Page 12 of Run for the Money

It’s complete bullshit. I’ve never once called the bank first, and I don’t plan on it, ever. If they want their money, they can track down the right Nicholas Korbel. Annette sighs, like she knows I’m feeding her crap. When she doesn’t say anything for a beat, I disconnect the call.

Melanie gives me all of six seconds to collect myself before she asks, “What was that about?”

“Don’t want to discuss it. I’d rather talk the game plan for when we get to the venue. It’s been a while since you competed, so—”

“Not so fast,” she says sharply.

The ice in her tone that startles me more than the interruption itself. I’m used to her whining when she argues with me. Usually, there’s no real traction in her complaints.

“It’s none of your business, which is why—”

“It is too my business,” she interrupts. Again. “You’re clearly in some kind of financial trouble, and yet we’re making an expensive trip for an expensive sport, on the off-chance that I win us a significant amount of prize money. What’s really going on? What’s this about for you?”

There’s no simple, neat answer to those questions. She doesn’t wait for me to wrestle the details into something manageable, though.

“I can’t believe this!” she says, voice shrill. “I should have trusted my gut the night I met you, instead of letting you seduce me with all that garbage about how much I have left to accomplish, and how talented I am. You just want the prize money.”

That’s exactly the conclusion I’d draw in her shoes, but it pisses me off to hear it anyway.

“You don’t have the full picture,” I say.

“Then lay it out for me.”

A sports car zips by us and the trailer rattles, making the familiar “whoomph” sound I’ve come to associate with prepping for horse shows. I think of GT, strapped into the metal box behind us, disoriented and buffeted by wind. There’s only so much his travel blanket and blinders can do to keep him calm. Melanie and I should be talking about how we’re going to get him steadied and centered when we arrive, not bickering about the state of my finances, and what my motives are for hunting her down.

“I’m waiting, Nicholas.”

“Don’t call me that.” Spit flies out of my mouth and hits the dash.

“Don’t trick me into being your cash cow,” she counters. “I’m not livestock. You can’t look at my pedigree and select for competitive traits. I’m not an investment for you. I’m a person.”

Traffic isn’t great. There are semi-trucks in the lane to my left and a minivan riding the bumper of the horse trailer, and somewhere in the distance there’s a motorcycle I can hearbut not see. I don’t have the mental energy to have a pointless argument with Melanie about shit she doesn’t understand, and I certainly don’t have the bandwidth to explain it to her, so I opt for a derisive snort and a muttered, “The fuck are you talking about?”

“You bet on the wrong horse!” she snaps. “I’m going to fail, and you will have dragged me through this humiliation for nothing.”

A paltry one syllable word shouldn’t set me off, but it does.Bet. She couldn’t have picked a more inflammatory sentence if she’d tried. I don’t look at her. I don’t speak. I don’t acknowledge she said anything at all. Instead, I slam the volume button on the truck’s stereo and flood the cab with noise. Couldn’t say if it’s music or a radio ad. Don’t care, as long as it drowns out my thoughts. Melanie makes her first good decision of the day and shuts her mouth.

It takes me twenty-five miles to calm down. By that point, Melanie’s absorbed in something on her phone, resolutely ignoring me. Suits me fine.

An hour later, I pull into a gas station to refuel, and I wonder if she’s going to leave. Her shoulders have been angled away from me defensively since my temper tantrum, so it’s not hard to imagine a friend or an Uber pulling up to whisk her away. Who that would be is a mystery, though. It occurs to me I don’t know anything about her personal life that you can’t learn from the internet. All we’ve talked about is horses, horses, and more horses. All I ever do is yell at her and around her; she’s got no reason to believe I’m doing this as much for her as I’m doing it for me.

She gets out of the truck to check on GT while I pump the gas. He’s fine in the trailer, oblivious to the mess I’m making of our lives, lucky bastard. I owe it to him to make nice with Melanie. Between Melanie, the damn horse, and the bank, I owe a hell of a lot of apologies.

“Look, I’m an asshole,” I say when she steps out of the trailer. “I’ve got my own shit going on, but it’s got nothing to do with you, or this trip. I meant what I said the night we met. You’re good at this, and you can be great if you give yourself half a chance. So can we ignore my shit for now, and focus on the competition?”

She makes eye contact with me, then walks past me and gets into the truck. I hurriedly check to make sure GT is secure to travel, then get back behind the wheel.

“Are you going to answer me, Miss Manners? It’s impolite to ignore people.”

She sniffs delicately while she examines her pristine fingernails. “If I can’t say something nice, I’m not going to say anything at all. You might want to try it, too.”

The prim adage peels back my guilt and lets my anger push through. I throw the truck into gear and pull onto the highway, more annoyed with her than ever. She might as well be the fourteen-year-old brat who walked away from her promising career all those years ago. We get back on the highway, and I wait for her to grow up and get over herself. And I wait. And I keep waiting. The silent treatment lasts all damn day. Through check-in at the hotel and registration at the show arena, she speaks only when spoken to, and never to me. I’m ready to tear out my hair.

When we unload GT and take him to his designated stable for the duration of the event, she only breaks the silence to tell the horse how happy she is to see him, and how she’s going to take good care of him today. There’s more affection in her eyes when she smoothes out his mane than I’ve ever seen from her and it makes my shoulders itch, like my shirt’s too tight. She’s nicer to GT than she is to people. Then again, so am I.

“You’re in the first group, so you’ve got half an hour until your walk-through on the course,” I say to her, hoping she’s listening even if she won’t talk to me. “Warm up, get GT ready, and trust your instincts. You need a top-twenty finish today to move on to tomorrow’s final.”

She nods, but still doesn’t talk. I’m halfway to losing my mind. We don’t have a cushion. I need her to excel this weekend, not squeak by. I take a quick walk around the perimeter of the stables to clear my head and give her some space. For the first time, I consider the possibility that this isn’t going to work. No idea what I’m going to do if she backs out, or chokes. If she tries to win, I know she can do this. But I haven’t given her a good reason to try.

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