Page 19 of Broken Trust
The place is bigger than the trailer we’ve been sharing lately.
A kitchen. Leather chair. Flat-screen television. Queen-size bed. Air-conditioning that actually works.
I let out a low whistle. “Well, hell.”
Royce appears in my doorway. “Pretty nice, huh?”
“Nice?” I laugh. “It’s a fucking palace.”
I walk through the cabin, opening cabinets and doors. All the essentials are stocked—from dishes to towels and extra pillows and blankets.
And it all looks and smells brand-new. Clean and expensive.
Which makes me think about the rodeo school Dad sent Royce and me to when we were kids.
Now, that place was a complete dump. A worn-out ranch in the middle of the Arizona desert.
Nothing but dirt, cacti, rattlesnakes, and heat that could melt your damn boots off.
The dorms were tight, the beds were squeaky, the linens threadbare, and the bathrooms looked like science experiments gone wrong.
The arena fencing looked like it was one angry bull away from collapse.
The instructors were mean as hell.
And the food was fucking terrible.
But somehow, Royce and I loved every second of it.
We were thirteen and fifteen, respectively, at the time. Young, eager, and stupid.
Every morning, we’d wake up before sunrise and hit training hard, convinced that we’d be world champions as soon as we graduated high school.
Didn’t matter that we were wet behind the ears, exhausted, or that we spent most days of that camp getting our asses handed to us.
We were living rodeo, and that was enough for us.
I unzip my duffel and start hanging clothes in the closet.
“Think these kids realize how good they got it?” I call out.
Royce laughs as he turns and heads out the door. “Not a chance.”
“Nope.”
I shove my boots beneath the bed. “Little bastards got bunkhouses nicer than most hotels.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re unpacked.
Neither of us brought much.
Jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks, and boots. A few personal things.
Simple.
The life of a rodeo cowboy doesn’t exactly require a lot of possessions.
We head back outside and start walking toward the covered arena.
