Chapter Text
“This is going to be awesome! Aren’t you excited Stu?” Tatum flounces through the semi crowded stands, the ice in her soda shaking noisily. She’s dressed in short denim shorts, a tied up paisley top and shiny leather cowboy boots.
“Mhm so excited.” Stu rolls his eyes with a scoff. “I could be watching a horror movie right now.” He whines and Randy laughs, patting him on the back. The group settles in a less crowded part of the stands, very close to the arena with a perfect view. Stu is smushed between Tatum and Sidney, picking absently at his soft pretzel Tatum had insisted on buying for him. All of a sudden the massive stadium lights flick on with a resounding click, illuminating the perfect sandy arena and causing Stu to squint his eyes at the sudden warm light. The announcers voice comes over the scratchy speakers causing Stu to look up from his pretzel.
“Hellooooo, ladies and gentlemen, cow boys and girls! Welcome to the Woodsboro Rodeo, we got quite a line up for you tonight! First up is our resident can chasers, Casey you are on deck!” Stu took notice of the barrels set up in a triangle pattern just in time for a blonde girl in a pale blue shirt come flying out of the fenced off area on a massive white horse. Stu gets it quick, and started to enjoy it, not that he’d ever tell Tatum that. He whoops and cheers along with his friends as the final barrel racer runs home. He wasn’t as into the roping, felt bad for the poor little cows. Thankfully there wasn’t too many and the announcer was quick to get back on the mic, excitedly introducing the next event, bull riding.
“Ugh poor bulls!” Sidney exclaims next to him as a cowboy clad in red gets tossed after barely two seconds. Stu doesn’t acknowledge her, he’s enamored. His attention is on a man over by the chute, getting ready to climb onto a seething bull. He’s dressed in all black, right down to his boots and the metal of his spurs. His hat however is pristinely white atop his slicked back brunette hair.
“Who is that?” Stu breathes aloud but his question is answered nearly immediately by the announcer.
“Everyone get loud for our resident champion bull rider, Billy Loomis!” The crowd erupts, Stu cheering just as loud ignoring the amused look from Tatum. Someone pulled the gate and the bull took off. It was far more aggressive than the previous one but Billy made it look easy. He rode each lurching jump and buck with methodical precision, countering each turn by twisting his own body around. The buzzer sounds and Billy leaps, rolling into the sand where a man on horseback comes to scoop him up. The man rides by where Stu and his friends sit and Stu could have sworn Billy had just winked at him.
Nothing for the rest of the night was nearly as entertaining as Billy had been. Stu knew he just had to talk to the cowboy.
“I have to pee.” He says abruptly, tearing his eyes away from where the tractor does laps around the arena.
“TMI Stu!” Tatum swats at him.
“Yeah Stu TMI!” Randy teases, earning a swat of his own from Tatum. Stu trails off in the direction of the fenced off area where he assumes Billy will be. He tracks his way through pens of horses, calves and bulls until he catches a glimpse of a familiar white hat. He hurries over there, extra careful around the horses. He taps the cowboy on the shoulder and billy turns around. Stu’s breath catches in his throat. He’s even more beautiful up close and everything Stu had planned to say flew out of his head. Suddenly Stu regrets dressing so casually, plain blue jeans and a old Hawaiian shirt type thing over a ratty band shirt.
“Can I help you there or you just gonna stare.” The cowboy sniggers and Stu flushes pink.
“Nice ride?”