Chapter 18
JESSE
The cabin had a firepit set apart from the deck and house, and after dinner one evening, I built a small fire. As it crackled pleasantly, I settled onto one of the benches beside the pit and gazed out at the lake.
This place really was gorgeous and peaceful. Going back next week was going to feel weird; though my condo wasn’t in downtown Pittsburgh, it was in a fairly busy area. There would be noise again as cars passed by outside and neighbors moved around above and below me.
I’d be home with my cats, though, which would be nice. Chili and Clyde loved my sister, and she’d been keeping me well-stocked with photos and videos since I’d been gone, but I missed them.
I’d still be with Eric, too. We hadn’t talked much about how long he’d be living with me, and I imagined he’d be finding his own place soon. Still, he’d be there for a little while.
Not long enough.
That thought made me fidget on the bench. Yeah, he probably would be moving out sooner than later. I didn’t like the idea, but what was I going to do? Suggest he stay in my guestroom forever?
Maybe not the guestroom. He could stay in the—
Noo, no. Didn’t need to go down that road. We were friends and temporary roommates. That was it. The sooner I got that through my head, the better.
What I needed right now was a less depressing train of thought. Fortunately, my mind had been tugging me in a specific direction for the past few days, and now I had a chance to indulge.
I took out my phone and pulled up a new app I’d briefly perused last night. I put in some search parameters, then scrolled the results.
Dutch warmblood gelding. 16.2 hands. 8 years old. Needs an advanced rider.
Swipe left. I did consider myself an advanced rider, but much like it was wise to keep that card close when renting a horse, it could be a red flag when buying one. “Needs an advanced rider” could very often be code for “buckle up because this one is a handful.”
The next to come up was a Hanoverian mare who looked solid and was apparently a very good jumper. Her videos were excellent, too. She moved easily, had no signs of lameness, and she seemed well-mannered.
Unfortunately, she was imported, which bumped her price tag up significantly. I had enough disposable income to pay decent money for a horse, but I didn’t have “imported from Germany with Olympic bloodlines” disposable income.
Swipe left.
Footsteps crunched on gravel, and I looked up to see Eric heading toward the firepit.
He wore a gray flannel over his white T-shirt, and that look shouldn’t have been that attractive.
Hell, just the sight of him made my heart flutter in ways it shouldn’t have.
He was hot, yes, but I just loved his company.
I loved being around him and shooting the shit about whatever.
He was almost to the firepit when I realized he was carrying two steaming mugs.
I arched an eyebrow. “Double-fisting coffee this late?”
He chuckled and rolled his eyes as he held out one of the mugs. “Hey, if you don’t want it, I can dump it in the lake.”
“Fuck no. That coffee is way too good for the fish.”
“Fair point. Would probably make them taste weird anyway.”
I wrinkled my nose as I took the mug from him. “Coffee is not an appropriate seasoning for fish.”
Eric made a face, then chuckled as he took a seat on the other bench. I sipped the coffee, which was perfect. I’d dated people who could never hit the perfect ratio of sugar and cream, but after living and traveling with me for a short time, he’d nailed it.
Of course he had. He was too perceptive not to notice those things.
He sipped his own coffee. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I? I should’ve asked if I could join you.”
“You brought coffee.” I raised my mug. “That gets you an automatic invite to join me.”
He laughed, and I almost couldn’t fight the urge to tell him he didn’t need an invite or coffee. I always wanted him around.
As he cradled his cup in both hands, he nodded toward my phone, which was sitting beside me. “You weren’t doomscrolling, were you?”
“No, no.” I paused, then added, “I was actually looking at horse ads.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh yeah? Thinking of buying?”
“Thinking about it, yeah.” I took another sip. “I’ve thought about it off and on for years, but ever since we went riding the other day…” I waved a hand. “I’ve really got the itch now.”
Eric smiled. “I know what you mean. I haven’t ridden in ages, but now that I have…”
“You might get one?”
“Maybe?” He shrugged. “The bug has definitely bitten me again, but I’m not sure if I want to commit, you know?”
“You could try a lease.”
He inclined his head. “Wait, you can lease a horse?”
“Oh, yeah. My sister leased her horse to another girl while she was in grad school. She didn’t want to sell him, but she also wasn’t going to have time for him, so it worked out.”
“Huh.” Eric shifted his gaze out to the lake, his expression contemplative. “I never even knew that was an option. Maybe…”
“It’s worth looking into.” I gestured with my phone. “Just skimming the ads, I saw several people looking to lease their horses out.”
He nodded slowly as he faced me again. “I’ll have to check into it.” He gestured at my phone. “So what’re you looking for? Like what kind of horse, I guess?”
“Probably some kind of sporthorse.” I glanced at my now dormant phone. “I enjoy trail riding and all, but I know me. As soon as I’m back in the saddle, I’m going to want to compete.”
“That tracks,” he said with a smile. “Seemed like you really enjoyed competing.”
“I did,” I said, sounding about as wistful as I felt. “Some of my best memories, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah?” He watched me as if he wanted me to elaborate. I almost didn’t know what to say; most people weren’t all that interested, and their eyes tended to glaze over if I talked about it. Eric seemed genuinely curious.
I sipped my coffee, then draped my arm across the back of the bench. “So, I told you how my trainer made me show dressage, right?”
Chuckling, he nodded. “Your favorite thing in the world.”
“Ugh.” I made a face. “Right, so I’m at a show one day. It’s fucking cold, it’s fucking raining, and it’s fucking miserable. I wasn’t in the mood for it. My horse wasn’t in the mood for it. I’m pretty sure the judge wanted to bail by lunch.”
Eric grimaced. “God, I can imagine. I’ve been out on the trails when a storm started. Not fun.”
“Seriously. But my trainer insisted, so…” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I’m doing my test, and it’s going… I mean, it wasn’t bad? It was just training level, so nothing super complicated, and my horse and I could pretty much do it in our sleep.”
“Just cold, wet, and miserable?”
“And boring. Don’t forget boring.”
He just chuckled.
“Anyway, we’re almost to the end of the test, and it’s gone okay.
Transitions between gaits could’ve been smoother, and one of our circles was more like a wildly asymmetrical polygon, but…
” I half-shrugged. “Whatever. At the end of the test, you come down the centerline toward the judge, halt, and salute. Easiest part, and it means the test is fucking over.”
Eric grimaced again. “But…?”
“But… I was extra relieved to be done with this test, so I relaxed a bit more than I should have. Which my trainer told me later she was going to ream me out for, but then just before we halted, there’s this huge clap of thunder.”
“Oh no…”
“Yeah. So one second, I’m in ‘thank God this is almost over’ mode, and the next, I’m on my ass in the mud while my horse is like”—I mock-saluted—“peace out!”
Eric howled with laughter. “Oh, shit! That sucks!”
“Right?” I grinned. “Lucky for me, though, I only had one pair of white breeches. And now that they—along with my jacket—were covered in mud and there was no way to clean it that day, I was off the hook for my other two tests.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you and your horse plan that?”
“Yes. Yes, we totally did. I called the god of thunder and asked for a favor.” I gave Eric the finger, which just made him laugh again.
“I assume you were okay, though, right?” He was still smiling, so I doubted he was actually concerned.
“Yeah, I was fine. Falling in the muddy arena was a lot less painful than getting tossed into a jump, so… I’ll take it.”
He shuddered. “That still sounds—ugh, no. I’ll stick with riding and not jumping, thanks.”
“Chickenshit.”
That got me the finger, and I chuckled as I brought up my coffee for another sip.
“So did she make you bring extra breeches to dressage shows after that?” Eric asked. “In case you tried to use the mud as an excuse to skip another test?”
“Pfft. No. She said if it happened again, I’d ride my next test in wet, muddy breeches and like it.”
“Wow.” He guffawed. “Your trainer sounded mean!”
“Aren’t they all?”
He quirked his lips, then nodded. “Yeah, good point. Mine wasn’t so bad, but my sister’s?” He whistled. “Pretty sure he was a drill sergeant in a past life.”
“Sounds about right. Hand to God, mine used push-ups to enforce the rules.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. She said she was tired of not getting through to people. So, she’d give you two warnings, and then she’d make you dismount right there in the arena and do five push-ups. Do it again, twenty push-ups.”
Fighting a losing battle against a grin, Eric asked, “You had to do push-ups in the dirt a few times, didn’t you?”
“What?” I put a hand to my chest. “Me?”
“Um. Yes. You.” He arched an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”
I glared at him, then huffed. “I didn’t have to do them too often.”
“So, you learned, is what you’re saying.”
“Fuck you.”
He just snickered and sipped his coffee again. “I figured. So tell me more about your horse days.”
I did, filling him in on the hijinks and mishaps of that era of my life. Talking about it did nothing to quell my itch to get back in the saddle.
It also did nothing to distract me from how much I wished Eric was sitting over here instead of all the way over there. I wanted him leaning into me with my arm around his shoulders while we sipped coffee and talked.
If being with you is this easy and effortless, even knowing all the reasons we’re both single… shouldn’t that tell us something?
Yes, Jesse. It should tell us that we’re good at being friends.
There was that. We functioned well as roommates. We enjoyed each other’s company. We had fun together. All elements that pointed toward a great friendship.
The only complication was how much I wanted him, not to mention just how well I knew that sex with him was spectacular.
It wasn’t that I was incapable of being friends with someone I’d been intimate with before. I was still friends with more of my exes than not, including the boy I’d lost my virginity to in high school and the first girlfriend I had in college. Sex didn’t have to complicate things.
Then again, the sex wasn’t what was complicating things with Eric.
Not entirely. It was how we’d been so effortlessly intimate, and now we were back to arm’s length, and that distance felt so wrong.
I really felt like we should’ve been on the same bench, cuddling against each other while we watched the fire and the sunset.
But he was over there. And I was over here.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.