Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) Read online

  “Sounds like you have to go,” I told Chris. I didn’t want to have him tell me he had to go and the longer I stayed on the phone with him, the more likely it was that I wouldn’t be able to hide my true state of emotions.

  Two weeks. I had to hold it together for two weeks and then I’d see Chris.

  Chapter 3

  I was supposed to get more excited about Chris coming as his visit grew nearer. I imagined I’d also stop obsessing about Mary Beth. But the opposite happened—and I couldn’t figure out why. I stalked Chris’s Facebook page and Instagram account and Mary Beth’s too. Sometimes I just stared at photos of her. Most of the photos she posted were of her competing. Soaring over impressive looking jumps, often in Europe. Lush green grass fields paired with primary colored jumps. There were shots of her walking the course and on the medal platform after a Nations Cup class. Then there were the occasional what I would call, “Stars—They’re Just Like Us” photos. A picture of Mary Beth’s top horse curled up in his stall with Mary Beth’s adorable rescue dog snuggled up beside him. Mary Beth grazing her horse under a beautiful sunset. If I looked back far enough on her timeline I could find Chris. Them standing next to each other on the medal platform, caught smiling at each other while walking a course, and my least favorite photo and the one I stared at most: Chris, in the middle of the ring after the Central Park Horse Show, spraying MB with a bottle of champagne that must have been given as a prize. Chris had won the grand prix and Mary Beth had come in second.

  From looking at her timeline you wouldn’t necessarily know that she and Chris had been a couple. And not just any couple but the circuit’s young royal couple—show jumping’s Will and Kate pre-marriage and babies. It would have been a lot worse if Mary Beth were a regular twenty-something woman. Then there would be the obligatory photos of her and Chris, lips plastered together, or totally drunk. There would have been the inane postings of “Feeling grateful for my boyfriend today, who always brings me my favorite coffee” and the heart emoticons. But Mary Beth and Chris were professional athletes and so their Facebook pages and Instagram accounts were for promoting an important, successful, and mature image.

  Mary Beth came across as pretty, talented, and driven. And looking at that persona as I sat hunched over on my bed, tablet on my lap, blanket pulled half over my head, made me feel even more worthless. Why would Chris be interested in me when he could have her? Everything that had happened between us in Vermont seemed fake, like it was a figment of my imagination. Or at the very least like it was only possible because Mary Beth had been away in Europe and Chris had been desperate. Maybe he’d picked me on purpose. Maybe I was just the kind of disposable interval girlfriend he needed until he and Mary Beth realized they couldn’t live without each other a minute longer. If he had dated another grand prix rider, when it ended he would have still had to see her every day. But with me, it could be over and he’d never have to see me again. It wasn’t like I had a role in the sport. So maybe he was coming to Boston to tell me that he didn’t see any future for us. Maybe he wanted to do it in person so he didn’t feel like an asshole for dumping me over the phone. He could clear his conscience and head to Florida ready to get back together with Mary Beth.

  My roommate Van startled me out of my stalker-depressive behavior when she opened the door and pretty much fell onto her bed. It was eleven o’clock in the morning—she’d been out all night.

  Without sitting up she said, “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Looking at her page. You’re sitting there, sucked into the vortex of jealousy over someone he’s not even dating. You are obsessing over a self-created non-drama. I can feel the vibe in the room and it’s toxic.”

  Van and I got along well, even though we led completely different lifestyles and she probably thought mine pathetic. But she was never mean about it. She seemed to have a soft spot for me, like I was an injured creature she’d found out in the woods but didn’t quite know how to care for.

  It seemed to me that there were two kinds of kids at Tufts—the kind that never left campus and formed their college life around frat parties and the dining hall and at the very most ventured into Davis Square for dinners out or frozen yogurt. Then there was the kind like Van, who spent as much of their time as possible off campus. Van attended what classes she had to and then rode the subway all over Boston, mostly to hang out in cool coffee shops and hear indie bands. Van wasn’t exactly a groupie because she didn’t follow just one group, but she did spend all her time seeing indie shows. The less discovered the band, the better. Secret shows were her Holy Grail and if she wasn’t in Boston she could be found hopping on the train, the Chinese Bus, or into the dilapidated incense-smelling car of a near stranger to Providence, Portland, or Manhattan to catch a show. She had dated a lead singer in a band but from what I could tell that had ended.

  “You’re right. I’m obsessing,” I told Van. She was perhaps the only one I could tell the truth to. I had nothing at stake with her. It didn’t matter what she thought of me and I also knew she wouldn’t judge me. She didn’t care what people did, as long as it made them happy. But it didn’t take a genius to see that I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t even tell Dr. S exactly how bad things had gotten because I was worried she might do something extreme like insist on calling my parents.

  Van sat up and surveyed me with bleary eyes. She’d probably only slept a few hours on a friend’s couch, if at all. She had a short haircut—probably chopped by another friend who professed to have experience with hair cutting. It was uneven in places and a part of it was dyed blue. It would have looked awful on someone else but it worked on Van.

  “Okay, you’ve got to stop. Put down the iPad. We need to save you from yourself.”

  I did what she said and placed the iPad next to me. “He’s coming, actually.”

  “Chris? Here?”

  “Well, not here, not like to our room. But he’s coming to Boston. He’s giving a clinic nearby—a clinic’s kind of like a master class or something like that. He got us a hotel room in Cambridge.”

  “That’s so great,” Van said. “But—” She stopped herself.

  “What?”

  “You kind of look like shit.”

  “What about you?” I said. “You probably haven’t slept in days.”

  Van tossed back her head, shaking her angular pixie cut. “But it kind of works for me, you know? You, not so much. You need to clean up. Get your shit together before you see him.”

  “You’re right.” Of course she was right. I had been able to pretend to Chris on the phone but I wouldn’t be able to do it in person if I didn’t pull myself together. And if I didn’t pull myself together for his visit, then he’d most certainly be running straight back to Mary Beth.

  I spent the next few days getting myself back together. I realized that I hadn’t done much personal upkeep since I’d arrived at school. I walked into Davis Square and got my hair trimmed. Just an inch or so to snip off the split ends. It felt great to have the woman wash my hair and give me a mini head massage. I thought about getting a cool, new haircut. Maybe something short like Van. But I decided it was best not to change anything too much from the me Chris had inexplicably fallen in love with during the summer.

  There was a small nail salon, Kim’s Nails, next to the hair place and I decided to have my nails done too. Picking out my color I couldn’t help but think of Zoe. For the first few weeks of the summer circuit, we’d been best friends and she’d taken me along with her to get her nails done. The wild child that she was, she’d picked Come-to-Bed-Red. Being the naïve, inexperienced virgin that I’d been, I’d picked a light pink color with some sickly sweet name that I couldn’t remember now. I felt a small stab of pain thinking about Zoe because by the end of the summer, she had betrayed Chris and me. I knew that it wasn’t all about me, or Chris. That she had heaps of problems, stemming from growing up on the circuit. An orphan rider, Chris had called her at one po
int. She drank way too much—she was probably an alcoholic. She was a sad case, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt me that I had lost one of the only close friends I’d ever had. It did.

  Now, here I was, getting my nails done alone. The only friend I’d made at school was Van and that wasn’t really a true friendship. What few friends I’d had in high school, I’d pretty much lost touch with. We’d never been close anyway. I hearted their posts on Instagram and occasionally mustered a comment or two, but it was clear they were doing what we all were supposed to do at college—grow, bloom, achieve. While I was shrinking, freezing, floundering.

  I picked a purple hue—it wasn’t Come-to-Bed-Red, but it wasn’t sickly sweet pink. Maybe the purple would help me channel someone else.

  My last stop was a small boutique clothing store with an eco bent—Gentle Goods—where I bought a really cute sweater. Maybe spa and retail therapy actually worked because I felt better than I’d felt in weeks as I walked back to campus.

  Tomorrow I would see Chris.

  Chapter 4

  Chris came to pick me up at campus in the mid afternoon. He had driven all the way from Pennsylvania. He probably should have flown but like many horse people he was used to logging lots of miles in a day. He had told me his cars lasted only a few years since he often put fifty thousand miles on them in a given year between driving to horse shows and going to look at horses. He listened to audio books in the car and said he liked the time to just think.

  He called from downstairs. Van had gone to New York for the weekend in search of some secret show so Chris could have stayed in my dorm room. But as I glanced around it before I went to meet him, I knew we’d made the right decision.

  I came around the bend by the rows of mailboxes, a few always strangely flung open, and saw him out the window of the door before he saw me.

  Yes, he was still as amazingly good-looking. He was still Chris. He had on jeans and a black North Face puffy down jacket. The perpetual tan he had from working outdoors had faded somewhat in these late fall months but he still had a healthy color, unlike my skin which had quickly turned pale.

  I took a deep breath. It didn’t seem possible. Chris Kern, who had competed and won at some of the country’s top shows, was standing outside my college dorm. Chris Kern, who was probably one of the most desirable straight men in the sport of show jumping, had traveled six hours in a car to give a clinic to riders, most of whom would never compete over three-six, in order to spend one night with me. Me. Hannah Waer. Previously a virgin until this past summer. Still a not-very-talented rider. Pretty, but not model-gorgeous. Nice, but not volunteering-for-Doctors-Without-Borders-selfless. So why me? It was a question that had plagued me over the summer but somehow I’d been able to get past it. I was able to convince myself that he craved normal to balance out his crazy life. Why me and not Mary Beth? I had told myself he needed an anti-superstar girlfriend.

  Now, as I saw him here—at Tufts—those same questions started drumming all over again with more urgency. This made no sense. Why me? Why not Mary Beth?

  Chris saw me and his face lit up. I opened the door and he immediately pulled me to him. I snuggled into his puffy coat, trying to ignore the voices in my head chanting, why me, why me, why me?

  “So this is it? This is college,” he said when we let go. “What I saw of the campus driving in looks great. Beautiful.”

  I felt like either he was lying, or he was seeing a different vision from what I saw on a daily basis. Probably the latter because I knew Tufts had a pretty sloping hillside campus, complete with attractive buildings and views of the Boston skyline. But to me everything looked gray and lifeless. The only thing that was in color was Chris.

  Chris asked to see my room, which was sweet of him. We walked past the room of one of my hallmates and I wished the door had been shut. It was the prototype Pinterest college room. She had the super cute sheets, duvet cover, and throw pillows. The practical expandable shelf organizer. The artfully hung funky mirror. The precious string of twinkle lights suspended across the room.

  Then there was my and Van’s room. Van had stuck up a few vintage posters from ’80s punk bands like the Dead Kennedys and Social Distortion. Otherwise the walls were blank. We each had our bed. Mine had pink bedding that made me look like I was ten. The only thing worse would have been if it had horses on it. Van’s bedding was an ugly beige color. We had no cute lamps or wastepaper baskets. There was nothing homey about it.

  Chris sat down on my bed. He must have known mine was the pink one.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said.

  “What am I thinking?”

  “How can I live like this?”

  “Isn’t this college-living?” he said.

  “Did you see the room we passed? With all the cute décor?”

  “So that’s college-living?”

  “I don’t know what college-living is, that’s the problem,” I said.

  Chris cocked his head at me. “Are you okay? You seem kind of…”

  I was glad he couldn’t find the right word. I shrugged. “I think I just haven’t seen you in so long and I’ve been imagining this moment since we left Vermont.”

  Chris gave me a seductive smile. “Me too. Come here.”

  I stood in front of him. He put his hands on my hips.

  “Did you say Van’s gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  He moved his hands around to my backside and then pulled me so that I was straddling him on my bed. I was glad I’d closed the door behind us.

  “I’ve always wanted to make it with a college girl,” he said.

  His words hit me in a way they shouldn’t have because he had made it with a college girl many times—Mary Beth. Unlike Chris, she’d gone to college. She’d spent most of her time commuting to the barn and horse shows but she’d completed her college course work and had a degree. But I guess he meant a real college girl—one who wasn’t also a standout grand prix rider.

  We started kissing and I forgot about Mary Beth for a while. I forgot to wonder, “Why me?” I just lost myself in kissing him. We lay back on the bed, shedding our clothes. I rolled on top of him. Once his shirt was off, I pulled back so I could stare at his chest for a few moments. I knew that besides the many horses he rode daily, Chris also found time to go to the gym and it showed in his body. He did it because he took his profession seriously and knew that to be the best rider he could be, he had to be fit, strong, and as resistant as possible to many of the aches, pains, and strains that came with riding.

  I followed the small trail of dark hair leading from his bellybutton downward with my eyes and hand. He breathed deeply while I took hold of him.

  “I’ve missed this,” he said.

  I leaned over him and kissed him again, this time in a quick, teasing way. “Yeah?”

  “Been getting a little too familiar with my own hand,” he said, smiling.

  “Well, let me take over for a little while,” I said, as I ran my hand up and down his dick.

  After a few moments, he put his hands around my back and somehow expertly flipped me over so he was on top of me. My shirt and bra were already off and he peeled off my jeans and underwear, kissing parts of my body as he went.

  “You said you went on the pill?” he asked as he tossed my jeans and underwear onto the floor.

  “Yeah, right after the summer.” I had done it because I had thought I was a college girl now and it was something college girls should do. I’d made an appointment with the women’s health group on campus and had a full exam and consultation—something I should have done in high school. I guess it hadn’t really mattered because until Chris I’d never been sexually active, besides one time messing around with one of Ryan’s friends. But now that I was in a relationship with Chris, an older man too, it seemed like I should be on the pill.

  With his hand on one of my knees, he parted my legs. He touched me first, and listened to me moan. Soon, he put himself inside me. I swallowed ha
rd at the first thrust, getting used to the feel of him again. I loved it. I loved the feel of him inside me. He lay over me, resting much of his weight on his forearms. It didn’t last all that long. Movies always made it seem like people had sex all night but it was probably only a few glorious minutes. It started to feel good for me too as he moved inside me, rubbing up against what I guess was my clit. I hated that word—clit. It sounded so illicit. But I thought maybe I should try to love that word. Because that word was all about female pleasure and what could be dirty about that?

  I was surprised that I quickly found myself climaxing. I hadn’t ever climaxed before while we were having sex—only when he was touching me or going down on me. But there must have been something about the angle or the pressure because today it felt amazing. I always liked sex with Chris but in a different way than when he got me off.

  He came soon after and then rolled off me.

  “I came,” I said.

  “I thought so but I wasn’t sure.”

  “I did,” I said, still surprised.

  He looked over at me. “I’m sorry if I practically jumped you. I hadn’t planned on that or anything but when I saw you, I just couldn’t stop myself.”

  “I’m happy you didn’t stop yourself,” I said.

  It was as if somehow having sex had been an easier way for us to reconnect after the time apart than talking. It was normal to be awkward with each other after the months that had passed since we had seen each other. And maybe if we hadn’t had sex within the first twenty minutes of seeing each other, that awkwardness would have naturally dissipated. It didn’t make sense that stripping off our clothes and participating in life’s most intimate act would be easier than just chatting until we got reacquainted with each other again, but somehow it just was. There was a muscle-memory in our movements, a familiarity in our lust for each other.