Firefly Nights

CHAPTER 19.99

It fell on a Sunday, the kind that showed up cold and sharp, sliding under door frames and between layers, curling mean around the window glass. The wind was loud enough to make the house creak in places I didn't know could move. Sleet needled sideways against the pane above the sink. It felt like the kind of day that wanted something from me. I didn't know what, so I gave it everything.

I ran through chores like I was being timed. Tossed hay with my hood pulled low, watered the troughs while the wind tried to strip the bucket from my hands. I double-latched the stall gates and cinched down the tarp covering the grain—even though nothing had come loose all week. My fingers were red by the time I came in, stiff with cold, the skin across my knuckles split from the dry air and the work I wouldn't stop doing.

I didn't want to miss it.

Inside, the light was thin. Pale gold through frost-bitten windows. I didn't bother with a fire. Just made instant coffee that tasted like regret and grabbed the quilt from the back of the couch—his, with the corner stitch unraveling like it never quite got finished. I curled beneath it, knees tucked up, remote clenched in my fist like it might keep me tethered. The television flickered in front of me, already humming with someone else's nerves.

They weren't airing every ride. Just the short go. Just the men who'd already proved they could last eight seconds twice before. I scanned the rider list on screen—my eyes catching his name before my breath could catch up.

Colt Langmore.

Last in the draw.

Of course he was. That was how it worked with him. He never asked for the spotlight. But when it found him, he met it without flinching.

The announcer's voice came in over the feed—familiar and worn, with that slow Southern cadence rodeo folk carry like it's stitched into their marrow.

"Well now, y'all've been waitin' for this one—Colt Langmore outta Cody, Wyoming... drawin' Outlaw Redemption. Ain't nobody covered this bull all season. Seven riders down. None of 'em got past five."

I felt my breath catch.

They panned slow across the arena. The bull was a beast—black as oil, shoulders wide as a truck hood, eyes flat and furious. You could feel the tension through the screen. He danced in the chute, muscles twitching, foam thick at the mouth. A spinner, they said. Hard left out the gate, then a blind reverse—mean and unpredictable.

And then they cut to Colt.

He was already settled in the chute, glove cinched tight around the rope—left hand this time. My breath caught at the sight of it. Even now, even after everything, I still expected the right. But it hung quiet at his side, stiff and unbothered, as if it had never known the heat of a horn, the snap of something inside it giving way.

"Colt Langmore took a hit from Outlaw earlier this fall—you remember that one, folks, the bull nearly trampled him to death. But here he is again. This time riding southpaw."

Southpaw.

They said it like it was folklore.

I leaned forward, knuckles white around the edge of the couch, watching the slow draw of his breath, the way his fingers curled around the braided handle—tight, sure, exactly the way I'd shown him. Thumb not tucked, wrist flat, pressure riding through his palm instead of his grip. He'd adapted. Adjusted. Made it look like he'd always done it this way.

I felt every inch of it—the silence between seconds, the muscle memory we'd carved into cold mornings behind the barn, when his voice was quiet and I was the one reminding him to trust it.