Back in the Saddle (Jessica Brodie Diaries #1)(30)

“So he didn’t do too well with points,” I surmised, still staring.

“No, and neither did the bull for that ride.”

“Um hum…” I was leaning against the gate, fist under my chin, gawking for all I was worth. To continue my pleasant occupation, I asked, “And how come you don’t ride?”

Every line in William’s body tensed. He took a small step back from my stare. “I used to. You have to understand—the smaller riders have it better. The best bull riders have been smaller men. They have a smaller center of gravity for the bull to whip around. It's hard to explain if you don’t know the sport...”

“Probably dangerous, too, right? And you have all your breeding and stuff going on…”

“Correct,” William said grudgingly. “Excuse me.”

I got a hard glare from Adam before he shook his head and looked back toward the chute.

“What’d I say?” I wondered quietly to Candace. “That’s just common sense, right?”

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t bring that up anymore.”

“Well obviously yeah. But now I’m curious…”

The gate swung open. Everyone leaned forward….

Nothing happened. The bull was in a Zen trance. It didn’t mind the crowd, didn’t care about the minuscule weight of a small statured rider, and didn’t feel like running around a dusty arena in front of a bunch of yahoos! I totally got where it was coming from.

“Now they are going to prod it,” Candace whispered.

“What does that mean?”

My eyes following a lanky man in a giant cowboy hat as he walked up to the small enclosure with the bull. He carefully raised a long stick and threaded it through the bars. The crowd directly around him peeled away, giving him room to work.

“Prodding means they’re going to—“

I could hear the sound of an angry bee right before the bull jolted, bumping forward and hitting its horns against the metal. A second prod had the bull moving all around, emitting loud, angry, male cow sounds. Moooooorrrrrrrrrraaaaahhhhhhh!!! Bull speak for, “I am going to plot revenge and kill you all just as soon as I get out of this jail cell!”

This time, ripped out of its Zen trance, the bull blazed out of the gate, flying around the oval space with hooves flying. The cowboy, hand up, body more orchestrated than the last guy, was hanging on for dear life.

William and Adam were both leaning against the ring yelling “C’mon! C’mon! Almost got it! Almost got it! HANG ON!”

I swear, men would scream encouragement at anything. In a bar watching a football game it was like a pack of angry, hairy cheerleaders yelling hoarsely for “their” team to perform.

I bet dudes would go around life yelling for performance if they could get away with it: “Yeah, way to pack those f**king groceries! In-the-bag!” Or, “C’mon—wash the car, man! You missed a spot! Damn it! You missed—ah, man! It’s right there! Are you BLIND?! UN-be-leave-able!”

Chuckling to myself, a buzzer sounded from the judges two-level podium. Everybody cheered. But we weren’t done yet. The bull was pissed and eight seconds didn’t mean jack now that it's anger was up.

The cowboy untied his hand, which was a hasty, frantic endeavor, and threw a leg over the bull’s back. He would try for a mid-air dismount.

It worked out to be a mid-air fling, his body sailing head-over-ass onto the ground.

“Ouch,” I commented.

The cowboy scrambled up in a wave of dust and starting running. Right for us!

“Oh my God, not this way!” I shouted, waving my arms in mayday.

The rider must have heard me, or realized the bull had better things to do than chase him, because one harried look over his shoulder had him slowing down and changing his flight plan off to the right.

“Jesus,” I breathed with my hands on my hips. “That was close, huh?”

“Not this way?” Adam asked with a smirk, leaning on the fence so he could look at me around William.

I looked at Adam closely for the first time. He had dark hair and eyes and a chiseled face. He wasn’t as good looking at William, although not many men were, but he was striking. Where William had a manly, ruggedly handsome face, Adam had more of a magazine model’s airbrushed appearance. He wasn’t effeminate by any stretch of the imagination, but he was textbook good looking with straight features, brooding brown eyes, and almost baby-faced characteristics. He would be the next boy-toy if he were in the movies. Harder for the older dames to grab a hold of, but young women and g*y men would go crazy.

“Well, yeah, right?" I answered. "I didn’t sign up to be gored by a bull!”

Adam huffed out a laugh and shook his head.

“Alright,” William said, avoiding my gaze. Moose moved up behind him, both men looking excited yet anxious. “The first of mine is up.”

“What, the first bull?” I asked, noticing a rider gingerly climbing into the chute and atop an enormous beast.

“No, the first dog,” Adam said sardonically.

William gave Adam a strange expression I couldn’t dissect. A second later it was wiped away as a commotion sounded.

The rider’s butt had just touched down on the bull’s back when the beast started thrashing. Since the enclosure was only slightly bigger than the animal’s body, there wasn’t much the bull could do besides crush the rider’s legs. Apparently that was plenty. The rider climbed out of the enclosure so fast it looked like God had pushed fast-forward on His DVR.