All I See Is You

1. Rodeo

Chapter one

Rodeo

Hux

E ight seconds .

A whole hell of a lot could happen in eight seconds. It’s crazy how fast things change. One breath, and the course of your life as you know it is forever altered. One blink, and things could never go back to the way they were again.

“Huxson Lane, you’re up next! Chute three.”

I glanced at the rodeo coordinator and nodded, my adrenaline ramping up. Blowing out a deep breath, I rolled my neck and made my way to the chute. A massive behemoth of a bull, Lights Out, had already been loaded in…and he was raring to go.

“Come on, Hux. You got this!” Reid Wilson—a good friend and my biggest competition—clapped me on the back as I climbed up the pipe-stall siding. We’d been neck and neck this entire Pbr season for the top spot.

I pegged him with an easy grin. “Drinks after my win tonight?”

He scoffed, but his gaze sparked with amusement. “You mean my win?”

There was no way in hell I’d be losing tonight. Something big was gonna happen. I could feel it. Feel it in my bones, my nerves, my blood, even. Tonight was different from the rest. It was a winning night.

“Alright,” I laughed even as I shook my head. “How ‘bout loser buys the first round?”

“Deal,” Reid replied with a smirk, clapping me on the back once more.

My grin fell away, a wave of stone-cold focus settling over me like a blanket as I slapped my thighs a few times to warm them up, climbed over the pipe-stall, and settled myself onto the bull’s back. It was a process getting the bull rope situated, all the while my nerves rising higher and higher, like a storm building.

Getting on a bull was like that.

That moment before the storm. Where you could feel it surging, coming for you on the air. It was like a pause…like the very air itself was holding its breath.

The music, the crowd’s shouts, the announcer’s words muted and danced away on a phantom wind as my other senses took over. I felt every twitch, every breath from the bull beneath me. Its angry, eager snorts were as loud as damn fireworks. My muscles flexed and tightened as I wrapped my right hand in the bull rope.

One more win.

One more win was all I needed and I’d be right on track to compete at NFR for not one, not two, but three consecutive World Titles under my belt.

You got this. It’s just eight seconds. You got this.

I closed my eyes, sending up a silent prayer, before opening them once more.

And then I nodded.

Lights Out tensed and leapt from the chute as the gate opened with a deafening clang. My thighs tensed, legs clenching to the sides of the massive bull. He leapt and twisted and bucked, each movement reminding me of punishing waves crashing into a cliff. But I clung to his back, going with his movements instead of fighting against them. The rush of awe, elation, and adrenaline thrummed in my veins.

This feeling. I’d never tire of it. There’d never be a day I didn’t long for the thrill of bull riding.

It was the scariest, most enthralling eight seconds of my life. Eight seconds that might as well last an eternity. It felt like it, at least. Time seemed to slow down and stop altogether during my rides.

Lights Out bucked and spun, and I felt my center of gravity shift, but still I clung on. So close . I was so damn close.

But each movement felt like a losing battle. A trickle of fear shot through me, followed by an answering one of pure, stubborn, hardheaded determination. But that determination didn’t mean shit up against a two thousand pound bull. My fingers began to slip from the bull rope.

Just. A. Little. Longer .

And then Lights Out did what he was known for. Every ride, he whipped out a particularly nasty buck. There was a reason he was undefeated still. I managed to keep my grip as he rocked back—the sheer power in the movement terrifying. But I was fucked when he surged forward with more force than a category five hurricane slamming into the coast.

I ragdolled as I crashed face first toward his head, pain roaring to life as I came into contact with his skull. But the pain was short lived as a wave of numbness, so cold and terrifying, spread through my veins like ice.

And then the darkness descended, swallowing me up whole until I knew nothing at all.