Page 6 of Roping My Rival

“Don’t be an asshole, Warren. I’m serious.” My dad does a few turns in his ridiculous hot dog suit and holds his arms at his sides. “Well?”

“Why are you even wearing a hot dog costume?”

His eyes light up, and I know where this is going. Despite my sometimes dishing out major attitude to my two dads, no two people will ever be in love like they are. Since Dad now has that look in his eye that he wants to wax poetic about his husband, I let him. Not because I love hearing his stories or anything. It’s only because I don’t want to be answering questions about his ass in a hot dog bun.

Okay, sometimes I like his stories. But I’ll never tell him that.

“Gabe surprised me with a hot dog buffet the first time we got married.”

“The fake time,” I clarify, and he grins.

“Yeah! So anyway, when your niece picked up my love for hot dogs, Gabe said you should dress like one someday and see what she does. You know how she’s after the hot-dog-shaped dog toy at Uncle Jackson’s all the time?”

Of course I know. He talks about it all the time, like the proud grandfather he is, but I smile anyway.

“But why now, Dad? Why wear this today?”

He cocks his head and narrows his eyes. “Why not today? It’s her birthday party, and it’s close to Halloween.”

Oh shit. I totally forgot that’s the cover we gave him for the big party at the rodeo training facility. It’s so hard to keep a secret from Hunter Burke. He knows everyone and everything. It’s rather annoying.

“Well, yeah, but a hot dog suit seems extreme. I think she wants you to ride a horse with her.”

Dad looks at himself in the mirror and assesses his backside. He even goes as far as sticking it out and wiggling it. Which is…something I can’t scrape from my brain.

“I’m wearing it. Let’s go.”

Mind made up, Dad swishes out of the bedroom, the bun of his costume definitely sticking out and making him carry a little heavy in the back, and goes downstairs with me behind him.

He pauses at the door and grabs his cowboy hat from the hook. If I ignore the hot dog costume, this is still the same man who rescued me when I needed someone to care about the little boy who never got the love he craved. Then he gave me two foster brothers and a family that’s far from perfect, but is the one thing I value the most in this world.

Grey now peppers through his dark hair, and his face has a few more lines to it than when I first showed up as an anxious fifteen-year-old boy, but he still commands a room with a single glance. Something I hope to do one day if I can ever get out of his shadow and muster the confidence.

“Maise is gonna love it, Dad,” I say again, because maybe I’m too harsh sometimes with him.

His eyes soften, and he smiles. “Thanks, Warren.”

With a sigh of relief that I didn’t blow the surprise, I close the door of the ranch behind me and hope my brothers got their assignments for this party right.

“Can you believe he’s still wearing the hot dog?”

Jesse, my middle brother, leans against the wall next to me. Even after learning the surprise was for him and not Maise, he kept the damn costume on and shook everyone’s hand like he was the spokesperson for the Maple Leaf hot dog company.

“Actually, yes. You didn’t have to see him shake his ass in it.” Jesse just laughs as I take a sip from my beer. He laughs at everything, and honestly, I don’t know how he does it.

“He’s happy we did this, though,” Jesse says as he watches our dad lift his granddaughter onto his shoulders. “I think he was worried we don’t take the facility seriously enough.”

“He built this from the ground up, and I get he wants to pass it to us, but it’s a lot of pressure,” I admit as Jesse nods. “An established rodeo school that not only Canadian competitors come to but also those from all around the world? I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s heavy.”

Like as heavy as a building on my shoulders. I worked with Dad to be a champion roper like him. I might not be a champion, but sometimes I feel like it just because of my last name. It’s still odd knowing people consider my dad an elite rodeo champion. To me, he’s the guy who let me buy rabbits with my money and even sneak a few into the house. He’s the man who had the patience with me I craved as a kid.

He’s also the same guy who can’t vacuum worth shit and insists on cutting all the vegetables in the stir-fry into a uniform size. He’s just my dad. Not a two-time national team roping champion with Levi and steer wrestling champion with Uncle Jackson.

Maise laughs, and I scan the room.

“Where’s Katrina?”

Jesses clears his throat, and his smile dims slightly. “She, ah, didn’t want to come.”