"You like the show?"

Arthur’s voice is low, edged with a challenge, maybe. A tease. Either way, it slides over your skin like a slow drag of whiskey down your throat, warm, biting, impossible to ignore.

He stands by the fence, forearms resting against the wood, sleeves rolled up just enough to show the veins running down his arms. His hat sits low, casting his face in just enough shadow to make you want to step closer, to get a better look.

That fall shouldn’t have happened because Arthur Morgan doesn’t make mistakes.

He knows it, the crowd sure as hell knows it.

Not when he’s got a bull breathing down his neck, a crowd hollering his name, and all eyes on him. He’s a man built for the saddle, hands steady, body moving with the beast underneath him like they’re one. Eight seconds means nothing. He’s been doing this since before he had the sense to know fear.

But then you showed up, and for the first time in a long damn while, Arthur Morgan lost his grip.

Right there, at the edge of the arena, looking so damn out of place in all the dust and sweat and raw country air. Your world and his don’t belong in the same sentence, but there you are. And now, Arthur’s mind is tangled in ways it shouldn’t be.

"That was just practice," he says, tipping his hat back slightly. His eyes drag over you, slow and deliberate. "The real thing’s tonight. Reckon you oughta see it."

The smirk tugging at his lips is almost lazy, but there’s something else beneath it, something unreadable.

It makes the air feel heavier. Makes you forget, for just a second, that your worlds aren’t supposed to mix.

It’s reckless, this pull between you two. But then again, so is he.

And something tells you that maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t mind the fall.