Page 96 of Untamed
Bull riders wear spurs that are required to have dull, loosely locked rowels (the wheel-like part of the spur that comes in contact with the animal). The spurs help a rider maintain his balance by giving him added grip with his feet. The spurs do not cut or scratch a bull's hide, which is seven times thicker than a human's skin.
“You’re okay, man. You’re good,” Reid tells me, trying to get through to where he knows my rattled mind is going.
I’m in pain. Excruciating pain. It’s enough it takes my goddamn breath away and leaves me breathless, searching for any way to make it go away. I don’t want touched, or talked to.
I take a deep breath and reel in the reckless thoughts. The ones of this being the end of my career. It’s dramatic, maybe, but you never know what injury will lead to it. It’s not if you get hurt, it’s when and how bad.
But it’s not this injury I’m concerned about. It’s her. The fearless heart on the line, ready and willing to love me in every possible way. It’s too much. Too fast, too intense, too . . . distracting.
The physician on tour sits in front of me, examining my wrist that managed to take a hit too. I’m not concerned with it. It could be broken and I’d still go out there and get on another bull. But my back, that’s an entirely different story altogether. “Can you take a deep breath for me, Grayer?”
I do and it’s like white-hot pain radiating through my spine and into my thighs. I’m certainly no stranger to pain. I’ve broken every bone in my body but my back and neck, two career-ending injuries I hope to never have.
Wincing in pain, I hunch forward, wanting to curl into the table. A couple of deep breaths and I pull myself together, only to be told I need to be taken to the emergency room for some X-rays and to be evaluated.
I go, but all I can think about is her fucking face when she came into the locker room. The devastation, the confusion—I never wanted to bring her into this lifestyle. What if she lost me too? What would that mean for her?
At the hospital, they tell me I’ve got some bruises, torn a few muscles in my back, and herniated two of the discs. None of that matters. I mean, sure it fucking matters. I’ve dropped in the points and this might be the end of my championship run for me. But what fucking guts me is the look on her face when she sees me again, in the ER, and the fact that I’ve slipped from that number one spot in the points standings all because I couldn’t fucking wait to get her home and in my bed.
I’ve taken risks in my career. All the time. The bigger, the better. The meaner the bull, the better. But this . . . Maesyn . . . she’s so . . . her. And like a selfish fucking idiot, I took her heart when I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing with it.
Moonlight pale, she stares at me, sadness etched in the tears leaking silently from the corners of her eyes.
We say nothing, but by the way she gasps like the wind’s been knocked out of her, I think she gets it. She inhales a deep breath and lets it out slowly, like she’s trying to calm her heart down. And I’m so goddamn mad I know what she’s thinking because it means I let her get too close.
