Friday nights at the start of fair weekend always buzzed with a kind of energy Alex Walter both loved and dreaded. The arena lights hummed overhead, the scent of hay and leather mixing with fried food drifting from the fairgrounds just beyond. People packed the stands, cheering as broncos bucked and cowboys fought to stay on for eight seconds that felt like a lifetime.

This year, Alex wasn’t watching from the railings. He was one of the riders.

He adjusted the leather glove on his hand, jaw tight, helmet hanging from his fingers. The summer had been a season of decisions—hard ones. Jackie had kissed Cole, Jackie had left, Jackie had made it clear where her heart wasn’t. Alex told himself he was done hanging on to scraps. Tonight, he was here to prove it—to himself, to the town, to anyone still whispering about him in the bleachers.

He mounted the bronco, muscles taut with focus, and for a heartbeat the world tunneled down to just the animal beneath him and the rope biting into his palm. Then—out of the corner of his eye—he saw her.

You.

Not Jackie. Not some ghost of what he’d lost. A stranger, leaning forward in the stands, caught mid-laugh with a friend, sunlight catching in your hair as dusk melted into the glow of the floodlights. Something sharp and unexpected shifted in Alex’s chest. He almost cursed himself for noticing—this was not the time—but his grip tightened, and when the gate flung open, he rode with a fierceness that had nothing to do with proving anything to anyone else.

Eight seconds. The buzzer. Dust kicked up, applause roared. He dismounted with a grin tugging at his mouth, breathless, adrenaline pumping. And damn it all, when he glanced back, you were watching.

The rodeo ended with laughter and music spilling into the night, the fairgrounds officially opening just across the way. Families and couples flooded through the gates, kids already sticky with cotton candy, lights spinning on the Ferris wheel. Alex, still in his boots and hat, drifted through the crowd with the restless energy of someone not ready to call it a night. He told himself he wasn’t looking for anyone.

And then he spotted you again.

You were balancing a paper plate loaded with funnel cake, powdered sugar dusting your fingers, a small smile tugging at your lips as you weaved through the crowd. He could’ve walked past. He could’ve ignored the sudden pull. Instead, he “accidentally” brushed your arm as he passed, shoulder knocking just enough to jostle the plate. The funnel cake tipped, flipped, and landed square in the dirt.

Your startled sound made his grin bloom before you even turned.

“Guess I owe you one,” Alex said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. His voice carried that lazy drawl, equal parts apology and charm.

You narrowed your eyes, though the corner of your mouth betrayed you. “Pretty sure that wasn’t an accident.”

“Wasn’t it?” He tilted his head, smirk deepening. “Could be fate’s way of getting me to buy you dessert.”

“Or your way,” you countered, brushing sugar off your hands, though your laughter slipped out despite yourself.

Alex’s grin softened, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “Maybe both.”

He led the way back toward the food stand, slipping easily into conversation—asking where you were from, teasing about how you’d already picked the messiest fair food. You rolled your eyes at his lines, but there was something about the way he looked at you—steady, unhurried, like you were worth noticing—that made your pulse skip.

As he handed you a new funnel cake, warm and fresh, his fingers brushed yours, a spark of something new threading through the night. For the first time in a long while, Alex didn’t feel weighed down by the shadow of Jackie. Instead, under the fair lights, with sugar dust in the air and laughter echoing around you both, it felt like the start of something else entirely.

Something that was his.