Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) (17 page)

Linda would take a beer from the fridge and we’d relax as the temperature in the air went down and the occasional birds flew by. Linda offered me a beer the first few times but now she knew I didn’t like beer. (Even though I loved kissing Chris after he’d had a beer—that faint, yeasty taste.) I envied her as she tipped her head back and pulled on the beer. To my mind there seemed like nothing cooler than a woman who liked beer. And Linda wasn’t the kind of woman who only liked beer when she was out at a bar so she could keep up with the men.

Watching her drink her beer, I thought about Chris and how I’d first met him at the bar in Vermont. He had been drinking a beer. My stomach pulsed with the knowledge that I still hadn’t made my first move toward reinvigorating things between us. The underwear I’d bought still sat in a drawer and he hadn’t seen the work of Irina. Valentine’s Day had come and gone. We’d gone out to a nice dinner but then I had to go back to stay with Dakota. Chris had parked in the driveway and we’d kissed for a few moments but I’d felt a certain relief in his kisses, like he was grateful I had Dakota to look after and I wasn’t coming back to his condo. It was like the complete opposite of how we’d kissed fervently in the car in Vermont. When I whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry this is it for tonight,” he said, “Don’t worry about it,” and it felt like he actually meant it. Like he was happy to go home, take an Ambien, and sleep.

“Did I ruin your romantic little evening?” Dakota said when I came inside.

“No, it was nice.”

“No nookie for Chris tonight, though.”

Her crass words sent shivers down my spine. Maybe because Chris didn’t seem to care about nookie anymore.

“That’s just juvenile and uncalled for,” I snapped at Dakota, maybe a little too harshly, and went to my room. I hoped there was nothing worse then calling a girl who yearned to be mature juvenile.

Now, sitting with Linda, an idea flashed into my mind. I had to go over to his barn. Right now. He’d be winding down with Dale. Dale would head home and Chris would be about to. I’d stop him and jump him right there at the farm. In the office. On a tack trunk. My cheeks turned red and I worried that Linda might notice but she was staring out over the ring peacefully.

But the moment the idea took flight in my mind I was already tampering it down.
Don’t be ridiculous. Like I could really do any of that. It isn’t me. I wouldn’t go through with it.
Then, my mind quickly turned to anger at myself.
Why couldn’t I do it? I had to do it. I had to do it to save things between Chris and me, and I had to do it now anyway just to prove to myself I had the guts.

I stood up and told Linda I forgot I needed to bring something over to Chris. I told myself not to think more about it as I drove over to his farm in the golf cart. I was doing it. But what if Dale and Chris were there talking for a while and my resolve weakened? No, it didn’t matter. I had to go through with it. I kept reciting in my mind on the drive over:
I will do it. I will do it.
I wasn’t even sure what
it
was yet. That part of my plan was unformed.

Dale’s car was gone. Chris’s was the only one there. It couldn’t have been more perfect. My timing was exquisite. He was probably just packing up.

I barely parked the golf cart before I was out of it and on my way into the barn, Jasper by my side. A few horses had their heads over their stall doors but most were munching hay. Arkos saw me and tossed his head like he was saying hello. Chris wasn’t in the aisle. I went into the office and found him sitting on a trunk looking at something on his phone.

“Hey,” I said.

He startled slightly. “Hi.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Just looking at a few emails before I head home.”

“How was your day?”

Chris shook his head like he didn’t really want to go into it.

“You showed Arkos?”

“Yeah. Eight faults.” He let out a heaving sigh. “I was talking with Jimmy. He thinks I’m wasting my time. That I should get rid of the horse. Cut my losses. Try to sell him as an eq horse just to get some of my money back. He said if I have Cassidy Rancher show him in the eq a few times someone’ll snap him up just because Cassidy was on him. He’s probably right.”

I was hearing Chris’s words but emotionally I wasn’t really processing them because my mind was on what I had come here to do. If I let that out of my sight, I’d surely give up.

I stepped toward Chris. We looked at each other and I could tell he was wondering what the hell I was doing. Why I wasn’t responding with words like a normal person would or acknowledging anything about what he’d said. Instead I leaned down to his level and started kissing him. He kissed me back but it was weak, without much intention. I probably should have stopped right there but I had willed myself to keep going, no matter what. It was like riding a horse that might refuse—you had to go to a fence thinking the whole way that you were going to get to the other side. If, for one split second, you thought the horse might waver, it was over.

Chris stood up, I think to try to shake me off. “Hannah—” he said, his voice slightly annoyed but still trying to be delicate. “I don’t think now is—”

“Shhh,” I said. I kissed him again. I would take his mind off Arkos. I could do this. I put my hand on his chest and smoothed it down to his belt buckle. I started to undo his belt. I would unbuckle it, unzip him, and get down on my knees. I would do what Zoe did to the cowboy in the field at the rodeo. I would do what MB did to Chris in the VIP tent.

“Hannah, no.” Chris pushed me away with his elbow. It was gentle, that push, but it reverberated all over my body. He did up his belt.

“Why not? What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Aren’t you interested in getting a fucking blow job?”

I hated the words as they came out of my mouth. But I was so hurt that he had rejected me. Wouldn’t any other guy have loved this? A guy like McNair Sutter? Of course, Chris wasn’t any other guy and that was why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

“For one thing, what if Lily comes back or her father because she left something here and walks in on us? I can’t afford to lose a client like her, or have it be all over HorseShowDrama.”

“But you let Mary Beth blow you in the spectator tent.”

Chris’s face blanched. “How the hell did you know that?”

“She told me.” I held my hands up. “I didn’t exactly ask her. Believe me, I didn’t want to know. But she told me anyway.”

Chris’s face turned angry. I had only seen angry on him a few times before and it was a little frightening to see such a usually composed person losing it. “I have no idea why you and she are talking about things like that. But regardless, that was when I was 17. I was a junior. I wasn’t thinking about clients or my reputation.”

“No, I guess you were just thinking about your dick. Which for some reason you don’t seem to care about anymore.”

“What the hell is going on with you?” Chris said. “I tell you that the horse I thought was something special I’m now going to have to dump for 150K as an eq horse and you’re surprised that I’m not really in the mood for sex?”

I shook my head, disgusted with myself.

“I don’t get this,” Chris said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning on myself. “I just thought I could take your mind off things. I just thought, I don’t know, everything seems so much harder than when we were in Vermont. You’re always busy. You’re stressed out. I thought coming here would be so much different.”

“Yeah, and I told you I didn’t think it was such a great idea. Vermont was like this moment of my career where I had to make myself relax a little because I had no international horses and I was at a smaller circuit and that’s not what the rest of my life is like. This is my life now and it’s kind of stressful.”

“So what we had in Vermont wasn’t real?” I felt tears pressing at the back of my eyelids. My breath was getting shallow. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, Vermont wasn’t real. What we had was real and I’m not saying we can’t be together. Far from it. But we have to learn to be together in this reality. And it’s different.”

I nodded. I felt like such a fool. I felt horribly rejected by him, but more than that I felt dumb for not seeing how he needed an adult relationship, not a teen romance. “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Can we just forget this ever happened?”

“I guess.” It didn’t seem like he could forget it ever happened, though. He looked even less happy than he had when I’d come into the room and found him. “I guess I’m going home.”

“Okay, I should go back to the farm anyway, see what Dakota wants to do for dinner.”

Chris nodded. He seemed like he was out of the energy to speak, or out of words to say to me.

Chapter 20

We had sex Sunday night and it was mechanical, how-to-manual sex. Kiss here, feel there, insert Part A into Part B. After him pushing me away I certainly wasn’t going to try any more wild tricks. It felt like something we had to do, not something we wanted to do or, even better, couldn’t stop ourselves from doing. It felt like we were both trying to prove to each other that things were fine between us. But we both knew they weren’t and the disappointing sex just made it even more obvious.

There was no great reveal of my laser-project. It was kind of by the by when Chris saw me naked after we had finished.

“Wow,” he said, his voice tentative.

“Wow, good? Wow, bad?”

He pulled the sheet over us. “I guess just wow, different.”

“That doesn’t sound wow, good.” I felt more shame creeping over me.

“You don’t have to be something you aren’t,” Chris said. “I mean if that’s what you want to do…”

“No, it killed,” I said. “But I thought you would like it.”

He ran his hand through his hair. I could see he was thinking how to put this delicately. “I don’t know. It’s a little dramatic. A little abnormal. I mean you’re not an eleven-year-old girl, you’re a woman.”

My face flushed red. A woman. That wasn’t exactly something that should make me blush but it sounded so adult, so mature. I didn’t feel like I lived up to it in the bedroom or out of the bedroom with the choices I’d been making lately. “I’m sorry, it was stupid.”

“I just don’t get what you’re doing,” he said. “It’s like you’re trying so hard.”

“I know, I
am
trying hard. I thought this winter would be like us spending all this time together and you just seem far away all the time.”

“I’m just trying to get my career on track again.” He looked sad—maybe that I didn’t get it and that he had to keep explaining it to me.

It hit me that I didn’t need sexy underwear or new moves in bed. I needed to understand what he was dealing with. I needed to be patient and forgiving. I scooted close to him and put my hand on his shoulders. I massaged his back. His muscles felt tight. “I’m sorry, I’ve been selfish. I get now more than ever what you’re going through and I’m going to be there for you from now on. It’s like I can finally see straight and I can see what’s important.”

He shrugged, moving his shoulders as I squeezed his muscles. Like maybe he didn’t quite believe that things would change, or that I could understand what it was like to be him. But I knew they would change. Starting right now I had a new plan. I would stop listening to Mary Beth for Godsakes and start making everything about supporting Chris. I would listen to him tell me about clients and horses. I wouldn’t ask him when he was free for dinner or put any other demands on him. I’d cheer him on at the ring. I’d bring him bottles of water and energy bars. Maybe I could help him by running part of his social media campaigns. Or there had to be other things I could do to lighten his load. Take his laundry to the cleaner, pick up Jasper’s food. There had to be things I could do and I would do them. By God, I would do them and I would do them well.

There were different kinds of personalities of the people who worked at this level with the horses and I enjoyed getting to know them and their stories. I found if you hung out with them while they worked on the horses, which I did, they were happy to tell you where they’d come from and how they got into what they were doing. Even the more buttoned-up people also let slip bits of gossip about the other clients they worked for.

Our farrier was the son of a farrier. He had gone into the family business right after high school, never really considering any other profession. He was the quiet serious type, focusing on his craft. At first I’d thought maybe he was mean, or didn’t like me or Linda, but I came to learn he was just sort of socially awkward, maybe even on the autism spectrum. He didn’t meet your eye when he spoke to you, and when he did say something it often came out of nowhere and it would take me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. He seemed more comfortable with horses than people.

The vet was more of a blowhard, who liked to name-drop. How he’d just been over at this or that Olympian’s farm. He bustled in and bustled out with an entourage of assistants, suggesting injections and treatments, and always leaving an inconceivable bill in his wake. His name was Dr. Robb and I’d heard people call him Dr. Rob You Blind behind his back. I wondered if he knew people called him that.

The acupuncturist had been a lawyer in her first life but she had always had a love for animals. After the break-up of her marriage, she became disenchanted with the legal system and had gone back to school for acupuncture. She’d first practiced on people but had then become disenchanted with people too and, since she always had a love of animals, offered her services at a barn near where she lived. Word spread about her talents and all it took was working for one high profile stable to set her on a course of working on the show circuit. Now she spent her winters in Wellington. She had never ridden a horse and before showing up at that first barn she’d never spent any time around horses but she did fine with them, knowing how to move around them and where they needed help. She would talk to them in a whispery voice as she inserted the needles. “I bet that feels good. I know you hurt there, don’t you, sweetie?” The first few times I found it kind of annoying but I became used to her and sometimes I almost felt myself relax at the same time that Midway or Dudley let his head drop and his lip quiver.