Raising the Bar

by Leigh Dillon

  “What the hell!” he shouted. Gathering the reins back into his hands, he pulled Sam to a halt.

  “That’s what he does,” Destin called back. “He does it to everybody.”

  “He’s not tired. He’s clearing the fences without hardly even trying. What the fuck?”

  Tonio brought Sam around again. He jumped the oxer. Tonio lined him up at the easy little vertical that started the course. Sam cantered toward it, all alert attention—and at the last moment, swerved around it. Tonio tried to turn him back for another try. Sam flattened his ears and kicked out, and when Tonio refused to fall off, Sam charged the practice ring gate. Tonio stopped pulling and crouched over Sam’s withers, and together they sailed over the gate and charged off down the lane, Tonio no more than a passenger on a runaway freight engine.

  Well, that’s it. Destin buried his face against the sleeve of his flannel jacket, fighting the stinging tears of utter despair that prickled his eyes. If he’d needed proof Black Sambuca was a lost cause, he’d just gotten it. Sam had shown his butt as only Sam could, and there was no coming back from this one.

  Hoofbeats and a loud snort made Destin look up. Sam had returned with Tonio still in the saddle, hacking up the lane as if nothing had happened.

  Destin pushed himself off the rail and stepped up to take Sam’s reins. “I’m sorry. He’s never done that before.”

  “That’s because he never had a really sticky rider before.” Tonio kicked his feet out of the stirrups and slid down.

  “I guess you’ll be going back to North Carolina.” Destin had to force himself to meet Tonio’s eyes. “It was a long drive for nothing. I should have given it more thought before I called you.”

  Tonio cocked his head. “The fuck am I going back to Carolina for? You think I can’t ride this horse of yours?”

  “Uh….” Destin struggled, but absolutely no words came to his lips.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Tonio patted Sam’s sweaty shoulder. “I’ll give it one month. That way if I can’t get Sam here straightened out, you’re not stuck with me. And if the stuff I’ve been hearing about Bellmeade is true and you run out of payroll money, I’m not stuck with you either. Deal?” He extended his hand.

  Oh God. He knew the whole time.

  Destin stared at Tonio’s hand, frozen. He didn’t know Tonio. He’d heard nothing good about him aside from his riding ability, and Tonio had done nothing to endear himself to Destin beyond praising Destin’s coffee and not falling off his crazy horse. For all Destin knew, Tonio had come here like a vulture to carrion, bent on picking off whatever meat he could before the corpse fell apart. Plus he seemed to be at least as deranged as the horse he’d been called in to fix. But it wasn’t like they’d have to put up with each other forever.

  “One month,” Destin said, clasping Tonio’s hand and giving it one single, emphatic pump. “Deal.”

  Chapter 6

  ONCE DESTIN had dusted off his horse-owner skills and produced a contract for Tonio to sign, Tonio spent the rest of the day moving into the apartment over the stud barn. That hadn’t exactly been part of the plan, but sending Tonio trekking miles away to a motel when there was so much empty living space right there on the farm seemed ridiculous.

  Tonio popped in every now and then to discuss terms, or confer on the speakerphone with a fellow named Dex who seemed to serve as Tonio’s de facto legal counsel, but mostly he bustled by the office doorway and up and down the stairs with things in his hands. Sometimes Destin heard Tonio walking across the apartment floor overhead and realized with an odd pang that, when he looked out his bedroom window at the dormer poking out of the stud barn roof, there would now be someone looking back at him. Whether this gave Destin a qualm or a thrill, he couldn’t quite decide.

  Maybe living in Boston had spoiled him, but Destin hadn’t seen any openly gay men since he’d arrived at Bellmeade. There wasn’t time to think through things like life choices when he returned to the family home. His father had died too suddenly, and Destin had too much responsibility thrust on him too quickly.

  It would be nice to have a boyfriend again.

  There had been a boyfriend in Boston. A fellow assistant professor, a sweet, spaniel-eyed man named Tom. Tom liked trendy fusion restaurants, jogging in the park, and reading the weighty, dense literary novel of the moment. Tom had no interest in moving to the wilds of Virginia, and his only contact with horses had been a pony ride at a friend’s birthday party twenty years ago. He accepted the breakup philosophically, and so did Destin. Looking back, Destin now wondered how he was so content with so little for so long. Even then, being away from horses and the people who loved them was a constant ache—the ache of a socket after a tooth was pulled.

  Tonio knew horses and loved them. Destin could easily imagine them talking together over the kitchen table, taking the saddle horses out on the local trails, celebrating show victories at fine restaurants. He wondered what Tonio would feel like in his arms, how he would be in bed.

  One more time—wrong time and wrong person.

  It would never happen. Tonio didn’t give a flying flip about Destin, and beyond his puckishly handsome face and tight physique, Destin had little interest in Tonio. Better to snuff out that wistful voice that kept whispering what if and keep things strictly professional.

  “All right, that’s everything.”

  Tonio’s voice dragged Destin out of the depths of an insurance form—and another uninvited vision of couplehood.

  “Oh, good.” Destin glanced at the mantel clock. “That didn’t take too long.”

  Tonio shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I didn’t bring much. Got anything else for me to sign?”

  “No, we’re done with the paperwork.”

  “So we’re all partnered up.”

  The word “partnered” gave Destin a funny lurch in the pit of his stomach. “For one month, yes.”

  Tonio stepped into the office and looked around. “What time is it? I’m getting hungry.”

  “It’s about five thirty.”

  “Yeah, I forgot lunch.” Tonio paused to examine the trophies in the display case. “We should celebrate the deal. What’cha got in your fridge? I can make us some dinner.”

  Destin squinted, trying to recall the contents of his refrigerator. A withered avocado, a tub of ancient margarine, and a couple of plastic containers of stuff he’d eaten when he first arrived and was now afraid to open for fear of unleashing some unholy plague of mold spores. “Uh, let’s go out to eat somewhere,” he said.

  “The Hunter’s Head is close to here, isn’t it?” Tonio asked.

  Destin started to agree, then hesitated. There was the Hunter’s Head, a perfectly good choice, but the Build A Burger menu just didn’t seem an auspicious enough launch for such a crucial venture. A welcome to Bellmeade deserved suits and ties and meals served in courses. If nothing else it might mitigate the embarrassing impression the dirty barn and fractious horse had most likely made on Tonio. Not that Destin felt any need to impress his new hire, of course. It just seemed like a nice gesture.

  “There’s a really nice place called the Ashby Inn right up the road in Paris,” Destin said. “Great seasonal menu. It’s a pretty off day today. I’ll give them a call and see if they have any tables open.”

  “Okay, sounds good. They got a dress code?”

  “Not really, but if you brought any kind of dress clothes, it wouldn’t hurt to wear them.”

  “I’m on it. Gimme twenty minutes to shower and get dressed, and I’ll be ready to go.” Tonio strolled out of the room, hands still in his pockets.

  He would look killer in a suit. Which was neither here nor there.

  Destin called the Ashby, got his table, and went into the house to make his own preparations. He came back down to an empty living room. The dormer window of the barn apartment glowed, and after wasting a few minutes shuffling through his email on his phone, Destin walked to the barn and looked up the apartment stairs. “Tonio?” he call
ed.

  Footsteps thumped across the ceiling, and a wedge of light appeared at the top of the stairs. “Yeah?” Tonio asked.

  “Our reservations are for seven o’clock. I’m not trying to hurry you….”

  “Yeah, you are.” Bare feet padded down the stairs. Tonio had evidently just gotten out of the shower, because he had a bath towel in his hands and was wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans, so hastily fastened that they barely clung to his narrow hips. The lean, corded muscles Destin had noticed in Tonio’s arms continued into his shoulders and slid under the tanned, smooth skin of his chest as he rubbed the towel over his damp hair. The stair railing hid most of Tonio’s stomach, but what Destin could see of it revealed a flat, subtle but definite six-pack in the shadow of Tonio’s concave abdomen.

  Every shred of irritation flew out of Destin’s brain, and he stood there gawking. Somehow he’d thought Tonio was skinnier than he was, more boyish and unformed. What he saw before him belonged on a calendar, the kind with a title like Hot Firemen or Studs on Studs. It didn’t belong on a smallish, troubled farm in the rolling foothills of Virginia. It certainly didn’t belong in Destin’s reality.

  Vaguely starstruck, doing his best to ignore the sudden feeling of pressure behind the fly of his slacks, Destin cleared his throat and made another try at being professional and coherent. “I’ll, uh, wait in the office. Drop in when you’re ready.”

  Tonio flashed Destin a grin that practically glowed in the dim light of the stairway. “Five minutes,” he said, disappearing back into the apartment.

  Tonio showed up again, as promised, exactly five minutes later. Destin had gone with a tasteful glen plaid jacket and gray slacks. Tonio still wore the black jeans and had added a blue shirt that exactly matched his striking eyes, topped by a black sport coat with a peculiar sheen. After several puzzled seconds, Destin realized it was made of leather. He had never seen such a thing, but its drama suited Tonio well. He looked as though he’d just stepped off the red carpet of some cool awards ceremony.

  “You’d better drive,” Tonio said. “I don’t know where the hell this place is.”

  “I was going to, but it’s pretty hard to miss. The only highway out here is 50. If you get on it and drive through Upperville out to Paris, you’re going to see everything there is to see.”

  Destin unlocked the garage and raised the door. Tonio’s eyes went immediately to the Maserati.

  “That was my dad’s.” Destin pointed the fob at his own car, a Range Rover Evoque, and unlocked it with a flash and a blip of the horn. Tonio glanced at the Rover, but then his eyeballs were back to crawling all over the Maserati.

  “You don’t drive it?”

  “No,” Destin replied, a little nettled at Tonio’s dismissal of his car. “I can’t get its fob to work, and I don’t have time to mess with it. I’m not keeping it anyway. It’s not that comfortable. I like my Rover better.”

  And I’m being childish about it, but I don’t care.

  Tonio cupped his hands against the window and peered inside. “Is that a burl mahogany steering wheel?”

  “Probably,” Destin snapped. “Dad always liked to pimp his rides. Come on. We need to get moving.”

  Tonio tore himself away from the insanely expensive sports car and slid into the seat of the Rover. He glanced around, taking in the leather upholstery and dashboard full of lights, gauges, and screens. Destin held his breath, waiting for Tonio’s words of admiration.

  “Wow. It’s like a fucking airplane cockpit.” That was it. Tonio buckled his seat belt, and Destin’s spiel about how he’d comparison shopped for weeks and why he’d decided on this sleek, luxurious workhorse wilted on his lips.

  “Yeah. It has a lot of instruments.” Tight-lipped, he put it into reverse and backed out of the garage.

  “So what’ve you got against the Maserati?” Tonio asked as the Rover crunched its way around the drive.

  “I told you, the fob doesn’t work.”

  Tonio closed his eyes and opened them again. “I mean, what’ve you got against the Maserati that a new battery wouldn’t fix?”

  Destin chewed the inside of his cheek, unsure whether Tonio’s persistent nosiness was unwelcome or a relief. A lot of things needed saying, things nobody outside the Upperville social circle was likely to understand. But somehow telling those things to a stranger felt easier.

  “Dad sold three good broodmares to buy that car,” Destin said. “If you wondered why the pastures are so empty, the Maserati is part of the answer.”

  “So, if you sell it, you’ve got the price of at least two supergood mares.” Tonio worked his way around in the seat to face Destin, his leather jacket squeaking against the leather upholstery. “Pick a couple that’re a good match with Sam’s bloodlines. Then you’ll be ready to build up the bloodstock when Sam hits the ribbons. I’m kinda surprised you haven’t done that already.”

  “I’ll get to it. I’m just… working through stuff.” Like a whole historic farm that fell on my head like a ton of granite. “Where am I supposed to find mares like that, anyway? I don’t have time to look at breeding stock right now.”

  “Hey, I know some people,” Tonio said with a vague gesture toward the dark sweetgum trees flicking past the windows. “You want me to call them?”

  “What kind of people?” Destin stopped at the end of the drive and lowered the window.

  Tonio gave him a funny sidelong look. “International high-tech horse thieves,” he said, his voice dropping into a sinister croak. “They’ll get you anything you want. Change the lip tattoos, fake up some new pedigrees, badda bing!” Tonio paused and cocked his head. “Is that what you expected me to say?”

  Destin, who had frozen with his hand over the gate keypad, goggled at Tonio. Tonio stared back at him, stone-faced. Then he smiled. The smile widened into a grin, and the grin became laughter.

  “Oh my God. You thought I was serious. If I had a picture of your face…!” Tonio haw-hawed a few seconds longer and then got control of himself. “I meant I know legit bloodstock agents. I’ll call ’em if you like. Man, we have got to work on your sense of humor.” Tonio settled back, letting out a few more guffaws.

  Destin typed in the gate code and rolled the window back up, his face and ears burning so fiercely he could almost see the glow reflected on the dashboard as he pulled onto Greengarden Road.

  Chapter 7

  THE RANGE Rover whisked them down Greengarden and onto the John S Mosby Highway, aka 50. Miles of drystone wall blurred past, interrupted here and there by wooden fencing stained black with creosote preservative, all enclosing rolling acres of bluegrass. The oak-shaded grounds of the Upperville Colt & Horse Show flowed by, offseason-serene. Tonio twisted in his seat to watch the show grounds pass, and Destin wondered what memories Tonio had of the famous shows held there. Destin had been absent from the show-jumping world in Tonio’s years as an up-and-coming rider. He regretted that now. They could at least have had that in common if nothing else.

  A few miles down the road, the town of Upperville itself closed in around the highway. A tasteful brick Citgo heralded their arrival, followed by trim, comfortable old houses made of brick or white clapboard or the ubiquitous fieldstone, glowing gently above manicured stretches of turf. The Hunter’s Head Tavern flicked by, and an antique store, and that one abandoned house disappearing under a tangle of vines.

  “And that’s Upperville,” Destin said as they passed the final outpost, a modern and unapologetically industrial stoneworks.

  Upperville quickly disappeared in the rearview mirror, and again stretches of stone walls bordered the road, sometimes crumbling and overgrown with trees and creeper vines, sometimes cleared and tended. For a long way, a dense row of pines overshadowed the walls, sculpted in a subtle curve to allow power lines to pass in front of them. Here and there the curtain of trees parted, and in the gaps, the undulating, deep purple shapes of distant mountains loomed on the horizon.

  The Ashby Inn greeted them a
s it must have greeted travelers a century ago, with warm light spilling from the lanterns flanking the door and the windows that pierced the white façade.

  The hostess led Destin and Tonio to a table for two next to the fireplace. As they walked between the tables, people looked up and followed Tonio with their eyes, and a glow of pride kindled in Destin’s chest. Whatever his other shortcomings, Tonio was certainly eye-catching. Being with him felt a little like going out on the town with a celebrity, and fleetingly, Destin wished a bit of Tonio’s self-assurance and, well, cool would rub off on him.

  Tonio seemed unfazed by both the menu offerings and the price, printed discreetly on the very bottom of the first page. “I think I’ll do two courses,” he murmured after a contemplative minute.

  “I’m doing three. It’s only ten dollars more, and believe me, the food’s so fantastic, two courses isn’t enough.”

  Tonio gave an unconvinced grunt, but when the waiter appeared, Tonio rapped out his order like he’d been eating there all his life: butternut squash and coconut soup, beef ribeye, and English burnt cream.

  “And what wines would you like with your courses?” the waiter asked.

  “That California cabernet with the ribeye, and the Freezeland White with dessert.”

  The waiter turned to Destin. “And you, sir?”

  “I’ll have the mushroom salad to start, the red drum with a sauvignon blanc, and olive oil cake with the Petite Fleur.” Destin closed his menu and handed it over, and Tonio did likewise. As soon as the waiter left, Destin leaned forward, frowning. “Are you all right having the wine?” he asked. “I’m not trying to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I did hear about your suspension, and that you’re staying sober. Which is great. I just don’t want to do anything to, you know, jeopardize that.”