Chapter 11 Another ten minutes and we'll be arriving at today's competition venue. This is part of our home rodeo circuit, and provides one of the best opportunities for the likes of Chaos and myself to enter and not have to spend a crap load of time or money on travel. No one tells you when you first get into rodeo that some of your biggest lessons will come in the form of boring shit like budgeting. Learning how to manage your expenses, particularly in the early days-what gear to borrow rather than buy outright, what essentials you need to invest in owning yourself-and how to balance entering events with the goal of winning prize money while still working. It's all well and good for those who break into the top of the top. When you're finally breathing the rarified air of arenas where life-changing cash waits on the table every time you exit the bucking chute. But the reality for cowboys like us is that we're laying everything on the line during an eight-second ride, all while doing our best to stack events back to back where possible. A simple, but effective way to avoid the inevitable red line of expenses creeping higher. That's why Chaos and I will share a vehicle, split fuel, and buddy up as much as possible. It makes doing this financially viable, whereas if you're doing it alone, you've gotta have deep pockets to line that path. Guys like me certainly don't have that at our disposal. That's probably one reason why it stung even deeper when I first got started and knew that Raine was in the position where we could have done this together. We were competing at the same events, entering at the same time, traveling to and from the same location. Yet, the asshole didn't want to have anything to do with me. My knee bounces as Chaos drums his fingers on the wheel. We know each other's routines inside out and upside down these days. Once we get close to the arena like this, our focus starts to dial in. Minute by minute, the belt cinches tighter on our thoughts and words, and even though we might have spent several hours talking shit while driving-this is where it gets serious. We might be friends, but we also know the competition is fierce. Ultimately, one of us is going to walk away today a winner, while the other won't get so lucky. It pushes the two of us. Professional athletes say it time and time again, that they're only as successful as their opposition drives them to be during their careers. The greats are made that way by the fires they go through in order to climb to the top. I'm thankful to have him by my side, forcing me to be better at every turn. My phone vibrates in my hand, and I flip it over, expecting to see a message from Brad or the competition organizers. Instead, this particular text is the last fucking thing I need right now. Not at this moment. Goddamn it. Could she not hold her shit together for one lousy day? Mom: Kayce, I'm begging. Darling, please, just this last time. I've tried everything to get hold of you. My blood runs cold as those words pop up. I should have blocked her number years ago, but if I don't pick up her messages, who the fuck will? Can I walk away from the woman who is legally my parent? My blood? Even if, at this point in life, I'm the one who always feels the pressure of bearing sole responsibility for taking care of her? She's a teen mom who never grew up. Stuck in a time loop. Someone who never matured past being a pregnant seventeen-year-old. As much as it makes my jaw clench and thumb itch to delete her messages immediately, could I live with myself if I found out the worst had happened to her . . . again? I raise my chin to watch the world fly by out the window, not wanting to disturb Chaos from getting into his zone for the event. He doesn't need me unloading decades of childhood misery where my mother and her addiction is concerned. Maybe it's because everything feels so freshly reopened, like a wound that has been picked at and left bleeding freely, with all that has been going on lately, but my head starts spinning. All the shitty decisions I've had to make, some out of desperate necessity, and some out of just being a drunk asshole which only exacerbated the problem. Either way, reality slams into me like a brutal, icy front: My mom has gotten herself into deep shit. Once more, she's relying on me to solve her problems for her. I knew it the moment all those missed calls and messages started popping up. Deny it as I might, it had already crawled into my awareness on spindly legs. The grim truth was right there, and yet I tried to ignore it, because thinking back on the last time I bailed her out dredges up a whole shipwreck of the worst kinds of memories. Ones that I'd gladly leave trashed at the bottom of the ocean rather than have to revisit all over again. One particular memory is so visceral, it bursts in as soon as I open the door a crack. I'm back there in a flash, hearing the asshole's voice down the phone-rough and thick with the type of menace men like him live and breathe. "She owes us money," he drawls. "Yeah, well, my mom has never been responsible. So why lend her anything in the first place?" I swallow heavily. How they got my number is the least of my concerns right now. I've got the kind of man who you don't want to ever be receiving a phone call from currently on the other end of the line, telling me that my mom has racked up debts she can't pay off. "We don't care much for what folks can, or can't, afford." Yeah, that much I already assumed without him spelling it out for me. "How long does she have . . . how long to get the money to you?" In my head, I'm busy calculating how many days it will take me to get my ass back to the Midwest. It seemed like the best decision to move out, and keep away from her drama. Yet, here I am, with the bill for her addiction now coming due. A terse conversation that most certainly isn't a social call or friendly chit-chat. "Put it this way, kid . . ." He sucks air through his teeth and makes a wet, smacking noise with his mouth. "Your mother is already far beyond any leniency period we might consider extending." Fuck. I slam my eyes closed. Heart leaping into the back of my throat. "That's a nice-looking ride you've got parked up on main," he drags out the words. This asshole thinks he can threaten me? Presumably, with the intent of sending guys to jump me as I make my way back to my piece of shit car? He obviously wants me well aware that he knows how to get to me, just as easily as my mom. I don't care about taking a beating. My body has been through hell in rodeo, but what I can't bear is the thought of walking into her shitty apartment and finding her with a black eye, or worse. Even if it is from her own terrible choices; her constant refusal to get help. "How much?" I grunt. "Five large." My stomach drops straight to my boots. There's no way in hell I can find that kind of money in the kind of timeframe he's demanding. Even with what I've got saved, and competing at the next run of events I'm due to ride in. I could take out top placing in each rodeo back-to-back, and I'd still be scraping to pull together that much cash. "I'll have it for you. Promise. Just . . . leave her the fuck alone, man." "You're a good boy, Kayce Wilder." He chuckles into the phone. "Don't make me eat my words." With that, the line goes dead. Inside my chest, my heart is damn well pounding, remembering how slimy his voice was. A faceless, nameless prick. The lies I had to tell to get hold of that money overnight left me numb, doubled over, hugging the toilet bowl. Scrambling to put a loan with a finance company in my ex's name, just to get enough desperate cash at short notice will go down as one of the worst days of my life. I went out that night and got trashed as soon as the debt had been paid off. Pretty sure I wasn't sober for weeks on end. A spiral of self-destruction that caused more damage than just being a loser to my ex-girlfriend. It cost me every sponsor. I lost my spot on the tour to boot. As we pull into the parking lot, I would ordinarily be hyper focused. My brain should be dialed in, lasered in preparations for the event. All that is supposed to occupy my mind's eye are the visualizations I've spent so much time running over in the build-up to this exact moment. Everything I'm meant to be walking through to get my head on straight after our most recent training day, and a ride that felt so goddamn good I could taste the victory. My upcoming win. Tuned the fuck into my preparations. That's how immersed and centered every cell needs to be right this second. The feeling I'm counting on to be staunchly set in my damn bones. Instead, I'm drowning in harrowing memories. The yelling. Her wailing. Shouting down the phone at my mom with a half-empty bottle of vodka in one hand. Telling her to sort herself out, and that if she doesn't, I'll goddamn well inform Colton Wilder of everything she's done as a willfully neglectful parent to ruin my life. Heat stings the back of my eyes, and I can hear echoes of her pathetic sobbing. I'm sorry honey, I wasn't in my right mind. I don't remember doing that. Followed by the denial. You're a foul little shit, making up lies about your own momma. All she'd ever do was cry. Make excuses. It's like arguing with a child if I ever bother trying to talk some sense into her. She never could stay off the pills long enough to have a clear head. Never capable of making a decision that wasn't centered around getting her next fix. Most of the time, she was out of it on the very pills that doctors are happily shoving in the hands of their patients all over this goddamn country. The fucking epidemic they're enabling with people just like my mom, who are too weak to accept the help they need in order to finally say no and get clean. Seeing her latest messages, I'm already dreading what new trouble she's gotten herself into. Who has she racked up another sky-high round of debts with? What phone call am I gonna get this time, out of the blue, that potentially derails everything I've worked so hard to achieve? I've spent the past couple of years climbing out of that pit of shame after getting lost in the bottom of a bottle in an attempt to avoid all of this. Now, I'm so close to making something of myself. I'm so close to actually achieving the rodeo dreams I've had my heart set on since the first pro bronc ride I ever watched. Since the first time I saw Raine compete. Fuck's sake. ". . . wake the hell up, man." Chaos smacks my shoulder. I jerk my head around, realizing his Bronco is parked and the engine has been cut. We're here. And I'd better get my head in the fucking game. Finding a quiet spot, I hide out and run through my stretches. I've already been for a jog to get my blood pumping, trying to combat some of this anxiety humming and sizzling in my veins that I wouldn't usually be fighting at this late stage before heading into the arena. My number hasn't been called yet, so I've still got time to go through my pre-ride routine. The ritual I've cultivated for myself that seems to work. We've all got our quirks and superstitions we do to settle ourselves, to lock in the mindset we need before entering the bucking chute. Some will have a smoke, some will make sure they've got their specific competition hat to wear. Chaos disappears to hurl his guts up at the last second, without fail, every time. As I'm quietly working on my groin, stretching out in a kneeling lunge position, my eyes lift. Familiar black hair sticks out, wild and unruly, beneath his charcoal hat. On reflex, my chest tightens. With all the memories of Mom and my shitty past lurking right there, my brain struggles to process what I'm seeing. Why the fuck is he here? What the hell is he doing in this section of the arena . . . right where all the competitors are gathered, getting ready to be called? Just as my stretch falters, as I lose focus on what I'm supposed to be doing, the asshole turns around. His dark eyes drill into mine, and I'm faintly aware of the blood rushing in my ears, deadening the noise of the crowd and announcer. I push to stand up, seemingly unable to rip my attention away from Raine. That curl to his upper lip tugs higher, and his focus dips down to take in my chaps, my boots, then back up to my shirt and vest. I'm pissed off at myself for being so easily distracted by him being right here. Right in the competitor's section. "Why the fuck are you here?" I bite out. He runs his tongue over his teeth. "Worried I'm gonna be in that arena and whoop your ass?" "No." My palms feel goddamn clammy all of a sudden. "I know you're not competing." "Sure about that?" He glances between me and the railings, the crowds. Fuck this guy. "What the hell is your problem? Just leave me alone." "Gladly." "Then why are you here?" Everything I'd normally be doing right now has flown out of my brain. It's too much like being face-to-face with him when he was top dog, the rodeo king. Time after time he was the one to beat. Just thinking about that fact, even though I logically know it isn't happening in the here and now, my body reacts as if we've just rewound the clock by years. I might as well be eighteen and staring at the guy I so desperately wanted to be and who looked at me like I was shit on the sole of his boots. "It's a free country, last I checked." Raine scratches his jaw. "But since you're crying like a kicked puppy about it . . . I drove Tessa here so she could watch Oscar compete." Swallowing down jagged rocks, I'm stuck in a place where words escape me. "Happy now? Put your pacifier back in and suck on it while shutting the fuck up." He shakes his head. "If you put half as much effort into riding as you did to crying on my shoulder . . ." He clicks his tongue and with that, abruptly walks off. Not even bothering to finish the sentiment. Because that's how little I matter, how insignificant I am to my own goddamn stepbrother. How little I mean to anyone. Instead of focusing like I know I need to, my brain is a NASCAR racetrack. Thoughts are whizzing and flying and threatening to flip in a fiery explosion as they collide with one another. Someone calls my name. My limbs are numb as I shake them out. Every movement, each little step that I could just about do in my sleep, is done by routine, rather than conscious decision. I'm vaguely aware that my head isn't in it. But thoughts of money, debts, thugs banging down my mother's door at three a.m. with baseball bats, all of that forms a frenzy driving me to climb onto the back of that bronc. Being in the chute, I hardly hear the chatter going on around me. My ass settles onto the horse, with tension and anticipation rolling off the animal in powerful waves. I've gotta do this. I've gotta take out that top placing. All I know is that as soon as the gate busts open . . . everything is infinitely, abhorrently wrong.