"GO!"

The individual stalls opened and we all got the horses to start. I don't really remember much of the course or how things were set up for the race, I just tried to avoid any obstacles in the way that I had to get Sport to either jump over or go around, more of the jumping over hurdles. I knew James got close to me with Igneous a few times and for a while, but I tried my best to ignore him as best as I could and kept moving Sport as far away as possible from him without getting him too close to Soda on Ginger or Jake on Desperado.

I saw James and Igneous get close to Soda and Ginger toward the end of the last lap around. I heard Igneous whinny, then saw Ginger start to buck and whinny, like she was scared. I glanced at Soda, who looked one more scare away from getting thrown off or even falling off- and I knew it was cause of James and Igneous. I could feel my ears get red and my blood boiled a little bit, knowing he was cheating and wasn't afraid to hurt people in order to beat them in a competition.

I then made it my personal goal that, even if I didn't win the race, I would beat James for nearly hurting my friend.

I was able to get Sport to go faster than Igneous, and actually, just neck and neck with Desperado. Soda had finally gotten Ginger to calm down and was catching up with us all again and a little behind Igneous. I quickly glanced back at them for a second, sending a quick glare at James, whether he saw it or not I didn't care, as long as it was there and aimed at him.

"We have a close one! Newcomer Rain, may actually be our new champion!" the announcer called out.

At that point, I tried to get Sport to go a little faster, but not too much that he would freak out. I could see the black and white checkered line and just kept going, and stopped Sport a little after I saw that we had passed the black and white checkered line. I wasn't sure who won yet, but I knew that I saw a flash from a camera from the corner of my eye at one point, but not sure what the proof was, considering I had been close with Jake and Desperado.

"And the winner is: Sport and his rider, Rain Johnson!"

I looked up when I heard my name with an expression of both shock and confusion, not sure if I had heard the announcer correctly or not. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see a smiling Soda. "Rain, you won!" he smiled.

My eyes widened, "I did?" He nodded. I felt a huge smile on my face and I hugged him, not knowing really how to react. "I've never won anything like this before in my life!"

He laughed and hugged back. "Ya see? This is why I made you enter!"

I laughed but stopped for a second when I remembered about him nearly getting hurt. "Are you ok? That guy James nearly got you hurt by scaring Ginger."

He nodded. "I'm fine. I think I may have pulled something in my shoulder tryin' to get balanced, but I'll live."

I nodded and we went back to bring Ginger and Sport back to their stalls at the stables. When we got there, Dallas was already there, and the other four had just gotten there the same time as the two of us. Ponyboy and Steve went over to Soda, probably to make sure he was ok. Johnny, Dallas and Two-Bit came over to me. One with a smirk planted on his face, another with a small smile, the last with a playful grin on his face. I'm sure you can tell which was which.

"You are officially the first girl to ever enter one of these things, and the first girl to ever win first on her first time," Two-Bit grinned, making me chuckle.

"Told ya he wouldn't throw ya off, but you didn't wanna believe me," Dallas shrugged, a small smirk playing on his lips.

"You did really good, Rain, those guys didn't know what him 'em," Johnny smiled.

I chuckled again, "I guess so… but did you guys see what that guy did when he nearly got Soda thrown off?" They all nodded. "Ya know he did it on purpose, right?"

Two-Bit scoffed. "Shoot, he didn't even try to hide it."

"The asshole didn't even get called out… maybe we should call 'im out?" Dallas still had the smirk on his face.

Johnny gave a nervous look, then ground his top and bottom teeth together for a second. "I don't think so you guys."

Dallas let out a disappointed sigh. "Fine… but next time the bum cheats on anything here, I'm kicking his ass."

I bit back a laugh. I knew he was serious and that he really would if he had to. We all knew that and everyone knew who he was. And if it ever happened to Soda again, everyone knew who he was too- and if someone tried to hurt him, he'd have nearly every girl in town pissed off of them and everyone knows when a girl is pissed off, no matter who she is, life is hell… not to mention that Darry wouldn't be too happy if someone hurt one of his brothers.

We all headed out back to the benches to watch the next event. I stopped walking when I saw Igneous and his rider. "I'll meet up with y'all, go on ahead," I said. Before they could protest, I turned and headed toward the guy who the announcer said was James Steel. I went to back toward the stables and stopped for a second when I saw him tying up Igneous in his stall to keep him there till he closed the door. When I got to him, I tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned and a smirked appeared on his face. I held back an eye roll and sigh. "Hey, uh… Rain? Right?" he asked.

I nodded, "Yeah that's me."

"Yeah… hey nice job with the race before. You're gonna be pretty popular 'round here for a while cause of that win you got. Considering you're the first girl to ever enter, that would've got you some cred 'round here, but the fact that ya won, that's pretty impressive."

"Yeah, I guess so… but I wanted to talk to you about somethin'." I crossed my arms over my chest.

He nodded and leaned against a post. "What's goin' on?"

"I know what you did out there during the race… you could've gotten my friend hurt."

He chuckled like I was outta my mind, "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."

I shook my head and jutted my bottom jaw out to the side for a quick moment. "You must think I'm some idiot like most of these other Greaser girls 'round here, cause if it ain't obvious enough, I am a Greaser... but you know exactly what I'm talkin' about, and you know it was downright low and dirty, and that's comin' from me, and I ain't so clean myself. I knew you wouldn't admit to it, I'm not an idiot. But I'm warning you, James… do it again, not just to my friends but to anyone… or you'll be sorry," I growled, slowly walking closer to him to try and get in his face.

He chuckled again. "Yeah, sure darlin'… I ain't scared a' you." His smirk still in place on his face and he looked unimpressed.

I glared at him and kneed him right where it hurt. He dropped down to the floor on his knees as his eyes widened a little and his smirk disappeared from his face. I leaned down at my waist to get eye level with him. "I warned ya." I pushed him down on his back by the shoulders then turned around to go back to the benches where the gang was, leaving him there in pain- which I was fine with.

"Where were ya?" Two-Bit asked when I got back to the benches with them.

I sat down between him and Soda and shrugged a bit, "Just getting rid of some trash 'round the stables." He nodded and turned back to the event that just started.

Oooooooooooh, sassy Rain.

By the way, if you read "To Love a Greaser" and you remember James who worked at Rusty's garage with her, this is the same James… he just didn't remember her in that story and she didn't remember him cause it was long before anything happened with them yet in the other story, cause he didn't live in Tulsa yet.

Anyway, was this chapter good? I'm not sure cause like I said in the last author's note, I don't know much 'bout rodeo's or horse racing or nothing cause I'm from (New) Jersey, and as far as I know, they don't do nothing like that here in Jersey. Wanna know what we do for fun? IN the summer, we go down the shore (to the beach but no one is jersey says "to the beach", we say "down the shore") and for day trips, we got to Philadelphia or New York City cause we're right in between two tourist attractions and we only go to day trips there cause we know it's too crowded in both to actually live there.

Well, that's at least what me and my friends do, I don't know 'bout no one else, but that's me and my friends.

Also, like I called it, people from New Jersey don't usually call it "New jersey"… we call it "Jersey". I don't know why, but we just do.

OH! And we go to West Point for football games.

Anyway, enough about Jersey… hope you liked the chapter! Bye! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=