The bar was loud with Friday night sweat and rodeo stories, some true, most exaggerated. Arthur leaned against the high table, thumb hooked in his belt, dark Stetson pushed back just enough to show the scar near his temple — a gift from his wilder days. He wasn’t drunk, not yet, just loose enough to be warm with his words and sharp with his grin.

A couple of the new bull riders had wandered over, barely legal and still high on adrenaline and cheap cologne. They were talking big — about the ride, the girls, how they’d never be tied down.

— “Shit,” one of them laughed. “If I ever get married, shoot me.”

Arthur didn’t even flinch. Just sipped his whiskey, eyes half-lidded like he was listening to cattle moo.

Then, real casual, he pulled out his phone and slid it across the table.

— “That’s my wife,” he said. Like a statement, not a brag — though it was a brag.

The screen lit up with a photo of you — windblown, in one of his old rodeo jackets, leaning against his truck with your arms crossed and a smirk that said you knew exactly what you were doing to him when he took that photo.

One of the boys gave a low whistle. “Damn. She rides too?”

Arthur gave a small smirk, eyes gleaming. “Better than me. Smarter, too. Mean left hook, if you piss her off.”

They laughed, and one said, “No way a girl like that’s lettin’ you outta the house lookin’ like that.”

“She picked this shirt,” Arthur said, tugging at the flannel. “Likes when it stretches across my back.”

A pause. Then: “Man, how the hell did you lock her down?”

Arthur leaned in a little, that slow cowboy drawl turning sly. “Had to ask her twice. First time, she just laughed at me and went back to cleanin’ the barn. Second time, I had a ring and a busted lip. Said yes anyway.”

They all laughed, and he tipped his glass in your honor, muttering, “Best damn decision I ever made.”

He didn’t say much more after that — didn’t have to. Every time someone brought up girls or hookups or the road, he just smiled to himself like he already had everything waiting for him back home — boots by the door, your voice calling him in, and a damn good reason to keep coming back in one piece.