Page 36 of Run for the Money

“Plus, we were hungry,” he says, as if that excuses everything.

“Definitely a factor. Low blood sugar, et cetera.”

I look up to find him already staringat me.

“Did you just say et cetera? Instead of finding even one additional thing to list?” he asks.

I shrug. “Not enough coffee for words yet.”

“Ah. So. Friends again?”

I’m not sure we’ve ever been friends, or if we can be. But he opens his arms out to me, and who am I to refuse a hug? Those are rare commodities for me nowadays. If he’s offering, I’m taking.

Of course, right about the time I close my arms around his ribs, I notice one of his hands is trapped between our bodies, because he was going for a handshake, not a hug. If ever a giant bird were to swoop through a hotel lobby and snatch up the most embarrassed woman in the room in order to swiftly remove her from polite society, this would be the perfect time. Alas, no such bird appears.

Nick knows how to interact socially with others, so he pulls his hand out from between us and hugs me normally. Sure, we’ve got coffees in our hands so it’s not quite the full-contact sport from Wednesday night. But the gentle squeeze of his arms around me is comfortable enough to melt away some of my embarrassment. I’d love to linger here for a few minutes—or years—but Nick pulls away.

“See? Back to normal,” he says tightly.

“Look at us go,” I say, oddly breathless. “Speaking of going, I have to go get a horse ready to jump over a bunch of stuff. See ya.”

I wheel around and head directly to the stables before I can ruin the progress we made. Bolstered by one too-short hug, and one very delicious almond milk latte, I’m ready to ride.

I would never admit it aloud, but my dad was right about Cheyenne being smaller than the competitions I used to crush. Salt Lake is the big leagues. It’s not just show jumping; there are steeple chases, dressage rounds, eventing, mounted archery, vaulting—basically anything you can do on the back of a horse is happening here this weekend. The schedule is crowded with various levels and divisions, and the venue is even more crowded withpeople and horses. It’s noisier than Cheyenne, and there are ten times as many people in competition-branded shirts racing around with clipboards and walkie-talkies.

GT doesn’t like it any more than I do. He snorts the whole time I’m grooming him, and barely holds still long enough for me to get his saddle on. I have to lure him out with apple slices. Our event is all in one day this time. There’s a single qualifying round, and then the top twenty riders compete in the final one hour later. I have to pace GT in the first round so he’s got enough energy left for the final, but work him hard enough tomakethe final. We need to be connected and focused.

GT is my dream horse. He’s built for speed and by some miracle doesn’t have the uneven temperament which usually accompanies the skill. He’s as smart as he is gorgeous, and I get him. An ear flick, a tail swish, a shudder across his skin—I only need a tiny sign to know what he’s thinking. He’s the same with me. Most of the time, all I need to do is shift my weight to communicate what I want him to do. He’s never spit out his bit, or decided the direction I’ve chosen is a direction he’s got no interest in going. We’re a perfect team. If we make an effort, we can do well today despite the stress. But knowing that isn’t calming me down.

The warm-up ring is crowded, so neither of us can run the way we want. It forces us to stay present—I can’t scan the faces along the fences to look for Nick when I’ve got to pick my way through other competitors—even if it doesn’t let me purge my jitters how I’d like. There’s still no sign of Nick when my group gets called to the show arena to walk the course, and my nerves get worse. For a split second, I worry he’s not here. Then his signature scowl and flannel shirt emerge from the melee of polar fleece jacket clad coaches.

“You’ve got this,” Nick says as he takes GT’s lead from me.

That’s a terrible sign. I haven’t seen the course yet, so there’s nothing for me to freak out about, yet he’s already reassuring me. All I do in response is nod, because the group is headed in to walk the course, so there’s no time for questions.

In the show ring, I immediately see what’s wrong: there are four water jumps. Water is GT’s only enemy. He’s fine if he clears it, but if the giant baby gets any water above his hooves, he throws a tantrum. One splash could make the 18-hour round trip for this competition useless in under thirty seconds. That makes this run very simple, because there’s only one objective now: no splashes.

“Alright, my love. Are you ready?” I ask GT when I get back to the holding area.

I see Nick’s shoulders go rigid in my peripheral vision and my cheeks heat. I was definitely talking to the horse. He knows that. We don’t have to address it. There’s noway he thought I was callinghim“my love.” This is the last thing I need to be thinking about right now, when my stomach is already in knots.

I swing into the saddle and avoid eye contact with everyone, especially Nick. The announcer calls my name, Nick squeezes my calf, and we’re off. Time to think about avoiding water, not Nick. I wish he’d said something. Anything. No, that’s a lie; I wish he’d said,Let it rip, baby. But it’s too late.

The race itself is the blink of an eye and a lifetime, all at once. My mind shifts into a narrow, animal thing where it’s just me and the horse, moving on instinct more than conscious thought. The scent of mud is overwhelming, and the thud of GT’s hooves on the ground is the only sound I hear clearly. I look six feet ahead, and right over the end of GT’s nose at the same time, my brain processing information and conveying it to my body faster than I can form words about it.

GT is lightning. He hits every jump with a dazzling burst of power, then runs off like he didn’t just hurl a thousand pounds of horse-and-woman nearly six feet in the air then land on toothpick-thin ankles. When we cross the finish line—all four of his hooves dry, all four of our lungs heaving—the applause is deafening. That means we probably did well.

What blows me away, though, is the grin on Nick’s face. Not a twitch. A full-on, teeth-out grin. I want to make him smile like that all the time, and not only when I’m on a horse. The thought hits me so hard I nearly roll out of the saddle. Has Nick ever smiled at me when I wasn’t competing? It bothers me that I can’t come up with a single instance off the top of my head.

“Yes, Melanie! Yes, you killed it,” he says when I dismount beside him. “I’m not going to jinx you, but don’t bother taking off that helmet.”

Thank God I was a weird, nervous mess at the last race. Nick’s expecting it, so he’s not alarmed by my labored breathing and panicked grimace. He must assume it’s about the race and not about what shapes he makes with his mouth.

“Do you want to watch the rest of the round with me?” he asks.

Yes. I want to clutch his hand and lean against his shoulder and sneakily inhale the spicy, warm scent of him. I want to bite his shoulder through the flannel, and straddlehiminstead of his horse, then kiss him until he’s as breathless as I am. Then I want to lock him in our hotel room and spend the rest of the weekend naked, wrapped around him. Seeing as I’m in the middle of a show jumping competition, none of those things area viable option. Even if he wanted all those thing, too—which he’s made perfectly clear that he doesn’t—I need to focus, so I can’t be near him.

“No. I’ll be in the stable,” I say.

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