Page 44 of Knot my First Rodeo

His hand drops, but he doesn't step back. I can smell him now, that sweet banana cream scent cutting through the diesel and dust, stronger than it's been before. Or maybe I'm just closer. Maybe I'm noticing things I shouldn't.

“I didn’t expect for ya’ll to have such a fan club,” I roll my eyes.

"They're just buckle bunnies," he says, and my chest seizes. "Crystal's been after Tripp since high school. Marissa does the circuit, hits on anyone who places. Doesn't mean anything."

"I didn't ask."

"No," he agrees. "You didn't."

We stand there in the narrow space between the trailer and the equipment. His eyes stay on mine, patient in a way that makes me want to look away, and never look away at the same time.

"Why'd you follow me?" I ask finally.

He shrugs one shoulder, the movement rolling through his broad frame. "You looked like you were gonna bolt."

"I wasn't."

"Looked like it."

I huff out a breath, some of the tension leaking from my shoulders despite myself. "You're all impossible, you know that?"

"Been told."

His mouth pulls at the corner, almost a smile, and something in my chest loosens a fraction. I lean my head back against the trailer, the metal cool against my head, and close my eyes for a second. The sun paints everything red behind my eyelids.

"Autumn."

I open my eyes. He's closer now, close enough that I can see the flecks of darker brown in his caramel eyes, and the small scar above his left eyebrow I hadn't noticed before.

"We're not—" he starts, then stops, his jaw tightening. "This isn't what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

His eyes search mine, something frustrated moving through his expression. "I don't know. But you're wrong."

Before I can answer, before I can figure out what he even means, footsteps approach and he steps back, the moment breaking like a thread pulled too tight.

"There you are," Tripp says, appearing around the corner, slightly out of breath like he jogged to get here. His eyes move between us, catching something in the space between me and Briggs, and his brow furrows. "Everything good?"

"Fine," I say, for what feels like the hundredth time today.

Briggs snorts, quietly enough that I might have imagined it, and starts back toward the trailers without another word.

Tripp watches him go, then turns back to me. "You sure? You took off pretty fast."

"I told you. Bathroom."

He nods slowly, clearly not quite believing me, but he doesn't push. His hand rises, tentative, and brushes a strand of hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. The touch lingers, his fingers tracing the shell of my ear before dropping away.

"We're heading back soon," he says. "If you're ready."

I nod, pushing off the trailer, and fall into step beside him. The noise of the rodeo swells as we round the corner. The crowd, the dust, and the women who know how to belong in this world in a way I never will.

But when Tripp's hand finds the small of my back, guiding me through a tight space between two trailers, I don't pull away. And when I catch Clint watching us approach, something unreadable in his caramel-colored eyes, I don't look away.

My skin still buzzes with something I can't name. My pulse still kicks too hard. And somewhere in the back of my mind, Briggs's voice repeats: You're wrong.

I don't know what I am anymore, but fine isn't it.