Page 4 of Sunday's Best

“Right.” The word slips out in a breath of disbelief.

“Why do you care?”

He snorts. “I don’t. Just making conversation.”

“Since when do you talk to me?” I ask under my breath. More rhetorical than anything, since I know exactly when he last really talked to me—it was before I started dating Logan.

“Since you showed up in my truck without an explanation.”

“I just gave you an explanation.” I look over my shoulder at him, training my stare on his blue-green irises. They’re so vivid, it’s disconcerting. No human has eyes that color—bet he’s an alien, or vampire, or alien-vampire. That would explain a lot, actually.

“And it was a bullshit one.”

I lick my lips, conscious of the way his eyes suddenly seem to be lingering on them. “Drop it, Holden.”

“Shit. Didn’t realize it was that touchy of a subject.”

I nearly whirl on him, but in a brief moment of mercy from the Keno gods, the woman in front of me shuffles off, and I step forward so fast, I practically throw Logan’s bottled water at the unsuspecting cashier.

“Sorry,” I mumble, feeling the heat of Holden’s stare on my back.

With an oblivious smile, the cashier hands me my change. “Have a great day.”

Holden snickers. “She won’t.”

He’s not wrong.

Three

Once the spectators are gone and the arena lights have gone out, the rodeo grounds feel like a small, lawless city. Campfires have cropped up all over, diesel generators hum, music bleeds through the open spaces in between packed stock trailers, and the air’s thick with the smells of sweat and horses and beer.

Logan thrives in this environment. Always has.

And today, the brothers each took home over two-thousand dollars, so he’s feeling exceptionally good.

His arm hooks around my waist, thumb brushing flirty circles on my hip, as he guides me toward a folding plastic picnic table filled with cowboys. I recognize a few from last weekend—they sat outside our trailer playing poker with Logan until well past midnight, while I curled up on the sofa bed and did my best not to think about Holden sleeping a few feet away.

“Hey, guys.” Logan’s palm splays across my hip, warm thumb inching up under my shirt to touch my bare skin. “You remember my girl, Sunday.”

My girl.

Something in my chest tightens instead of warms.

I get a few welcoming nods from the guys before they jump into conversation with Logan. Talking about roping times, horses, and rodeo circuits. And I’m an armpiece. Tucked tight against his side, given rehearsed kisses on top of the head whenever one of the other guys happens to look my way, and introduced as his girl any time somebody new joins the group.

I sigh, shifting on my feet, which are tired and sore from being paraded around in brand-new cowboy boots all weekend.

To his credit, we’ve been on the road for a week and Logan hasn’t left my side, hasn’t looked at other women, and has introduced me as his girl to everyone we meet. That’s exactly what I wanted from him, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a farce.

That’s unfair, Sunday. He’s trying.

“You good, babe?” He twirls a lock of my long, black hair around in his fingers.

He says it’s my hair that caught his attention when we first met; I stood out in a sea of blond bimbos. His words. He cheated on me with a blond woman, so what seemed complimentary at first now feels backhanded.

“We’ll get out of here soon,” he assures.

“No rush. I’m having a good time.” I pull him tighter, beam up at him, and press a gentle kiss to his sharp jawline, the way a good girlfriend should. But when I look out at the rest of the party unfolding around us, my happy facade buckles.