Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3) Page 14

  John seemed suitably impressed but at the same time more concerned with the show schedule, eager to map out what Gidget, Cruz, and Dibs would do each day. They had the use of Linda’s golf cart when she didn’t need it and Zoe had also picked up an old mountain bike with a free sign on it she’d seen on the side of the road back home so she wouldn’t have to hoof it between the barn and the rings. Her bike wasn’t glamorous but it beat walking.

  Once the horses had all been ridden and the following day’s schedule mapped out on the whiteboard, John and Zoe drove over to the hotel in their separate cars. John had made the hotel arrangements. Linda had told John the Pearces would pay half of Zoe’s room since she was also working for them. Linda and Dakota were sharing a condo with a friend of Dakota’s. Linda had said if they hadn’t arranged the condo so far ahead of time they would have definitely planned for an extra room for Zoe. Most years she had stayed in condos with families that rode with Jamie.

  Zoe worried all John could afford would be a super low budget motor lodge by the side of the road with crusty carpets and hair in the tub, but it was a Hampton Inn. Nothing amazing, but hopefully it would be sanitary.

  She pulled her two bags out of the backseat and they headed into the lobby. There was a line at the counter, including a mom with a pony rider in breeches. Zoe stood slightly off to the side so no one might mistake her and John for a couple.

  A few minutes passed as the people in front of them checked in. Zoe noticed packs of men and women in casual business attire flowing through the lobby. Zoe recalled that there was a big conference center in Lake Placid. One year there had been tons of people from a conference on STDs. That had provided fodder for lots of jokes at the horse show.

  John was now talking to the person behind the desk.

  “We have you down for one room,” Zoe heard the young man, probably recently graduated from college with a degree in hotel management, say.

  “No, two rooms. Bradstreet. Two rooms.”

  Zoe pivoted back to look at the front desk.

  “Let me check again for you, Mr. Bradstreet,” the man said, leaning close to the computer. His nametag pinned to his cheap suit jacket said Travis. “I’m sorry but I only have the one room.”

  “Okay, well, that doesn’t matter,” John told Travis. “Can you just get us another room so we have two rooms?”

  Zoe could hear John’s voice turning tense. He was probably feeling badly. He wasn’t paying her to ride—the least he could do was not screw up the room arrangements.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’re all booked. We have a dental association here for the next several days and then a teacher’s group coming in for continuing education.”

  “You’re all booked, totally full, not one other room available?” John said, his voice now somewhere between suspicious and angry.

  “Not one room. You can call around to other hotels in the area . . .”

  Zoe stepped forward. “It’s fine, really,” she said to John. “Does the room have two beds?” she asked Travis.

  “Yes, two beds,” Travis replied. He looked happy Zoe had intervened but also like he was trying to figure out the relationship between them.

  Zoe said, “It has two beds. What’s the big deal? Think of all the money you’ll save. We can go out to a nice dinner one night instead.”

  Zoe didn’t even care about a nice dinner. She just wanted to make John less stressed.

  “I can call around to other hotels,” John told her.

  “Why bother? I’m fine with it so unless you’re not . . .”

  It was a game of chicken now. He would have to be the one to say that it made him feel uncomfortable to sleep in the same room with her.

  “It’s fine with me, too,” he said.

  Travis was following their conversation with a hopeful expression. “So we’re all good?” he chanced to say.

  Both Zoe and John said at the same time, “Yes.”

  They rode the elevator with two women attending the dental conference. One held a three-ring binder with a photo on the front of smiling teeth without a face, an image that was meant to be whimsical yet looked slightly creepy. Zoe thought how strange the world was. You could go into the dental profession and spend your whole life looking into people’s mouths, or you could go into riding and spend your life on the back of a horse. Each world had its own in-crowd, its own lingo, its own culture.

  The women stepped off at the second floor. At the fourth floor, Zoe pulled her rolling bag out with her other, smaller bag slung over her shoulder. “We can stay up late and do each other’s nails, watch chick-flicks, it’ll be a regular slumber party,” she joked.

  “Are you really sure you’re okay with this?” John said as they arrived at the room and he was about to slide the credit card key through the slot.

  “Should I not be? Are you going to have a hard time keeping your hands off me?” She meant to diffuse what was an awkward situation, but she realized as she said it, that it just made her feel more uncomfortable because she had come on to him that one night and he’d plainly turned her down.

  “Yeah, it’s going to be brutal,” he said. “I’m gonna be walking around the room the whole time trying to hide my boner.”

  She laughed, out of even more discomfort and because it was a slightly raunchy kind of humor she hadn’t expected from him. Maybe there was a whole other side to him she’d be coming to know.

  She worried it might just make her like him even more.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, laughing it off.

  He slid the key through and the light blinked green. The door opened on a not terribly large room with, as promised, the two beds. Why did the beds seem so close to each other?

  She deposited her shoulder bag on a chair and wheeled her bigger bag against the wall. She and Jed had stayed together in hotel rooms plenty of times before but he was gay and that made it different. They had painted each other’s nails and watched chick-flicks. The only other men she’d been in hotel rooms with were the ones she slept with.

  This was going to be different, but she would do her damnedest to act like it was the no big deal she claimed it was. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal if she hadn’t come on to him that night, if there wasn’t a part of her that still wondered whether there could be something between them.

  “I’m starving,” John said. “How about dinner? Or do you have people you want to catch up with?”

  A few of the people she’d seen had casually told her, “Let’s grab dinner,” but so far the texts weren’t flying in.

  “I’m up for dinner. I’ll just take a quick shower.”

  “Cool. I’ll meet you in the lobby. I’m going to go check out the gym.”

  Maybe he actually was going to work out while they were there, or he was just trying to make things more comfortable by getting out of the room while Zoe showered. She put on real clothes (nothing too nice—this wasn’t a date, after all) and met him back in the lobby. They took his truck and settled on a casual restaurant. Afterward Zoe took John to the popcorn place and they looked at all the crazy flavors and shared a bag of kettle corn.

  As they walked out of the store, John said, “I just don’t get who buys beer-flavored popcorn.”

  “Or dill pickle,” Zoe added, offering John the bag.

  “I like beer but I don’t want beer popcorn.”

  “I know,” Zoe said. “I like pickles but I don’t want pickle popcorn.”

  They stopped in at the show after dinner to check on the horses. Zoe loved the quiet of the tent at night—the horses munching hay or resting with their heads low. Gidget had her butt to the door and didn’t make any movements to turn and face them, or even acknowledge their existence when they said hello to her.

  “I like the horses that want to curl up in your lap,” John said. “I know she’s talented and I’m the one who bought her but I wish she’d be a little less prickly.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Girl,” Zoe said to the mare. “You ju
st keep doing your thing because it’s totally working for you.”

  Zoe opened the stall door and confidently moved to stand closer to Gidget’s neck. Gidget trusted her now—she seemed to understand Zoe was on her side and would never punish her for being ornery.

  Gidget pinned her ears back and gave Zoe a sidelong glare.

  “There’s my girl,” Zoe said. “Just wanted to make sure you were still alive in there.”

  She held out a few mints she’d pocketed from the hostess stand at the restaurant. Gidget gobbled them greedily, but wouldn’t offer any extra thanks—not a nudge with her nose, or a single lick of her tongue. They picked out the stalls, checked water buckets levels, and tossed each horse an extra flake of hay.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Zoe said to her. “Get your beauty sleep.”

  Back at the hotel, she used the bathroom first. She took her medicine and made sure to stash the bottle deep in her toiletry kit so he wouldn’t see it. She wished she’d brought real pajamas instead of just a T-shirt and old leggings. She hadn’t thought she’d be sharing a room with him.

  She and John passed on his way into the bathroom and her way to get into bed. The space between the foot of the beds and the dresser was narrow and Zoe had to turn sideways, just barely brushing up against him. They exchanged a quick, charged glance.

  “Sorry,” John said. “Tight quarters.”

  “You’re fine,” Zoe said, feeling heat rise up her cheeks.

  She was looking at her phone, scrolling through her Instagram feed, when John came out of the bathroom.

  She wished he didn’t look so good in his boxers and T-shirt. Right before he climbed into bed he pulled off his shirt. She glimpsed his chest, and a sprinkling of dark hair. She had to make herself stare at her phone.

  How hard would it be to crawl into his bed? How could he possibly turn her down if she slipped off her own shirt and pressed herself against him?

  No, she wouldn’t. No way.

  “Good-night,” he said, turning off the one remaining light.

  “Good-night. Hope your perpetual boner doesn’t keep you awake all night!”

  It felt like a risky thing to say, like it might fall flat and reveal her as being totally inappropriate. But she went for it. Was it an invitation? Maybe.

  But he didn’t seem tempted.

  “I think I’ll be okay,” he replied.

  She put down her phone, the ringer off, and turned on her side so she was facing the opposite direction of his bed. She stared at the dark room for a while, her eyes wide open, not sleepy in the slightest. She could hear him breathing and then his sheets rustle as he repositioned himself.

  She thought of how he was shirtless and closed her eyes tight and told herself just to stop and find a way to go to sleep. Was he awake? Or was he already asleep? Was he thinking about her?

  Minutes passed. She was still awake, but she was trying not move around so it’d seem like she was asleep. She couldn’t figure out whether he was asleep or not. He probably was. Why did guys always have a way of sleeping much more soundly than women? They fell asleep the moment their head hit the pillow at night.

  Women were the ones who stayed up reading or watching TV. But maybe he actually was still awake. She considered asking him, Are you awake? Can you sleep? Maybe this sharing a room wasn’t such a good idea after all. I’m gonna ride like shit tomorrow. How’s your boner?

  Random thoughts flew through her head. She decided saying nothing would be better than anything she might come up with.

  She rolled over a few times, now rustling her own sheets on purpose, wondering if that would signal to him that she wasn’t asleep and maybe he’d say something.

  Nothing.

  Sometime later in the night, mercifully, she fell asleep and slept clear through to being woken by the alarm on his phone.

  He got right out of bed and traipsed to the bathroom. She could see his shirtless form in the dim light of the room. She listened to the water running and felt tired from falling asleep so late.

  “You waking up?” he asked softly when he came out of the bathroom.

  She liked the tender sound of his voice. “Yup, I’m up.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said. “I’m going to see what they have for coffee.”

  “Get me whatever they have,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said. “I know how you love your coffee.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “You were right about packing warm clothes,” John said, putting an arm into the sleeve of a North Face puffy jacket.

  Mornings in Lake Placid were chilly and for the first few hours of the day it hardly looked like July as riders rode by bundled up in down jackets and vests with scarves wrapped around their necks.

  John had just thrown grain and was pulling out a wheelbarrow to start stalls. Zoe came to block his path. “I made a little deal with Linda,” she said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “She really can’t ride with her back. I said you’d help me get all of Dakota’s horses ridden and prepared if she got one of the guys to clean your stalls.”

  “I don’t mind cleaning my stalls. I actually kind of like it,” John said, his hands still on the wheelbarrow.

  “You can clean them again this afternoon if you want,” Zoe said. “She really needs our help. This isn’t just for you. We’re doing this for her.”

  It was mostly true. Linda hadn’t told anyone else she was pregnant yet and Zoe felt protective of her. People rode through their pregnancy—hell, some grand prix riders jumped in 5-star classes through their fifth or sixth month—but Linda had a bad back and she was pregnant.

  There was no way she should be riding.

  “Fine,” John said. “If it helps Linda, okay.”

  The morning passed quickly with all the riding that needed to be done. Zoe and John rode out together, flatted in the same ring usually, and then rode back together. As always, Zoe passed endless people who said hello and how’s it going to her. A few people even remembered John’s name and asked if the mare would be showing this week.

  Zoe made sure to introduce John any chance she got and she also tried her best to subtly work into any short conversation that he had brought some sale horses. By the time all of Dakota’s horses and all of John’s were ridden, she had managed to give out John’s number to one trainer who said he would text later about watching Cruz, and told another trainer that she should try Dibs.

  “I noticed you didn’t mention Gidget’s for sale,” John said.

  “I think her value’s only going to go up this summer,” Zoe said with a slight smile. “Better to wait.”

  “I agree,” John said.

  Dakota had a lesson on Plato and flatted Midway and Sonny. The rest of the time, she hung out around the horse show. There were a lot of fun classes to watch and a lot of fellow juniors to hang out with. Every time Zoe saw Dakota she seemed to be surrounded by a group of juniors, talking closely, looking at each other’s phones, piled on a golf cart that some older junior who had a license was driving.

  A few times she saw her with Ian, Hugo’s working student, who had ridden Plato at Old Salem. Later, she asked her, “You staying true to our pact?”

  “Totally. You?”

  “I’ve been like a nun.”

  Dakota giggled.

  “Lake Placid can be trouble,” Zoe said, turning more serious.

  “I know. A bunch of people were talking about going out tonight . . .”

  “You have a fake ID?”

  Dakota nodded, like she wasn’t sure she should be admitting this to Zoe.

  “Be careful, okay? You can call me anytime,” Zoe said. “I’m not going to say, don’t go out, because I’m not a total hypocrite, but be careful.”

  “I will. I’m just going to stay with my friends.”

  “But they suddenly might not stay with you . . .” Zoe knew all too well how people paired up and peeled off, and Dakota could be left alone, easy
prey for just the kind of guy she was trying to avoid.

  “I know.”

  “If you need a ride home. If you need anything. Just text me or call me. I’m going to be sitting in my hotel room watching a movie. No bars for me.”

  John rode Cruz in a 1.20 meter class. Zoe helped him school and she could tell he was a little nervous at the in-gate, just a little impressed by the jumper ring. The jumps weren’t big and the course wasn’t tricky, but it was a large ring with impressive grandstands with flags flapping in the ever-present Adirondack breeze, and sponsorship banners along the fence line.

  Despite what might have been a few nerves, John marched Cruz right around the course, riding it like an eq course. Cruz was a little rough through his change in a corner of the ring, tossing his head, and John trained him, making him listen and flex before the next jump.

  The trainer Zoe had told about Cruz had come to watch him go. Brett Kirschner was from Maryland and had been around the circuit for what seemed like forever. He always had a full barn and lots of clients but none ever quite made it to the top. He was also flamingly gay.

  “Nice, huh?” Zoe said to Brett. “Green, needs a little more polish and mileage, but nice.”

  Zoe wasn’t used to brokering deals. She had certainly listened in on Jamie and others endlessly pitching horses, extolling their virtues. She knew the lingo to throw around: endless scope, big step, no spook, little prep, no stop, great mind, good attitude, great look, super sound.

  Now it was her turn to use those same words but she wasn’t sure she would be as good at pulling it off. She decided to try to differentiate John from some of the other horse dealers out there.

  “John’s the real deal. No devices or gimmicks. He’s been putting solid basics and flatwork into this horse. This isn’t a ‘fluff and buff’ and turn around and sell it. John brings along his horses slowly and so you know what you’re seeing is real, and not just some band-aid effect.”

  As she talked, Zoe’s confidence grew. She found it all exciting—the arranging the time and place, the showcasing the horse, the carefully planned words.