Gypsy Girl and Horse Lovin' Boys (6 page)

I knew he was right as I rolled off him and sat up. He kneeled in front of me and moved my hair out of my eyes. He seemed to like my hair the most.

“I like your whole name by the way. Seraphina, my gypsy girl.” Noah cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. “I have to show Ezra tomorrow. At twelve forty-five and at two. Can you come?”

“I can’t make the first one. I won’t miss the second.” I grabbed his wrists when he held my head in his hands. I didn’t want him to let go of my face. I loved his touch, his kiss, everything. I wanted to hear his voice when I fell asleep.

He was reluctant to go, but he did. Then he was gone.

I fell asleep with only thoughts of Noah and his kisses running through my mind.

Monday

I was very effective keeping Josh out of my mind when I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was the first person on my mind. Guilt overwhelmed me and the thought of running into him started to freak me out the same way horses did.

I sat at the temporary table next to the kitchen. I propped my head up with one hand while I picked blueberries out of my muffin, scattering crumbs everywhere.

“Something bothering you?” Mom asked as she walked into the kitchen. Medicine bottles dropped onto the counter as she rummaged through the cupboards. “I need pain meds.”

“Over by the stove top.” I leaned on my arm on the table and blew the crumbs over to the edge. I stopped when Mom looked at me again.

“I know what you’re doing. Keep it up and you’ll be mopping all morning.”

I rubbed the crumbs back to the center of the table and sighed.

Mom unfolded a chair to sit opposite me.

“It is days like this I hate myself for forgetting to come home sooner and I wish we had a recliner.” Mom rubbed her temples. “What’s troubling you? Be glad it’s not this headache I have.”

“Well, I made some friends. Some of them turned out to be not very good ones. They’ve created some problems for me. What’s worse is now I might be the source of drama with the two friends I have left. By the time we’re done here, I might not have any.”

“The boys?”

I nodded.

“What happened with the others? Boys or girls?”

“They’re girls. I guess one of them liked Noah and she was jealous from the second I showed up. They posted a video of me falling on Facebook and they also posted another picture that was meant to upset one of the boys so he would hate on the other. It worked.”

“What do you have to with all this?” Mom rubbed her temples.

“At first I was excited since all I wanted out of this week was to make some friends. Then I realized one of the boys likes me more than a friend. I really like him too. But I didn’t know that the other one liked me more. I didn’t find that out until it was too late.” I stuffed the rest of the muffin in my mouth as guilt flooded over me again. I struggled to swallow the pasty mass in my mouth. “In the meantime, the girls have humiliated me more than once. Probably because I’m hanging out with the boys and they aren’t so they keep causing problems.” The lump in my throat wasn’t from the mass of muffin paste coating it. I pressed my fingers against my eyelids before I went on. “It looks like I messed up the friendship of these five people. The boys reassured me it’s not true. But last night was a mess. Now the boys are mad at each other because of me. Well one is mad at the other.”

“What’s the other one doing about it?”

“Liking me.” I hid my head under my arms. “I didn’t stop him to save their friendship. I let him kiss me.” I couldn’t look at Mom.

“Boy, talk about having a high school experience. If you ever wanted to know what it’s like, well here you go. This is what you’re missing.” Mom laughed. “Sorry, kiddo. It’s no fun. High school is full of dumb drama like that. When you are old enough to leave it behind, it’s such a relief. However, not everyone is able to leave high school behind. Those types are stuck in a superficial world. You, my dear, I’ve tried to spare that kind of grief by living an authentic life. It appears that world of grief is inevitable when you haven’t lived at least two decades in your lifetime. I promise you though, you’ll survive.”

“Mom, that doesn’t help.” I rubbed my face. “Now I don’t even want to see the other boy because I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Don’t you think snubbing him would hurt his feelings more?” She tugged on my hair so I’d have to look up.

“I don’t know.” I rested my chin on my arms.

“Yes, it would. Be his friend if he wants to be yours. That is if you want to. Live this week with no regrets. That’s what I mean by authentic. We are just here for the week. It’s not the end of the world for you. These kids won’t be with you after you leave.”

“They’re on Facebook and so am I.”

“You can block the mean ones. Keep the ones you want on there.” She got up to get another cup of water. “When you put that much energy into their nonsense, then they have a lot of power in your life. You need to take it back because they only have as much power as you give them.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s easy to say. You weren’t there when The Dark One called me and Cessie whores in front of the boys.”

“What did the boys do? Did they believe it?” Mom leaned against the counter unruffled from my hurt from the insults.

“Well, no. They defended me.” I sat up in my chair tracing where Cessie wrote her name in crayon on the table.

“Do you believe it?”

“No.” I finally met her gaze.

She shrugged. “So there’s nothing to worry about. They’re hurtful words but they’re still just words with only the weight we give them.”

“They posted a video to humiliate me.”

“Have you been on the internet? How many thousands of mean videos are there on there? What about all the ones of celebrities when they fall? Jennifer Lawrence comes to mind. She’s done that more than once. Does that stop people from liking her?”

“No.”

“See, there you go. You’re human. You fall. You’ll do dumb things and sometimes people won’t notice. Sometimes they do and let the whole world know. By tomorrow, or at least eventually, it will be forgotten. How many times have I slipped or done something embarrassing during the show? It’s so risky having a macaw and a monkey to depend on for entertainment. When that stuff happens, we shrug it off. We always have so I don’t know why you’re bent out of shape over all this. If it’s over the boys, for heaven’s sake, be yourself and let everything sort itself out. If it doesn’t, we will be gone on Monday and you can forget about all of it. You’ll never see them again.”

I mashed the muffin bits lost in thought.

“If I see a crumb anywhere when you leave the Caravan today, you will clean this place with a toothbrush. By the way, gypsies use to have problems like this, but their problems were much bigger than yours.”

“We’re pretend gypsies. We shouldn’t have real gypsy problems.”

“We aren’t as different from past gypsies as you’d like to think we are.” Mom disappeared into her room.

I watched the time as we prepped for the show. One o’clock took forever to arrive and that show was the slowest one ever. Once it was over, Mom let me go watch Noah.

I was still in my gypsy clothes. At least I didn’t have to wear the jingly belt. When I got to the bleachers, I found a spot right in the middle where no horses could sneak up and scare me. I played with the colored strands of my hair to preoccupy myself when I spotted Bree and Rachel coming to sit on the bleachers. I was so busy watching them that when someone slid into my side, I jumped and nearly launched off the bleachers. Josh held onto me when my foot almost slipped through the bottom step.

I punched his arm.

He held his finger to his mouth to silence me before rubbing his arm. He winced dramatically.

I whispered, “I know to be quiet. You should know better than to do that.”

“I do. I’m sorry.” He rubbed my back. “I’ve never been this close to you when you’re all gypsy. I kinda like it.”

I didn’t move away. However, I hoped he would stop touching me before Noah’s turn. I leaned back and whispered in Josh’s ear, “So what does he have to do?”

“Ride the horse in circles in all gears.” He smirked.

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know everything he has to do. This is his first time in the advanced competitions and Kelly’s too. She’s had private lessons. She probably should be competing in something even more advanced than this. I’m not sure if her plan in coming here was to hook up with Noah or beat him. I’m sure at this point it’s beat him.” His hand touched the inside of my arm lightly and he slowly worked his way to my hand.

I moved it so it was harder for him to reach. He rested his head on my shoulder. I couldn’t concentrate on anything that was going on in the arena. I slid down the bench to the end and jumped off.

Josh followed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were completely off me now.” He rubbed my arm.

I brushed his hand away. “I’m not off you because there wasn’t that sort of thing going on between you and me. I don’t want you intentionally trying to upset Noah when he’s trying to do well out there. ” I spotted Bree at the top of the bleachers with her phone camera pointed at us. “Hey, reach up with your left hand and grab Bree’s phone.”

Josh was far faster than I thought he would be. He had Bree’s phone before she could take more pictures or video and he handed it to me.

I pointed to the arena when she protested. It was Kelly’s turn.

Josh shushed Bree.

I stuck the phone in my bra.

She started to jump off the bleachers when I climbed back onto the bench to return to the spot I left. Josh was right beside me. More people filled the stands so fortunately Bree couldn’t get to us without making a scene.

“That was awesome.” Josh covered his mouth when he couldn’t stop laughing.

Bree said our names in a loud whisper. We turned and shushed her and so did everyone around us.

“Can I see it?” Josh asked.

I discreetly pulled it out of my shirt, setting it on Josh’s palm and stared straight ahead. I wasn’t sure how well Kelly was doing. I didn’t see anything that looked like a mistake.

“Kelly has another unfair advantage. Her horse is professionally trained too. Noah has taught himself and his horse everything they know.” Josh pushed my hair over my shoulder so I could see what he was doing on Bree’s phone.

I kept glancing at the phone while he worked quickly, deleting a bunch of pictures she had taken of me. It looked as if Bree had been stalking me even when I wasn’t with the boys. He found the videos she had taken and deleted those. He got onto her Facebook and posted a hacked status about how much she liked stalking people especially gypsies because she wanted to be taken away by one. Then he went through her texts and found out what boy she liked. Josh went back to Facebook to post on the boy’s Timeline a “tbh” saying how much she loved him and thought about him constantly.

“Thank goodness she doesn’t have an iPhone.” He took the battery out of her phone and stuck it in his pocket.

Josh slid off the bench away from Bree and walked away.

I couldn’t see where he went. Bree slipped off the bleachers after Kelly finished. Another rider and horse entered the arena. They weren’t as good as Kelly. Once they finished, Josh was back.

He leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “We should have some peace until Noah’s done. I told her I wouldn’t give the battery back until they announced the results. That should be enough time to embarrass her with the statuses I left. That is unless Rachel has any sense and lets Bree check Facebook on her phone.”

I didn’t want to watch what was playing out around me anymore. What Mom said was true. The stuff that was going on was silly. I wasn’t interested in the drama. I was interested in Noah as I pressed the palms of my hands together and watched him enter the arena. He wore a cowboy hat, a starched plaid western shirt, new jeans, and cowboy boots. If I had met him with the cowboy hat on, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of him at first. I wasn’t into the cowboy thing. But he was my Noah now and he looked sharp with his perfect posture on Ezra. He rested one hand on his thigh and looked as if he was raised in the saddle as Ezra trotted around the arena. The horse held her head high. He kicked her sides to canter around the ring. They crossed the arena diagonally. Then he had her do it again the other way. Her nose flared really big each time she exhaled and she chewed on her bit as if it was hard work. He looked confident when he glanced over at me.

A huge smile spread across my face as I clasped my hands tightly in my lap. When he stopped Ezra quick and then backed her up, turned her around and looked as if he’d finished, I whispered in Josh’s ear.

“How’d he do?” I grabbed his arm with both hands.

“I didn’t see anything wrong. He looked great. But so did Kelly. She was a little more confident. Actually, I thought she looked arrogant as she schmoozed the judges pretty good during the final marks. I don’t know what that does for her.”

“It looks like Noah is schmoozing too.” All of sudden I was worried .

“That’s not schmoozing, that’s Noah. That’s why everyone always loves him. Kelly has a manipulative charm. I’ve seen her get a lot of things she wasn’t entitled to because of it.”

I pulled out my phone to check the time. “I hope I don’t have to go before they do the results.”

“I’ll let you know what happens if you have to.”

A few more horses and riders did their thing. In the stands, the people whispered and clapped when the horses and riders left the arena.

“Dang it. I have to go. I can’t even watch you deal with Bree afterwards.”

“Just gives me an excuse to see you later.” He raised his eyebrows and gave me an endearing half-smile.

“Are you and Noah talking now?”

“Not yet. I’m not sure if I’m going to forgive him just yet.” He messed with his phone avoiding my eyes.

I nudged his side to make him look at me. He didn’t. I nudged him again.

“You’re making me feel bad about this whole thing,” I said.

“Well, did you kiss him?” He finally looked at me with narrowed eyes.

I slid down the bench to get off and pulled Josh’s shirt to make him follow.

“What?” Josh’s hands went to his hips and he glared at me once we were face to face. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I have to go and help my mom, but I don’t want to leave stuff unsaid so you’ll screw up your friendship with Noah even more. I’m not worth it.” I stopped talking for a moment and studied the gravel “We didn’t kiss in that picture.”

“Noah already told me that.” He folded his arms.

“Then you kicked him out of the tent because you said you knew something was going on between me and Noah. Hardly anything was going on. I think you were upset because you knew you weren’t going to win. So where do you think he went?”

Josh didn’t say a word. His hands fell to his hips again. He dropped his gaze when the gravel was very interesting to him too.