I might should have. I probably could have.
Had he not called me that.
Now I just had no fight left in me.
Maybe I should move?
But then my thoughts drifted to the coffee shop that I co-ran with Desi, and that thought immediately fled. I couldn’t leave. I’d just gotten everything that I’d ever wanted.
I had my shop. I had a house. I had my dreams.
I wouldn’t leave.
But I’d definitely try harder to avoid Banks Valentine.
“It’s fine,” I lied again.
It wasn’t fine, and we both knew it.
But, like he said, we were seeing quite a bit of each other lately. It would only continue to get harder and harder unless we let bygones be bygones.
“Okay,” he said, curling his arm around the young woman.
I let my eyes flicker to hers, and that was when I saw the smirk on her face.
“Cray-Cray.” She grinned. “I like it. Next time I come into the coffee shop…”
I gritted my teeth and shot Banks a scathing glare.
“Please don’t,” I said stiffly. “I almost killed myself over that nickname in high school. I definitely don’t want to be thinking of that time in my life again.”
Banks face went utterly white, and I wondered if he thought I was joking about the killing myself part.
I hadn’t been. Not really.
I could hear the repeated words of ‘Jesus, Cray-Cray, you feel so tight’ and ‘Cray-Cray, your pussy is the best thing ever’ in my head over and over again when I closed my eyes at night.
I seriously did not like that nickname.
Even more, if I continued to hear it, coffee shop or not, I was leaving.
I couldn’t handle that nickname at all.
Not and be able to function.
Without another word, I turned on my booted heels and headed back into the stands with Mack.
I ate my funnel cake. I even went back to eat a fried Oreo cheesecake stick.
I drank two more beers.
All the while, I tried to pretend like I hadn’t just let my secret slip.
I’d done a damn fine job hiding it. My father and mother were the only ones to know that I’d almost succeeded in killing myself in high school. I really didn’t want him to know what I’d done, and if I was lucky, maybe he’d think I was joking.
“You’re all doom and gloom,” Mack said as he waited for Banks to get up. “What’s wrong?”
I decided to tell the truth.
“Banks apologized for fucking my life up in high school,” I said. “He also made sure to call me Cray-Cray.”
Mack winced. “That nickname was stupid.”
It was.
“He’s up next,” Mack said. “Maybe he’ll fall off and get horned in the nuts.”
I slapped Mack across the chest. “That’s not funny.”
Mack held up his fingers just slightly apart. “It kind of was.”
I rolled my eyes.
He was right.
But seconds later, when Banks went out of the shoot on the bull’s back and nearly died when he was tossed about ten feet in the air, I wasn’t finding anything funny any longer.
Heart in my throat, I watched as the bullfighter distracted the bull long enough for Banks to get to his feet and haul ass. He made it over the fence and was swinging a leg over when I decided it was time to go.
I would’ve made it, too, had a certain husky voice not called my name.
I hesitated, unsure whether I should pretend I didn’t hear it, or go down there and find out what he wanted.
But then he called my name louder.
Mack started laughing, and I chose to flip him off and leave.
I made it all the way to the porta-potties for the common folk before I heard my name called again.
“Candy!”
I paused with my foot half in the dirt of the rodeo arena, and half on the concrete path that would lead me out of the fairgrounds.
“Yes?” I asked, turning around with a reluctance to my body that was honestly quite astounding.
I didn’t want him to see what his fall and near death had done to me.
His eyes caught mine and he studied me for a few long seconds.
He was on top of the pen that separated the crowd and the stands from the action in the arena. His shirt was dirty from his rolling on the ground, and his hat was in his hand. His hair was plastered to the side of his head, and most of it was sticking up in spikey needle-like clumps.
I wanted to bury my hands in his dark hair and never let go.
I tried to tell myself not to look past his lower belly, but I couldn’t help it.
He had on a shiny gold belt buckle that was just too sparkly for my eyes to resist.
The belt buckle had a bucking bull in the middle of it, and a rather large ‘V’ was stamped on it with silver.
I swallowed hard as I tried not to look down at what was under that belt, but in the end I couldn’t stop myself. I had zero will power. Which was why I’d already had two funnel cakes and a fried Oreo cheesecake stick.