Summer shoots me a dirty look and barges past me—without being invited in—toward the desk near the window overlooking the parking lot. She plunks a plastic bag on top of it and starts pulling out small boxes and tubes of cream.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, taking another sip.
“Taking care of you,” she mumbles, unboxing a bottle of pills with jerky movements.
“Why?”
“Because you’re too dumb to take care of yourself. I went and bought some stuff at the pharmacy across the parking lot so we can try to patch you up.”
“I don’t need your help.”
She makes this adorable little growling noise that sounds like an angry kitten as she props her palms on the desk and drops her head down, staring at the glossy expanse between her hands. “Has anyone ever told you what a massive prick you can be?”
I chuckle, kind of enjoying seeing her frustration bubble to the surface. I like our verbal sparring. Summer can keep up. She’s witty, and I like that about her. “Nope. You’re the first. Usually, it’s more about what a massive prick I have.”
She huffs out a quiet laugh but doesn’t look up at me. “Nobody is going to care about your cock when you’re too broken to bang them, Eaton. Now put some clothes on.”
Jesus. The things that come out of those cherry lips.
I lift the cup back to my mouth and watch Summer. Her shiny hair tucked behind her ears, her back rising and falling under the weight of deep breaths.
I must really annoy her. And I kind of get off on that. I also get off on the way the word cock sounds on her lips.
When she turns her attention back to me, our eyes lock, and for the briefest moment hers trail down my bare chest, landing on the cheap white towel wrapped around my waist. “Was I unclear?”
All I do is snort, swipe a pair of sweats I laid out on the bed, and saunter into the bathroom to get changed. When I emerge back into the main part of the room, she’s laid out an entire pharmacy.
“Shirt, too, please,” she trills, tidying all the wrappers.
I ignore her request. The truth is, I don’t think I can currently lift my arms high enough to put a shirt on. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s my job.”
I go quiet because deep down that’s not the answer I was hoping for.
“What did you hurt?”
My eyes drop to her lips, pursed in displeasure.
Need more bourbon.
“My shoulder.”
She nods and holds up a bottle. “You can take one of these every twelve hours. And one of those”—she points at the desk—“every four. To start, though, let’s double you up.” She pours one of each into her palm and moves to stand right in front of me, head tipping up to gaze into my eyes as she holds her hand out flat. “Take them.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to get on a bull tomorrow either way. No point in suffering.” She jiggles her hand at me. Pushy little thing that she is.
I take the pills from her palm and toss them into my mouth, holding her gaze the entire time, even as I chase them with my last sip of bourbon.
“Happy?”
“Happier.” She turns away on a sigh and grabs two tubes of cream off the table. “This is arnica cream. It’s homeopathic but I swear it works and it doesn’t smell terrible. I also got you IcyHot that will burn and clear out your nostrils. Don’t rub your eyes after using it. And when we get back home, you’re seeing someone to help with this.”
“We have a doctor on tour. I’m good, thanks. I’ll do physio once the season is over.”
“Then go see the doctor.”
“No.”
Her cheeks flush. “Why?”
I snort because she definitely doesn’t get it. “He’ll tell me not to ride. Everyone tells me not to ride.”
Her eyes widen. “Then don’t ride.”
“I have to ride.”
“Why?” Her voice is full of disbelief, like everyone else’s. No one gets it. The high, the addiction, the thrill. That I’ll have to face figuring out who I am without it.
With a few steps, I take a seat on the edge of the bed and confess, “Because I’m more myself on the back of a bull than I am any other time. I’ve only ever been a bull rider.”
The frustration leeches out of her at that confession, and she regards me with so many questions in her eyes. I look down at the plastic cup, small and flimsy between my hands, and after what seems like a long time, she finally talks again.
“Okay. When we get back to Chestnut Springs, will you at least agree to let me book you a massage or acupuncture appointment? Can we just manage the pain responsibly for the next couple of months until you win?”
My head flips up, the tips of my hair brushing against the top of my shoulders. “You think I’m going to win?”
All at once, I feel like the little boy who so badly wants attention, who wished his mom was there to see him do something impressive. The trouble-making shit disturber who didn’t care about getting a scolding because it was still attention. It meant someone cared about me, and as one of four kids with a single dad breaking his back to run a ranch, I sometimes got lost in the shuffle.
She blows a raspberry as she moves toward the door. “You’re pure magic up there. Of course, you will. Now put your cream on and go to bed.”
My chest warms as she reaches for the knob, and suddenly I don’t want her to leave at all.
I want to hear all about how I look to her.
It’s fucking lame.
I clear my throat and blurt out what I’ve been trying to figure out since she mentioned the cream. “I don’t think I can lift my arm to put the cream on my shoulder.”
She freezes, skirt swishing against her knees. On a heavy sigh, she turns back to me with an expression I can’t quite place on her face. Some cross between annoyance and sadness. And then she’s kicking her boots off and padding across the room in socked feet, swiping both creams off the desk, and then crawling up on the bed until she’s kneeling behind me.
“Which shoulder?” Her voice is tight as her breath dances across my bare back.
“The right one.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Jesus, Rhett,” she breathes.
“Getting hung up tonight didn’t help.” Nothing worse either because you can see the disaster coming in slow motion. This sense of panic settles into your gut that your hand is really fucking stuck in there.
“Okay, before tonight, where did it hurt?”
“Under the shoulder blade.”
The tips of her fingers land gently right where the plate of my shoulder blade rests over my ribs, and I shiver. “Here?”
“Jesus, why are your hands so cold?”
“Because it’s freezing outside, and I walked to get you all this, dumbass.” Her fingers prod along the line of the blade, and I wince.
“Careful. Your dad told me to keep my hands off you.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t tell me to keep my hands off you.”
A quiet, strangled noise lodges in my throat as her hands flutter over my skin. Somehow, that one sentence from her lips has all my blood rushing in a singular direction. And suddenly, things feel awkward. Altogether too quiet. Too personal.