Page 71 of Untamed
The first round or "go" is the first and sometimes the only preliminary round of competition at a PBR event. A high score in the first round is important to a bull rider because it counts toward his qualification for the 25th PBR: Unleash the Beast Championship Round.
My mind and nerves are all over the place trying to understand why I’m following Grayer to Mississippi. I mean, don’t get me wrong, last night was great. And we had an unbelievable connection, but what would this mean when I got to Biloxi?
Haylee seems to sense my nerves and reaches to turn down the radio. “He told you to come, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” I bite my thumbnail and sigh, staring out the window.
“Then stop obsessing over it. He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t want you there.”
“I know,” I say, not entirely convinced. And then I remember pieces of my conversation with him last night. Parts I failed to tell Haylee in our rush to leave town. “He knows that Joel is Jamie’s brother.”
We pass by Ellensburg Pasta Company. Her gaze lingers on her mom’s old beat-up Oldsmobile parked around back. “You told him about Jamie?” Her eyes dart from the road to mine. “You never tell anyone about him.”
She’s right. I don’t. I don’t like the looks I get when people know. The ones where they take pity upon me because my boyfriend died.
“I didn’t tell him. He knew. He figured it out on his own.”
Haylee doesn’t say anything for a minute and then sighs. “I sure hope he has some hot friends who are as good as he is.”
With my phone in hand, I gesture to it. “It’s a thirty-eight-hour drive. We should try to make it to Salt Lake City tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Hours later, we’re just outside Pendleton, Oregon, and it’s hot. Not just any kind of hot. It’s miserable. As the boys back home would say, it’s hotter than the Devil’s ball sac. Haylee and I are literally in our bras and underwear because her truck has no air conditioning.
“We gotta stop and get some water or somethin’,” I tell her, laying my head back against the window and letting the warm breeze try to cool me down. It doesn’t help. It’s like I’m under a hairdryer. “I feel like I’m sweating enough that I shouldn’t be hot.”
Haylee fans herself with the map as she pulls off the interstate. “That’s a gross thought, but I know what you mean.”
We stop at a gas station, grab bottles of water, want to throw ourselves in the cooler, get cigarettes, and then we’re walking through the small store looking for snacks. We’re stalling because the last thing we want to do right then is go back out in that heat again.
That’s when Haylee picks up a pack of condoms. “Think he’ll have enough?”
I laugh, not only at the looks we’re getting but that Haylee is only wearing her mismatched bra and underwear and holding up a box of condoms. She probably should have put some clothes on before we decided to come inside the store.
I nod. “Better get some. Wouldn’t want to run out.”
We get even more looks when she tosses all that on the counter. I had a hundred-dollar bill from my envelope of money. “Can I get sixty on pump two?” she asks, staring at the older man behind the counter.
“You should have put your dress back on,” I whisper in her ear, resting my chin on her shoulder when the man behind the counter says nothing to her, and gazes at her red lace bra.
Unlike Haylee, I put my dress on at least. It’s not much of a dress, but it’s still better than what she’s wearing. This man behind the counter wearing glasses, he’s more than likely never seen anyone like her before.
She blows me off, waving and tossing cash on the counter and then throws a bag of barbecue chips up there too.
Still, the man stares.
Haylee snorts and leans over the counter pushing money toward him. “It’s hot out there, man. Now how ’bout that gas?”
“Pump two is ready,” he stutters, his eyes on Haylee’s chest.
We’re walking outside, the heat suffocating us immediately when we step out. Haylee laughs. “You’d think he’s never seen a half-naked girl before.”
“He probably hasn’t.” With my hand on the door handle of her truck, I roll my eyes and lift up on my tiptoes to look over the hood. “Take a look around.”
She does and sees for herself why everyone is staring at her. It’s a truck stop and most of these men probably haven’t seen a woman in months.
Her eyes dart around her surroundings. “Nice,” is all she says and begins to pump gas.
