Page 93 of One Last Rodeo

And for a woman who’s spent years perfecting the cold shoulder, I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold in my life.

Chapter 28 – Jensen

“It was a good ride,” Dawson says cautiously, his mouth set in a flat line as he looks at me.

I uncuff my gloves and toss them into the dirt just outside the gate at the Seattle stadium. I don’t bother looking up at the scoreboard. It's not like I'd get the score right anyway and I don’t need to.

Tonight, I’ll lie awake in a too-clean hotel bed with cold sheets where Catalina should be and obsessively listen to the score on the app she downloaded on my phone back in Denver. I'll rewind, pause, and memorize the judges’ comments until my stomach turns and the only thing I can think about is how badly I miss the woman who cared so much about me that she wanted me to be safe so she found a whole app that'll tell me how my ride went and give me performance tips.

She saw a need and found a way to help without humiliating me. It's that attention to detail and care for connection that has this whole thing hurting even more.

I give Dawson a nod. He’s still careful around me. I can’t blame him. Last time we talked, I fired him and told him to fuck off in the same breath even if we both knew I hadn’t meant it. He still doesn’t know why I said it. No one knows why I blew up on him after San Jose. No one knows why I’ve been riding pissed and breathing sharp and snapping at everyone who gets too close instead of cracking jokes and looking at the bright side of things like I have in the past.

Or maybe they all do, and they’re just respecting my privacy.

Because the topic of Doctor Alba being absent tonight—off doing surgery on some kid, a little girl with a rare heart defect that only she can fix—has been all June, Noa, Craig, and the other guys have talked about since we landed in Seattle yesterday.

And every time I hear about it, I no longer feel anger at Catalina for telling me to fuck off and walking away from me. I'm not mad that she burned everything down before we even got started. I'm just angry at myself.

I’m not mad that she’s not here tonight. God knows that kid needs her more than I do right now. She already put me back together once—stitches and a scar like it was easy. There’s not much left that she could break and wouldn’t know how to fix.

But jealousy isn’t logical.

I’m jealous of anyone who gets her time. Her attention. Her care. She used to call herself cold. I wish she could see herself the way I do—warm and brilliant, full of light.Love in a body,whether she believes it or not.

Dawson must be able to tell that I'm not in the mood for a debrief. He grunts, mumbles something about how much he misses Lo and hopes she can make it to the semis in Charlotte, then walks off to talk to Micah who just finished his ride.

“You coming out with us tonight?” Joel asks, sliding up next to me.

He rode first today—a switch from our usual lineup—and stayed on for the full eight seconds. I can see the confidence starting to settle into him, the nerves finally smoothing out the further he gets into the series. He didn’t make it into the semis this time, that's already confirmed, but he had a hell of a run for our team this event, and next time he’ll come back even stronger.

“I don’t think so.”

“Ah, come on,” he says. “I need a wingman. Besides, the ladies love your big, goofy smile.”

That smile’s been gone for a while now. I don’t have anything left to smile about. Everything that made sense—everything that mattered—is still back in San Jose. Possibly sliding right back into the life of her loser ex-fiancé after she finishes saving a kid’s life with her steady hands, impossible precision, and beautiful heart.

I guarantee that asshole doesn't appreciate her the way that I do. Doesn't worship between her legs the way I have, because I saw the shocked expression on her face the first few times she came against my tongue. Whoever he was, he'd never done it quite right. Never pressed on the places she likes touched the most like I have.

I could go out tonight. I could be petty. Do what I would’ve done when I was younger—find some woman who doesn’t know me, doesn’t matter, and won't last, just to sleep with her and forget Kitty's pretty face. I could try to prove something stupid. Spiteher threats. But I’m not a boy anymore. I’m a man who fucked up and lost hisPulse. And all I want is Catalina. Even if I screwed it all to hell. Even if I still think she’s wrong for pushing me away over something that was out of my control. Even if I think the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

I’m holding onto hope.

I shake my head. “Not tonight.”

He mumbles something about it being my loss and I couldn't disagree more.

My loss is Catalina.

***

Later that night, when the noise dies down and I’m alone in my hotel room, I pull out the phone I barely use and scroll through the few pictures I have of her from our trip to Tennessee.

Her holding up a fish she caught on the lake, proud and laughing. Her face tipped toward the sun, eyes squeezed shut against the light, red nail polish flashing like a warning sign.

I glance down at my own hand. The polish she painted on there is already starting to chip off and completely missing on my thumb from the wear of the rope. Irrational panic floods my system. Like if the color disappears, she will too.

I wonder if she took hers off before surgery on the kid. I wonder if she took it off the second I walked away from her because she couldn't bear to look at her favorite color and the messy paint job that I gave her any longer.