Page 132 of Josephine and Clay

About me.

Maybe both.

A sizzle passes between us across that little café table; it’s heavier than flirtation and too fragile to name.

“What about you?” she asks. “Why bull riding?”

I huff out a breath. “That one’s easy.”

“I doubt that.”

I smile without much humor. “Because for eight seconds, everything makes sense.”

She doesn’t interrupt.

Most people do. Most people either make some joke about being crazy enough to climb on a bull or tell me it’s dangerous. Yet I somehow missed that part.

Josie just waits. So I keep talking.

“When you’re in the chute, there’s no room for anything else. No family history. No expectations. No screwups. No wondering where you fit. Gate opens, and the only thing that matters is whether you can stay on.”

Her eyes stay on mine. “And if you do?”

I swallow. “Then you’re enough.”

Josie’s face changes in a way I can’t read fast enough. That got under her skin. “You shouldn’t have to get hurt to feel that.”

My chest tightens. “Yeah, well.”

The weak response hangs between us, somewhere in the space between denial and admission.

She looks down at her tea. “I get needing proof.”

“Yeah?”

Her nod is small. “Sometimes it feels like if you can just do everything right, if you can keep all the pieces together, no one can say you failed.”

“You afraid of failing?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer right away. “I’m afraid of needing help and not having it.”

There’s a rawness in her voice under all that control.

I want to reach across the table.

I don’t. Not because I don’t want to. Because I can tell she might bolt if I do.

“Josie,” I say quietly.

She doesn’t hide fast enough.

She looks scared.

My heart starts to beat harder. “What is it?”

She inhales. Her fingers tighten around the mug until her knuckles pale. “I need to tell you something.”

Everything in me stills.