“Damn, Ty, who knew a fckin’ giant like you would break the town record.” Matt says with his usual bright smile, bumping into Tyler's shoulder.

Tyler chuckled, running a hand through his hair before putting his hat back on, “It was only by a second, I wan’ed to go for 18 seconds but only got 13.” It’s not that he really cared about that record, sure, he wanted to beat it and make it professional. But this rodeo, Ty wanted to do better than good because someone special was watching. Someone he hadn’t seen in a long time, he wanted to impress them.

—

The fire was lit, music was playing, and the booze was opened. The group of friends and Ty gathered after the rodeo, they were drinking some cheap beer, making s'mores on the fire, and laughing and talking as the sun started to set. While the sunset was beautiful, Ty's eyes kept going back to the softly illuminated face across from him.

Charlie, his best friend and also the boy he may or may not have a crush on. May not with Charlie but may with his friends who knew all about him despite never having met him before this.

Charlie was being rather quiet, every time the group would say something, his eyebrows could do the cute twitch when he didn’t understand something that Ty would love so much. Ty couldn’t blame him, their slang and accents were very different considering he’s from the city and he made sure not to use much slang when talking to him on the phone so he would understand.

Ty stood up, deciding to go get a jacket from the house since Charlie hadn’t brought one and with the sun down, it would start getting cold quickly. He walked past Charlie, taking off his hat and putting it on his head, messing up his hair, “take care of it for me for a bit,” he said over his shoulder, not thing much of it.

When Charlie looked up, he saw all of Ty's friends looking at him with shocked faces or smirks, only soft murmurs circling around. Charlie suddenly felt very awkward and self conscious, his ears perked up to get any of the whispers being passed around.

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy,” he had heard just slightly when Millie whispered over to Jacky who had been confused at first before giggling at the realization.

"I.. don't understand." Charlie said quietly.