Chapter 32
The restof the night was pretty nice. Ty was monopolizing Cody a bit, but I was cool with that. It meant that big lug was a bit of a romantic, even if he would never admit it out loud. The way he was looking at our girl? Maybe I hadn't given him enough credit. There was just one little problem. He wasn't the only one with his eye on her.
Seemed that Tanner had a thing for our cowgirl too. That or he was eye-fucking Ty, but I was pretty sure it was the pretty little blonde that had Tanner's attention. Cody just looked good tonight. Not just her short-shorts, her new chaps, or those adorable little braids. Mostly, it was the way her smile made those sky-blue eyes of hers light up.
And yeah, Cody was smiling.
She'd taken our little throwdown with her hometown boys easier than I'd expected. Most girls weren't real big into fighting, but Cody wasn't most girls. I had a feeling that if Aubree and Shelby had let her go, she would've been right there between me and Ty, slinging out her rage. Even the thought of it was a little hot.
But eventually, the beer was gone, the fire had burned low, and the girls were starting to yawn. Hannah claimed Renato's truck. Ty took mine. Shelby snagged the keys from Cody for Ty's, and drove it up to Cody's place at the front of the drive. There, the girls hugged it out, Cody waved at us, and Shelby climbed in the back. We also had Aubree and Jorge in the back seat, so it was a bit of a tight fit, but we'd all make it back to the hotel just fine.
While Hannah headed straight for the highway, Shelby gave us directions down some back roads to her place. The little white-picket-fence house was perfect for her, and the plastic fort in the front yard looked like every kid's dream. When the truck pulled up, I saw a black-and-white dog peek its head through the curtains, but it was dark in the house.
"You gonna be ok?" I asked her.
Shelby smiled at me. "I'm good, but thanks for taking care of Cody. All of y'all. She doesn't wanna admit it, but she's tougher on the outside than inside." Then she waved at Aubree. "I'll see you this weekend?"
"I'll have passes to get behind the chutes for you," Aubree promised. "Kiss that baby boy for me!"
"Will do!"
Then Shelby closed the door and sauntered her behind up to her front door. Ty didn't budge. He didn't put the truck in reverse, didn't take his foot off the brake, nothing. He just waited until she was not only inside the door but had also turned on a light before he finally backed out, stealing one last glance before heading up the street.
Which meant I was right. Somewhere in that slut of a man was a gentleman waiting to rear his pretty head. Leaning back in my seat, I couldn't help but smile. Who knew that all it would take to bridge some gaps between all of us was a girl? She should've been tearing us all apart as we tried to fight over her, but naw. There was something so precious about Cody that we boys were willing to set our pride aside to hold hers up.
As if he was reading my thoughts, Jorge spoke up. "So, I'm a little confused here," he admitted. "I know why I'm rooting for Cody, but the rest of you?"
"Tanner's into her," Ty pointed out. "And I'm still sorry I lost my shit the other day."
Jorge waved that away. "After hearing what those guys said, I can see your point, Ty. Yeah, he's into her, but so's J.D. and Jaxon."
"Jaxon?" I asked, looking into the back seat to see Jorge. "How do you know that?"
Aubree leaned forward. "I heard him talking with his friends. Let's just say that he doesn't want to get to know her, and leave it at that."
"Yep," Ty agreed. Then he glanced over at me. "And I realized you were right."
"I was?" Not what I'd expected him to say.
Ty just nodded at the road. "Yeah, I got up in Tanner's face because I was thinking about winning Cody like she was just some challenge. I was pissed that all these guys were making it harder for me, and didn't stop to think about her. Now, doesn't mean I don't like her, because I do. Just means that I should probably tell you thank you."
"So?" I taunted, holding a hand up to my ear.
"Thank you, J.D.," he grumbled. "You're still a dick."
Well, that was better than I'd expected. "You're welcome, Ty. I think dating the PBR playboy's good for her ego. Now, when you fuck her over, I'm gonna beat the shit outta ya, but until then, we can be bros. I even got an extra bed you can use so you don't have to buy a second."
"I'm good with that," Ty assured me. "Both of those things."
Which meant we'd just reached an agreement. I knew he wasn't going away. He knew I wasn't either. Tanner might throw his hat into the ring, or not, but I didn't think he'd be a problem. The truth was that while we were all trying to get her attention, she was just trying to ride bulls. That trumped our stupid desires, and I was pretty sure I'd just bashed that into their heads.
In other words, no fighting over her where she could see. No distracting her. No stressing her out so she had a bad ride. For the rest of the drive back, we all talked about her, though. Made sense, since it had been her party. Still, I was a little shocked to find that the bullfighters were also Team Cody. Those boys weren't quite right, though. And coming from me, that said a whole lot.
Eventually, we made it back to the hotel. The four of us rode up the elevator together, but Jorge and Aubree got out a floor below mine. Ty let me show him where we were staying, then claimed the shower. I stole it when he was done. According to the clock, it was almost four in the morning, and I was relaxed enough that I wanted to fall asleep, but my neck was killing me.
I headed over to grab my vape pen, taking a long pull. Ty jerked his chin at it. "Didn't know you smoked," he said.
"Vape," I corrected. "And it's cannabis for the pain." Then I held it out. "Need some?"
"This gonna fuck me up?" he asked, reaching up to accept it.
"Prolly, but it really does work." Then I showed him how to work the pen. Not that it was hard, but I had a feeling Ty tended to go for alcohol to dull his aches, not pot.
He took a hit, paused, then let it out, proving me wrong. When he offered it back, I matched him, the pair of us sitting on the edges of our beds in silence. Somewhere around the fourth hit, I could see Ty finally begin to relax and a lazy smile took over his face.
"I do like her, you know," he said.
I set the pen down on the nightstand between us and lay back. "Yeah, I figured that out."
"You like her too," Ty added.
I couldn't stop the grin if I wanted to. "Yup."
"Man, you gotta give me more than that," Ty mumbled, clearly high as a kite.
"Ain't more than that to give," I admitted. "Last weekend, I was impressed with her riding. This week, I realized she's pretty cute. Still think she's the type of person I want as a friend, and we both know she needs someone to have her back, so that's about it."
"So you're not pissed that I'm making a try for her?" he asked.
I thrust out my lower lip and shook my head. "Nope. I figure that if we wanna have a chance with her, we're gonna have to agree to not get stupid about this."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"You know," I said, trying to explain with the relaxing fog in my mind, "trying to chase each other off, because Cody's not the kind of person who'd ignore that. She'd dump both of us out of her lives like bad trash. That's the thing with girls like her. They aren't impressed when we think with our dicks, you know?"
"So then what?" Ty asked. "You saying we should share her or something? Like a timeshare?"
"First part don't sound so bad," I teased. "I mean, we're used to the girls crawling all over us, right? But thing is, they don't want us. They want the bragging rights, and Cody has her own. She don't need ours. Those buckle bunnies also love our money, but Cody don't care none about that either. She's gonna earn her own, and looks to me like she's too damned proud to take a handout."
"Yeah, she is," he agreed. "Was a bit shocked she accepted the chaps, actually."
"Those were a present," I told him. "Like a welcome to the PBR thing. That makes it ok. And I told her that we've all helped out other rookies. I mean, I didn't really get into how much, so don't go fucking that up for me, man."
"Nope. I can work with that," Ty agreed.
"But," I said, before I could lose my train of thought, "with Cody? We're gonna have to keep things casual for a bit. Sure, we can date her, but exclusive? Claiming her as our girlfriend? Naw, she ain't gonna go for that. I mean, that prick you put into the ground? Yeah, that's her ex."
"Trust me, I figured that out," he assured me.
"Well, did you figure out that he fucked her up in the head?" I looked over, my head feeling like it flopped to the side.
Ty leaned over to grab the vape pen and took another hit. "J.D., she said something to me. And if you tell her, I'm gonna say you got me high and beat it outta me." He glanced over, so I nodded, encouraging him to keep going. "She said she didn't sleep with bull riders anymore. Then, later, she said something that basically made it sound like that dick slept with her, then tried to use it to chase her off. Like, they hazed her with sex, man."
"Yeah," I groaned. "He was trying to make a big deal of her kissing my cheek when I'd said that was how she could repay me for getting her a sponsor. Said she was supposed to do the riding, not get ridden or some shit. Like, some serious slut-shaming. And then that crap tonight?" I shook my head. "Ty, that's a whole lot of baggage for any girl to carry around. I mean, when it happened to my sister..." I shut my mouth quickly, before the rest of that fell out.
"So we share her," he said, clearly understanding that I was done chasing that thought. "If I take her out, then no hard feelings. And if you do, I won't get pissed."
"Tanner?" I asked, remembering what Ty had said about getting up in his face.
He just tossed up his hands. "I don't know shit about him, man, but if you think he's got her best intentions in mind, then I'll deal with it."
I sat up and waved for him to pass over the vape pen. "So, the only rule is that whoever she spends time with needs to be someone who's got her best interests at heart?" I asked.
"Yeah," Ty said slowly. "I can do that, but you and me? We're going to be her damned guardian angels. If some dick thinks he's going to play her, we'll make it real clear that shit won't fly."
"Our girl," I said, mostly to myself.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Ours, and we can give her the chance to spread her wings. We'll wait as long as she needs, but we'll still take care of her."
"And if she fucks someone, we'll just suck it up," I added.
Ty sighed. "Only if her spending the night with someone doesn't mean we gotta back off."
"Aw hell no," I assured him. "If she wants to jump from your bed into mine, I'm not going to be pissed off at all. And if it goes the other way, well, I'm cool with that too."
"I can do that," Ty agreed. The strangest part was that he didn't really sound upset about it.