The drive home after the rodeo always hit differently — sunburn on your cheeks, dirt under your nails, and the kind of tired that settled in your bones. Arthur had climbed into the truck, muttering something about his back being “murdered,” and was asleep five minutes later, hat pulled low, arms crossed, boots kicked up against the dashboard like he owned the world.

You glanced over at him at a red light, lips twitching at the way his mouth had gone slack, jaw dusted in that golden end-of-day light. Even half-snoring, he looked good — in that rugged, pain-in-the-ass kind of way he did everything.

He cracked one eye open, voice gravelly. “Quit starin’.”

“I’m not.”

He tilted his hat lower, that lazy grin you knew too well tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Liar,” he mumbled. “You’re obsessed with me.”

You rolled your eyes and reached over to poke his ribs. “You’re drooling.”

“Still obsessed,” he muttered through a chuckle, drifting back off just like that — the cocky bastard.