Ten - Slower, Colder #2
Our secret. Relief is there, on the sidelines of what he said, but I wouldn’t even care if he did, if his mom knew. Our secret. Like we’re collecting them, building a treasure chest of moments, and that only he and I possess the key.
His fingers between mine again, we climb the porch steps, a two-seater swing creaking gently in the breeze as Eli pulls the screen door.
He holds it open for me, and before I’ve even moved, the smell is already incredible, crashing like a wave against my stomach.
Roasted garlic, rosemary, something sweet underneath it all.
My mouth waters instantly as I step inside, and my body automatically releases its strings, like the air itself—this one, laced with home-cooked meals and bubbling joy and laughter not hidden behind hands—was enough permission for my muscles to unclench.
“Momma? We’re here,” Eli calls out, his voice lifting higher, rushing back a decade into a younger version of himself—so surprising and so incredibly sweet. This ranch boss, a worldwide phenomenon who stands thick and rooted against rearing beasts, turned a momma’s boy, right in front of my eyes.
Magic air. It’s gotta be.
There’s scuffing and movement down the hallway, and then she appears—a woman who is sunlight on earth, just like her son.
A huge, heart-melting smile under bright, dark eyes, framed with those same expression lines I adored since the day I first saw them on him.
Her right ankle is wrapped in a black neoprene stabilizer, so she’s slightly limping as she rushes to meet us, slipping off a floral apron over her head and bunching it up.
“Here are my boys,” she says, tossing the apron onto a console table .
Eli is immediately by her side, his brow creasing. “Momma, no. Where’s your cane?”
Instead of answering, she reaches up with both hands, capturing his face between her palms with a soft slap. “Love you too, sweet boy,” she says, pulling his head down to plant a loud, smacking kiss on his nose.
I have to bite back a smile at how naturally he bends to her. A centuries-old oak yielding to this force of nature, tiny as she may look next to him.
Then she turns to me, and before I can properly feel the clench in my chest, those same soft hands are cradling my face now, thumbs gently tracing my cheekbones. And all I want is to sink into her chest and fall asleep forever.
“N-Nice to meet you, Mrs. Navarro,” I manage to say.
“Welcome, dear. You’re gonna call me Momma, from now on,” she says, studying my face. “Look at you. Even more beautiful than he said.”
Heat blazes up my neck. And my ears, and my brain. Because Eli thinks I’m beautiful. And he told his mother. That I’m beautiful. Which is something his mother knows.
I’d be mortified if he wasn’t taking it ten times harder, his entire face turning spectacular shades of crimson. “Mooom. C’mon,” he groans, the sound drawn out and boyish as he turns away to hide his face.
She just laughs, easy like music, warm like midnight tea by the fireplace. “Don’t mind him. He just gets shy.” Then she takes my hand in hers, grip firm as she pulls me toward what must be the dining room. “Come. Dinner’s ready.”
The dining table looks like something out of a magazine spread—three place settings arranged around a feast that could feed a small army.
A golden-brown roasted chicken sits center stage, surrounded by bowls of steaming potatoes, a salad so vibrant it looks professionally edited, and at least three other side dishes I can’t immediately identify but will be a thrill to devour.
Throughout dinner, Momma leads the conversation with such ease and grace I’m mesmerized, hanging on her every word, watching her every move.
She shares stories about Eli as a child, about their life before Riverlight, about the town and its people.
I notice she asks very little about me, nothing about my career or family or future plans.
It feels deliberate, this gentle circumnavigation of all the things that usually define me to strangers.
Never thought I’d be grateful for a spotlight actively ignoring me. Maybe because I’m not feeling ignored, just relaxed, occupying space without the need to fight for it.
By the time we finish an absolutely transcendent orange sponge cake—which I accept seconds of, no shame—I feel fuller than I can ever remember being.
My brain is still tallying up calories, still scheduling added workout sessions to burn them off, but it’s a buzz in the back of my head, an itch.
Something bothersome that goes away if I don’t give it much thought.
Eli stands and begins gathering plates, moving fast, efficiently scraping chicken bones and scraps together, silverware in a bunch, stacking everything neatly. I rise too, instinctively ready to help, though I honestly can’t remember the last time I even washed a dish.
Before I can grab so much as a fork, though, Momma’s hand is on my arm, gently tugging me back down.
“He don’t need our help, dear; he’s got a whole system. Just sit here with me.” She gestures at her wrapped ankle. “Can’t move around much, you see.”
I almost laugh. This woman prepared an entire magnificent dinner on that injured foot. Eli is thinking the same, shooting me a knowing look full of fondness and mild exasperation over the stack of plates in his hands.
“Momma, let him be,” he says, but there’s no heat in it.
“It’s fine,” I tell him, nodding as I sink back into my chair .
Eli isn’t too convinced, but he walks off anyway, mumbling, “Don’t scare him off,” before disappearing into the kitchen.
That man… Squishing my heart like that, right in front of his mother.
For a moment, Momma just looks out the bay window, a contented smile on her face.
The silence creeps into me, and even though I want to match her energy, just settle in the moment and watch the dusk set over the valley, I can’t.
I don’t think I know how to be still, be nothing for a moment—never have. I rub my palms against my thighs.
“You have a lovely home,” I say and immediately cringe. I did not just say the most generic shit to this amazing woman.
Her smile only grows, eyes tracking around the room—the flowery wall-paper, the exposed beams on the ceiling. “First thing he did when he had the means.”
My lips gape. “Eli built this house?”
“Was sleeping in his beat-up truck,” she says, nodding softly, “working day and night on that ranch. Wasn’t even a proper ranch back then, just dirt and a few fences, tiny stable.
” Her smile simmers down into fondness, the kind that comes when loving memories take over the lips and tug around the eyes.
“Had to drive in and outta town every day just to feed him, else he’d forget.
My big lug.” She shakes her head, the memory clearly precious to her.
“But one day,” she goes on, “instead of me driving to him, he came to pick me up from town, drove us up here. He showed me this beautiful house, told me he had it done to match one I’d loved from a magazine when he was little—I didn’t even remember.
” Her smile deepens, lips pressed together as if holding in too much love.
“Then he put the keys in my hand and apologized for having taken so long.” A tear escapes her, a line of shiny silver down her cheek. “Can you believe that?”
My chest feels too tight. But truth is, “I do, actually.” It’s just so like him. Undeniably, unrealistically kind.
“I know you do,” Momma says, reaching for my hand, capturing it between both of hers. “That’s why I wanna tell you this much.”
I sit up straighter, nod. This feels important.
“I don’t want you to be afraid...” She pauses, eyes warm but serious. “Of breaking my son’s heart.”
I frown. What does she mean?
She chuckles softly at my expression. “Sounds horrible, I know. But I mean it, dear.”
Her thumbs trace small circles on the back of my hand. “Boy like you, with your whole world waiting... You gotta go, eventually. And it’s gonna hurt. Both of you.”
My throat clenches tight. No, I don’t want to think about that. I know we’re on a timer, I know all of this is doomed. All these feelings, all this…hope.
Can’t I just hold on to it? Just for tonight?
For another hour, another minute.
A second. One more.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” I whisper at our joined hands as they get blurry, harder to see.
“I know, sweetheart.”
Her grip tightens slightly. She gives me a moment to breathe, to catch my tears and lock them back in, in the dark corners I refuse to look at.
Eventually, she sighs. Heavy, resigned. “Growing up, the man supposed to be our safe harbor was a storm instead,” she says, head shaking at their horrible truth.
“Then one day he was gone, and I was…” She shrugs, disheartened.
“Relieved. I was relieved, and that’s what my boy learned from his parents.
That love either hurts or leaves you behind. ”
“So he built a life ‘round goodbyes,” she continues, a sad sort of pride in her tone. “Horses come to him broken, and people come to him lost. He pours his entire heart into fixing them, and when they’re whole again, he just…lets ‘em leave, return to their lives where he don’t belong. That’s the nature of Riverlight.
His nature too, ‘cause the alternative—the hurt of the what ifs—is so much worse.”
Momma leans forward then, her eyes finding mine and holding them with an intensity, an urgency, that pushes me back against my chair. “But sweetheart... It’s the hurt that gives it meaning. Living in fear of a heartbreak is a slower, colder death than the heartbreak itself. Do you understand?”
No, I don’t. How could I? I’ve spent my life buffing cracks off the armor, hiding any sign of weakness under sarcasm and distance and undereye concealer. I have no time for heartbreaks, so I keep away, keep my heart locked. At least that’s how it used to be.
Hurt means pain. And pain means something isn’t right. That I fucked up a jump, that my body wasn’t ready to take on the landing.
It’s not the pain that’s scary. It’s figuring out why it’s there.
What’s the something important I missed.
So no, I don’t understand. But I nod anyway, wanting to.
“A real hurt, from a real, beautiful thing...” Momma says, gentle but with strength, with conviction. “Dear, that’s a hurt a man can heal from. It’s the ghosts of what might’ve been that haunt you forever.”
She gives my hand a final squeeze before releasing it.
“You don’t gotta have any promises to give my boy.
Promises are for the future, and you two are just figuring out the now.
But whatever kindness you got in you, whatever warmth you feel right now.
..” A tender smile, a sympathetic gaze. “I hope you give it, ‘cause it’ll always be worth it. The now is all any of us really got, anyway.”
Her words settle over me like a blanket in the rain—comforting but getting heavier, soaked with the meaning of her words. I don’t know what the now is. All I know how to do is either rehash past performances or prepare for future ones. The now has always been inconsequential, a placeholder.
You don’t look at placeholders. You substitute them with trophies, with consistency. With FEI World Rankings, updated every month.
I look down at my hand, still resting near hers on the table. Without words, I reach out and give her hand a gentle squeeze, like this is how we communicate now. It feels more honest than anything I could say.
She squeezes back, her warm smile returning just as Eli walks back into the dining room, drying his hands on a dish towel slung over his shoulder.
He stops, eyes hopping from his mother to me, back and forth. Yeah, the atmosphere got all messed up, dark clouds looming instead of the quiet sunshine he left behind, but it’s fine. It’s good, and I smile to show him as much.
Even though I see the rain coming. Because it always does, whether we like it or not.
It’s our choice to run or dance in it.