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The first time was not simple, no matter what they'd agreed to call it.
It had been at the Warbonnet, at the big summer barbecue his mother Cecilia insisted on throwing. You'd been there with your father, who leased a grazing parcel from Royal Abbott.
You were nursing a beer, leaning against a fence post, watching the sun bleed into the Absarokas when he materialized beside you. Rhett Abbott.
You knew him by sight, by the slightly crooked grin he flashed in town, by the reputation that followed him like dust from the arena.
"Escapin' the politics?" he'd asked, his voice a low drawl that seemed to vibrate in the space between you. He nodded toward the cluster of men near the grill where Royal and your father and other ranchers were talking water rights, their voices a low, serious rumble.
"Something like that," you'd said.
He'd looked at you then, a proper look that lasted a beat too long for polite. His eyes were a pale, weathered blue, the color of the sky just before a high plains storm. "Heard your place is holdin' its own. That's somethin'."
It was a small kindness, an acknowledgment of the struggle everyone knew. You'd talked then, about the price of hay, the stubbornness of a heifer in your south pasture, the endless, grinding work of it all. The conversation was easy, flowing like the creek that bordered both your lands.
Later, as the fireflies sparked in the deepening violet, you'd found yourselves by the old stock tank, away from the lantern light and the chatter.
"Tonight doesn't feel like it has to be about drought or bulls or any damn thing," he'd said, his words softened by the night and a second beer.
"What should it be about?" you'd asked, your voice quieter than you intended.
He didn't answer with words. He closed the distance, one calloused hand coming up to cradle your jaw, his thumb a rough stroke against your cheek. His kiss wasn't tentative.
It was confident, warm, tasting of beer and summer night. It was a claiming, and you answered it in kind, your hands fisting in the soft cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer against the chill coming off the mountains. It was there, against the cool metal of the tank, that the first rule was forged in a breathless, heated whisper.
"This is just tonight," he'd murmured against your throat. "Simple. Nothin' complicated."
You'd agreed, your own voice unsteady. "Simple."
But walking back to the party, your body humming, the scent of him—leather, sage, and hard sun—lingering on your skin, you knew it was a lie. Nothing that felt so much like a lightning strike could ever be simple.
---
The second time was a week later, in his small, cluttered cabin on the far edge of the Abbott land. You'd gone under the pretense of returning a stock wrench your father had borrowed.
He'd answered the door shirtless, sweat sheening his torso, a fresh, lurid bruise blooming across his right ribs and shoulder.
"Rodeo in Sheridan," he'd grunted by way of greeting, stepping back to let you in. "Bull had a disagreement with my life choices."
The cabin was a monument to a man living alone: boots by the door, a saddle on a stand in the corner, a small, messy kitchen.
You'd set the wrench on his table, your eyes drawn to the map of pain on his skin. "That looks bad, Rhett."
"It's fine," he'd said, the two words a reflexive shield. He'd pulled a t-shirt on with a careful, stiff movement that betrayed him. "You stayin'? I was about to burn some steak."
You stayed. He grilled on the rickety porch, the steaks charred at the edges but perfect in the middle. You drank whiskey from jam jars and talked about everything that wasn't the charge in the air.
He told you about the feel of an eight-second ride, the world dissolving into a violent, beautiful blur. You told him about finding your first arrowhead on your land, the sudden, profound connection to a past you'd only walked over. The conversation was a lifeline thrown over a canyon of unsaid things.
Later, on his worn plaid sofa, with the one lamp casting long shadows, he'd kissed you again. This time, it was slower. Exploratory. His hands, those rough, capable hands, learned the shape of you through your clothes with a reverence that stole your breath.
When he pushed your shirt up, his palm sliding warm against the skin of your back, he’d winced, his right shoulder protesting.
"Here," you'd said, gently turning him. You knelt behind him on the couch, your thumbs finding the angry, knotted muscle of his rotator cuff, the heat of the inflammation radiating through his shirt. He'd hissed, then sighed, his head dropping forward. "Fuck, that's it."
You'd worked the tension in silence, feeling the hard armor of him soften, grain by grain, under your touch. For a few minutes, he wasn't Rhett Abbott, the bull rider with something to prove.
He was just a man, tired and hurt, accepting a moment of care. When the knot had eased a fraction, he'd turned, capturing your wrists. His eyes in the dim light were dark, unreadable. "Don't," he'd said, his voice rough. "Don't fuss over me. We said simple, remember?"
You'd pulled your hands back as if burned. "Right. Simple."
He kissed you, and it felt like an apology and a reaffirmation all at once. It ended as the first time had, with you driving home alone under a indifferent sky, the ghost of his pain lingering in your own hands.
---
Tonight, under the buzzing, migraine-white lights of the county rodeo grounds, the fiction of 'simple' finally tore apart.
You were perched on a splintering wooden bleacher, the scent of fried food, diesel, and animal settling over the crowd like a blanket.
You wore a faded denim jacket over a plain black tank top, your most comfortable jeans, and boots that had seen real work. You’d told yourself you came for the spectacle, the tradition. It was a lie you were getting used to.
Down in the chutes, Rhett was a statue of coiled intensity. He wore a crisp, dark blue plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled in neat, tight folds to his elbows. His leather chaps were scarred and dusty.
He leaned over the gate of chute three, his gaze locked on the monster within—a brindle-colored beast called who stomped and blew, its horns gleaming under the lights.
You studied him, your artist's eye tracing the familiar lines now etched with a new tension. His jaw was clenched, a muscle ticking. As he flexed the fingers of his right hand, then rotated that shoulder in a careful, testing circle, the cold knot in your stomach tightened to a fist. He said it was fine.
But you’d felt the furnace heat of that joint, the rigid cable of the muscle. You’d seen him two days ago at the feed store, struggling to heft a fifty-pound bag with his left hand, his right arm held close and still.
The loudspeaker crackled. "In chute three, from right here in our own valley, put your hands together for Rhett Abbott!"
The hometown crowd roared. You sat silent, your blood a cold river in your veins.
Rhett lowered himself onto the bull's broad, shifting back. You saw it—the sharp, involuntary intake of breath, the brief pinching at the corners of his eyes as his weight settled onto his right arm.
He threaded his rope, his movements precise but tight, lacking the loose, confident grace you’d seen in old videos. He gave the nod.
The gate exploded open.
The world erupted into a violent, spinning chaos. The bull was a tornado of muscle and rage, sunfishing, kicking, twisting its spine like it wanted to turn inside out.
For two glorious, heart-stopping seconds, Rhett was a part of it, his body a fluid counterweight, his left arm carving the air. The crowd was a wall of sound.
Then, in the third second, the flaw in the masterpiece revealed itself.
The bull jackknifed left, then reversed with a brutal, piston-like kick to the right. Rhett’s core followed, but his right arm—the anchor, the wounded tether—was a half-beat slow.
The torque was too much. You didn't hear a pop, but you saw the moment his body betrayed his will. The grip in the rosin-streaked glove, weakened by the torn fibers beneath, simply… released.
He didn't fly; he peeled away. His body, disconnected from the centrifugal force, whipped sideways with sickening inertia. He hung in the air for a timeless, terrible moment, his face a mask of pure surprise, before gravity drove him down.
He hit the dirt on his right side with a sound that was less a thud and more a deep, final crunch, like a green branch snapping. The air left his lungs in a visible, dusty puff.
The bull, off-balance and enraged, didn't move clear. It stumbled forward, its immense weight coming down. A front hoof, sharp as a chisel, struck Rhett's ribcage with a force you felt in your own teeth. You saw his body jerk, lifeless as a doll.
A hind hoof then caught his thigh as the animal lurched away, finally drawn off by the flashing colors of the bullfighters.
A high, metallic scream filled your head, blotting out all other sound. Your vision tunneled to the still form in the churned-up dirt.
As the bull was hazed out of the arena, you were already moving. You shoved past knees and protests, your boots loud on the hollow aluminum bleachers.
At the rail, you didn't climb. You vaulted, your hands scraping on the rough wood, landing hard on the packed earth of the walkway. A stocky man in a event staff vest moved to block you. "Ma'am, stand back—!"
You ducked under his arm, a sob tearing from your throat, and ran. The distance was a nightmare, the ground uneven. You reached him as a medic was strapping a cervical collar around his neck.
Rhett was unconscious. Waxen. A thread of crimson welled from his split lip, matting in the dust on his stubbled chin. His right arm lay beside him, the angle of it all wrong. His chest hitched in shallow, ragged flutters.
"Rhett," you choked out, falling to your knees. Your hand hovered over his cheek. "Oh, God, Rhett."
"Miss, I need you to step back!" a medic said, not unkindly but firm. They worked around you, a ballet of crisis. You watched, hollow, as they stabilized him, as they lifted him with careful urgency onto a backboard and then a waiting gurney.
You followed the rattling wheels out of the arena, through a gauntlet of stunned, silent faces, into the blinding white of the waiting ambulance bay. No one stopped you now.
In the sterile, fluorescent maze of the county hospital, time lost all meaning. They took him behind swinging doors marked with a red cross. A nurse with kind eyes and a clipboard halted you.
"Are you family?"
You stared at the doors, your heart a wild thing in a cage. Simple. It was all supposed to be simple.
You looked back at her, your voice surprisingly steady. "I'm his girlfriend."
She gave a single, sympathetic nod and pointed you to a small, quiet room with vinyl chairs. "Wait here. The doctor will find you."
An eternity later, a surgeon still in green scrubs explained the damage: a complete, complex tear of the labrum in his right shoulder, requiring reconstruction. Three fractured ribs, one with a worrisome crack that needed watching. A severe concussion. Massive soft-tissue trauma. He was sedated for the pain.
"Can I see him?"
"He's in and out. But you can sit with him. Room 207."
The room was a dim cocoon, the only light from the machines he was tethered to. Their soft, rhythmic beeps and clicks were the sounds of him clinging to life.
Rhett looked shockingly young and frail against the sterile sheets, his torso wrapped in bandages and a bulky immobilizer. The vibrant bruises were now vivid stains on his skin—a galaxy of purple and black spreading from his ribs to his cheek. The split on his lip was a dark, stitched line.
You dragged a chair to the left side of the bed, carefully sliding your hand beneath his. His palm was cool, the familiar calluses a comforting landscape. You held on.
You studied the landscape of his face—the strong nose, the sun-bleached lashes, the new lines of suffering etched around his mouth. Your gaze fell to your joined hands, your smooth skin a stark contrast to his battered, weathered knuckles.
You were lost in that contrast when his fingers twitched weakly in yours.
A low groan, thick with pain and drugs, rumbled in his chest. His eyelids struggled, fluttered open. He blinked, his gaze swimming unfocused before it found you and anchored. Confusion, then a slow-dawning recognition.
"Hey," you whispered, the word catching.
He worked his throat, his good hand shifting slightly under yours. "Hey." His voice was a dry rustle, his accent softening the edges of the word. "You… you're here."
"Where else would I be?" you asked, your thumb stroking his knuckle.
He tried a smile, it came out as a wince. "Figured you'd had your fill of… complicated."
"I told them I was your girlfriend to get in here," you said, the confession plain. "Didn't even think twice."
He absorbed this, his heavy-lidded gaze holding yours. A slow, careful breath. "Yeah?"
"Seemed the easiest way through the door."
He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes drifting shut before forcing them open again. "Ain't nothin' easy about you bein' here," he murmured. "But I'm glad you are."
"You're not fine," you said softly.
He gave a tiny, pained shake of his head. "Feels like… the whole damn valley landed on me." He admitted it quietly, a surrender.
"Why, Rhett?" you asked, the fear and anger of the last hours finally finding a quiet, steady voice. "You knew. I knew. That shoulder was hanging on by a prayer."
He looked away, toward the darkened window, his profile stark. "Payout here… it was enough to get me to Nationals."
He swallowed. "My old man… he's been to a hundred rodeos. Watches every damn one. He just sits there, watchin'… waitin' for me to fail. To come crawlin' back to the ranch for good."
He turned his head back, his eyes glistening in the low light. "I just wanted one win so big, so loud, he couldn't pretend not to see it. So he'd have to look at me and see…" His voice broke, the sentence crumbling. See that I'm more than your disappointment.
"It was stupid," you said, the tears finally spilling over, tracing warm paths through the arena dust still on your cheeks. "So damn stupid and brave."
A single tear escaped the corner of his eye, vanishing into his hairline. "Yeah."
You let out a watery, shaking breath that was almost a laugh. "I can't believe I lied for you."
"About bein' my girlfriend?"
"Yeah."
He was silent, gathering strength. His fingers tightened around yours, the strongest pressure he could manage. "Maybe," he said, each word deliberate, "maybe it ain't a lie."
Your breath hitched. "What?"
"Maybe," he said, his pale blue eyes holding yours with a clarity that cut through the drugs and the pain, "you should be. My girlfriend. For real. No more simple."
The world in that sterile room—the beeping monitors, the smell of antiseptic, the vast, dark weight of the Wyoming night outside—all of it fell away. There was only his hand, his battered face, and the terrifying, beautiful precipice he was offering.
"Thought we had rules," you whispered.
"Rules got trampled," he rasped. "Back there in the dirt. When I saw you runnin' to me. Ain't nothin' simple about that."
You leaned forward, resting your forehead gently against his uninjured left shoulder. You felt the shuddering sigh that went through him, his cheek coming to rest against your hair. "Okay," you breathed into the quiet.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
You lifted your head. His eyes were close, exhausted but clear. You closed the small distance, your lips meeting his with a tenderness that felt like a vow.
You avoided the cut, kissing him softly, a promise of a different kind of strength. It was nothing like the kisses you'd shared before. This one wasn't about escape or heat. It was about arrival. It was about choosing the complicated, beautiful wreckage of a future, together.