Page 112 of My Wild Horse King

“Could. . .go our separate ways?” He hasn’t touched his burger at all. He’s too busy looking at me.

“No,” I say. “Could see what we’re like together. Could focus just on us.”

Gustav leans back in his chair. “When I was young, my sister Kris begged and begged to watch this old movie. It was calledSpeed.Did you ever happen to see it?”

I shake my head.

“It’s about this couple that get stuck on a bus that can’t go below fifty miles per hour or something. It’s weird. But they survive the whole ordeal, and they fall in love. Only, the guy has this line where he says that relationships based on trauma like theirs never last, and then they’re not together in the next movie.”

I drop my fry. “What does that mean?”

“I always thought his statement was wrong.” Gustav leans back in his chair. “Then when I was in school, I thought I liked this girl. She was pretty. She always had her hair pulled back with this little flower barrette, and she had this really pretty, high, bell-like laugh.”

“I suddenly want a floral barrette.”

He chuckles. “But then some kids were making fun of my family for only caring about horses, and instead of defending me,she laughed. She didn’t know I was watching, but that was my first incident that raised a red flag. My second was when the teacher left the room for a minute to deal with something, and most of the kids started doing horrible things. Rifling through the teacher’s belongings, trying to change their scores in her grade book, and generally making bad decisions.”

“Okay.”

“I told everyone to knock it off. Barrette-girl was busy trying to get her grade changed.” He leans forward, bracing his hands on the table. “I think trauma situations are the only time we get the unvarnished truth about someone. So I’d rather date you now, under these circumstances, than go on a hundred dates with you back in New York where we eat fancy food and talk about nothing.”

“I think I misspoke,” I say. “I actually really like it here—the small town. People you know. Maybe it doesn’t have the most gourmet food options, but people who care about you matter way more. I guess what I mean is, I don’t want to be answering questions about who I hope dies and who lives on our dates. I wish we weren’t in this situation at all.” I sigh. “But if I have to be here, I’m glad it’s with you.”

He reaches across the table and holds out his hand, palm up.

I reach for it, dropping my hand on his warm one.

“I wanted a fry, but I guess this is fine.”

When I try to yank my hand back, he laughs. “I’m kidding, Kat.”

Kat.

With a name like Katerina, it’s an obvious nickname. You’d think a million people would have called me that, but it’s actually the very first time. My brother and Dad called me Rina sometimes. Everyone else has always used my full name.

But I love it.

The rest of the meal is practically perfect—from the tiny gathering of people all laughing and chatting at their own small tables to the perky, adorable waitress checking in on us in her bouncy, friendly way, to the way Gustav looks at me like I’m better than any food could ever be. . .I would live this moment over and over again for a very long time before tiring of it.

When the bell on the front door jingles, it barely even registers, until Gustav stiffens.

“What?” I ask.

He stands up then. “Grandfather. What are you doing here?”

28

GUSTAV

Three weeks ago, if someone earnestly told me that they believed a human could transform into a horse, I would’ve laughed until I cried. Two weeks ago, the only thing I cared about was the success of my IPO on Trifecta, the company I built myself.

Two hours ago, I had resigned myself to the loss of my company, and I had shelved my dream of inheriting my grandparents’ empire. Being a Liepa—something I’d always half-despised—had taken overeverything, and I knew that humans could turn into horses. In fact, I was falling for a human-horse myself.

I wouldn’t have bet a single farthing on the odds of my maternal grandfather tracking down my father’s Latvian relatives and locating me. But the one thing that even five minutes ago I felt was an utter impossibility was my grandfather wanting anything to do with me in light of my utter abandonment of what I’d spent the past decade building.

“I knew it would happen at some point, son.” My grandfather sighs heavily and drops a wrinkled, gnarled hand on my shoulder. “It’s in your blood, as much as I hoped it wasn’t, and I can’t blame you for my daughter’s mistake.”

Katerina has frozen like a baby deer facing an LED cannon.

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