until we can't anymore.
I could make it so we can keep going.
Right now.
But not yet.
Not today.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Maybe when the deadline gets close enough that there's no other choice.
Outside, the sun slips lower, painting the room in shades of gold and amber.
Eli said we keep going.
So that's what I'll do.
Even if I don't know yet what it will cost me.
Chapter twenty-one
Eli
The place is already loud when I get there. Music spills out through the open doors, boots thudding against wood, laughter rising and falling in loose waves. The air smells like beer and dust and something fried that's been sitting too long under heat lamps. Familiar. Easy. The kind of place where nobody expects anything from you except to show up and not spill your drink.
I stand just inside the doorway long enough to take it in. Shae's already laughing with someone near the bar. Addie's halfway through a story, animated and bright. Chace leans in like he's waiting for the punchline.
Hazel's there too, already part of the noise and movement.
She looks lighter. Shoulders looser than I've seen them since she got back. Hair down, dress that catches when she moves, boots I've seen a hundred times that suddenly look different on her. Like she belongs in a room full of people again.
That's the problem.
For a second, I let myself look.
Her dress is short enough to skim the tops of her thighs, showing off legs that are all muscle and smooth skin. The kind of legs I want under my hands, hooked over my hips, locked around my waist. Boots I've seen a hundred times suddenly look dangerous on her—scuffed leather over strong calves, like she could pin me back with just a step forward and I'd let her.
The fabric clings when she moves, tracing the curve of her hips, the line of her waist. It makes me imagine sliding my palm over it, feeling her warmth through the cloth, pushing it higher just to see how far she'd let me go before she told me to stop—or dragged me closer instead.
Her hair is loose down her back, dark against the bare line of her shoulders, brushing over her spine when she turns. I want to gather it in my fist, tilt her head back, see her eyes when I say her name. I want to feel the shiver that runs through her when my mouth finds the place where her neck meets her shoulder.
Heat hits hard and fast, low and insistent. My fingers twitch with the urge to touch her waist, her hips, the inside of her thigh where the dress doesn't quite cover. I want to back her up against a wall, close the space between us until all I can feel is herbody pressed into mine, until the rest of the room disappears and there's nothing left but her breath against my mouth.
Fuck. I need to get it together.
It's been two days since we found out we can't afford the entry fee. Two days of working that colt at four a.m., being professional and careful and so goddamn polite it makes my teeth ache. Two days of her talking about plans and possibilities—restoring the ranch, training and boarding, everything that could be again—without ever promising she'll stay to see it through.
I move farther into the room, nodding at a couple of familiar faces. Someone hands me a beer without asking. I take it, more for something to do with my hands than because I want it.
