Hitting the Target

by Katrina Abbott

  But just as his lips touched mine, he stopped and leaned back. “What?” I said, frustrated.

  He smiled. “You did great today, Brooklyn. I just wanted to say that.”

  It took me a second to realize he meant the competition. “You watched?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  I should have known, but it still thrilled me to know he’d been there.

  I put my arms around his neck and pulled him to me. “Screw the ribbon, I’ll take you as my prize.”

  “Done,” he said, in that last second before he kissed me.

  The Rosewood Recap

  Even though it wasn’t even dinnertime, by the time we got back to Rosewood, I was so tired I could barely stand. Between the early morning, the competing and all the stress around the competition and everything that had happened after, I was ready to call it a day. But like the rest of the girls on the team, I had to help get the horses put away first. Thankfully, Jerry, Brady and Janette had the process of unloading the horses down to a science. So while they handled that, the rest of the girls and I helped make sure that the horses were clean and settled in their stalls with water and food.

  And then I was in desperate need of a shower, water and food. In that order.

  But first, I had to somehow figure out how to say goodbye to Brady now that our entire dynamic had changed. He’d ridden back to campus with Janette in her truck, which was a disappointment, although was probably a good thing since the dean rode with the team on the bus (most of the team—Jerry had driven Vanessa back to campus after she’d finally stopped hurling), which was awkward enough even without him there.

  He and I had agreed before we’d left the barn back at the equestrian center that we needed to cool things down, especially around the dean. Not that I was about to jump him in front of her or anything. But we both understood that this relationship (I felt giddy just thinking of the word relationship) did put her in an awkward position, especially when Brady explained that she had to answer to the board for any personnel decisions. What we’d done had put both of their jobs on the line. While I’d never wanted to put him at risk for losing his job, I really didn’t want her to have to face losing hers over he and I being involved.

  “At least you’re eighteen now,” he’d said. “That makes things slightly less complicated. But we should probably keep away from each other until the dust settles.”

  I’d agreed, not wanting to make anything worse for him or the dean. Even though staying away from him now that we were officially together seemed very, very awful.

  But now that we were back at the school and the horses were finally away and the girls were free to go, he stood there beside Janette, also looking worn out as they spoke. I could tell his ankle must have been hurting by the way he kept his weight on his good foot. I wanted to say something or pull him away for a private moment before I returned to the dorm, but I couldn’t figure out how.

  As I stood there, dithering about it, the dean came out of the barn and walked up to Brady and Janette. Then, like she felt my eyes on her, her head swiveled and she looked at me, which suddenly uncomplicated my thoughts in a big way. Without another word to anyone, I turned and started walking toward the dorm.

  I was so tired that I took the elevator up to the third floor and even dreaded seeing my roommate. This, even though a part of me, the part that had reveled in kissing and being kissed by Brady, was dying to tell my friends what had happened.

  Thankfully when I got to our room it was empty, giving me an opportunity to shower, have some snacks and water out of the fridge and crawl into bed.

  ~ ♥ ~

  “Brooklyn?”

  I groaned something likely incoherent.

  Unfortunately, Emmie was having none of it.

  “You can sleep later. We want to know how your event went.”

  I opened one eye. “Gah!” I blurted, the other eye opening on its own when I saw four wide-eyed girls hovering over me.

  “How did it go?” Chelly asked.

  “What time is it?” I asked, ignoring their questions until I could ascertain if I needed to be really pissed at them for waking me up.

  “Seven-thirty,” Kaylee said. “We didn’t want you to sleep too long or you’d mess up your schedule.”

  It was hard to be mad when they had my best interests at heart, even though I felt like I could sleep for another week. I pushed myself up so I was sitting against the wall. Celia and Kaylee sat down on my bed, Emmie plopped down on hers across from us, Chelly beside her.

  “Grab me some water?” I asked Kaylee who was closest to the fridge.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a long swig from the bottle she handed me while my friends stared, waiting for me to tell them how the derby went. It was kind of fun torturing them, so I took another gulp of water.

  “Brooklyn!” Chelly said with a big loud exasperated sigh. “How did you do?”

  I’d left my ribbon in my jacket, and made a mental note to hang it up on our bulletin board, but was too tired to bother getting up to show it to them now. Plus, there was that other news I was sure they’d rather hear. “Well,” I said. “It was a good day. A very good day.”

  Chelly rolled her eyes and Emmie did a gimmie gesture with her hands. So impatient. But I loved that they wanted to know so badly how my day had gone even though it was just the competition they were asking about. They were going to lose it when they heard.

  “Okay, so, at the last minute I changed competitions from dressage to show jumping.”

  “How come?” Kaylee asked.

  “Vanessa—the one girl who was representing Rosewood in jumping—barfed up her internal organs just as we got there, so they needed someone to fill in. Since I’m horrible at dressage and never would have gotten a ribbon finish anyway...”

  “And...” Chelly said and then looked at Emmie. “I swear, it’s like pulling teeth with her. Is she always like this?”

  “I got fourth place,” I said, laughing.

  Celia squeezed my arm. “That’s awesome!”

  “Fourth? That’s good?” Chelly asked, her face screwed up.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I actually haven’t done any jumping in literally years. So fourth out of seventeen is pretty good.”

  “Congrats,” Kaylee said. “That’s really amazing.”

  I smiled at her.

  “That’s not all,” I said.

  The girls looked at me expectantly and I could tell they were guessing something about the competition, like something exciting to me but maybe only exciting for them because it was important to me. Like I’d scored a lifetime best or something.

  “Yeah, so Brady was there.”

  Emmie gasped and Chelly’s eyes went wide as she muttered, “Shut. Up.”

  I nodded, thoroughly enjoying myself and wondering how long I could draw this out. “And...well...”

  “Did you do it?” Chelly whispered.

  I rolled my eyes. “Get real. We were at a school event with a million people around.”

  She looked around at the other girls, somehow able to keep a straight face. “Point being?”

  Emmie hit her with a pillow. “Shut up and let her talk.”

  “So, yeah, we made out a little.”

  “YES!” Chelly blurted out, punctuated with a fist pump.

  “Really?” Celia asked. “I thought...”

  “I know,” I said. “We’ve been trying so hard to not hook up...we’ve actually seen each other a few times in the past few weeks. I didn’t want to tell anyone because we really were trying to not let it turn into anything,” I explained, hating that I’d been hiding stuff from my friends.

  “How’d that work out for you?” Emmie asked. “That whole not turning it into anything?”

  “Yeah, not so good.”

  “He’s an amazing kisser,” Chelly said.

  “How would you know?” Kaylee asked, frowning.

  “I don’t,” Chelly said, then looked at me and widened her eyes, quick
ly saying, “I don’t really. He just has that look about him, you know? That intense, sexy, brooding thing going on.” She fanned herself. “So hot.”

  I nodded because she was right; he was that and so much more. “He is,” I confirmed. “He’s such a good kisser and he...” I broke off, suddenly not wanting to tell them everything about how he’d confessed to be in love with me. For some reason, I wanted to keep that to myself for now. Just while it was so new and I really hadn’t even had the chance to process it. I’d tell them. Just not yet.

  “Can we please have some actual details before I die over here?” Chelly whined.

  “You really need details?” I asked. “About kissing?”

  “Yes!” said every single one of my friends.

  I laughed and could hardly blame them. Plus there were some things I did want to talk about. “Well, actually, this is good,” I said. “You’re going to love this...” I went on to tell them how I’d sort of snuck up on him and overheard the part about him going to London.

  “He followed you to London?” Kaylee said incredulously. “He was there when we were?”

  I nodded.

  “That is the most romantic story ever,” Celia said with a sigh. “But, why didn’t he tell you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think he felt stupid, like it had been an impulsive thing he hadn’t really thought through. And then when I came back to Rosewood, he thought I was with Dave, so I guess he thought there was no point.”

  “So then you made out. With his horse,” Emmie said, making us all giggle while she blushed and corrected herself, “Not with the horse. I mean, you made out in the stall, with the horse right there.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sighing right along with my friends. “And it was amazing. Right up until the dean caught us.”

  “What?” Emmie gasped.

  “Yep, she walked right up to us and we hadn’t even noticed her. It was...uh, a little intense,” I said, my face heating up as my friends stared at me, waiting to hear the rest. “Anyway, there was no hiding what we’d been doing. He didn’t even try. He stood up to her and said he was planning to tell her anyway.”

  “That is so hot,” Chelly said.

  “You’re still here, so obviously you didn’t get expelled,” Emmie said. “What about him?”

  “I don’t know. We’re waiting to see what she’s going to do.”

  “So what happens now?” Kaylee asked. “With you and him, I mean.”

  All four girls looked at me and I knew they were all totally rooting for Brady and me to be together almost as much as I was. “I think we’re a couple now. Whatever that means with how complicated it all is.” A part of me was worried that somehow the dean was going to make it impossible for us to be together. I was itching to talk to Brady to find out if she’d had her conversation with him as promised.

  I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and glanced at it, but there was nothing from him, just a bunch of messages from the girls who were now here in my room, asking about the derby, obviously sent while I was sleeping.

  I hoped he wasn’t at the dean’s cottage getting raked over the coals. Or if he was, he’d check in with me to let me know what was going on and what to expect coming my way.

  “Well I say it’s about time,” Emmie said. “I know you liked Dave and you had that brief thing with Abe and all,” she glanced at Chelly before looking back at me. “But that hot horse coach of yours is who you’re supposed to be with.”

  The other girls nodded in agreement as my heart did that Grinch thing and grew ten sizes. I’d never in my life had better friends and loved each and every one of them.

  “Thanks,” I said despite my suddenly tight throat, hoping that one word could encapsulate everything I felt about them.

  “So let’s recap, shall we? You won fourth in your horse competition,” Chelly said, ticking off her fingers. “Then you found out the hot coach followed you to England, so you jumped him...excuse me, didn’t do it, but made out. Then you got caught by the dean, who is also his mother, but despite all that, you’re now dating?”

  “That sounds accurate,” I said. “To the best of my knowledge. No idea where it’s going from here, though.”

  She looked around at the other girls. “I’d say this calls for chocolate and a movie.”

  If I couldn’t be with Brady, doing more kissing, it sounded like just about the perfect evening.

  ~ ♥ ~

  About an hour later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Kaylee and Chelly had both broken our ‘no phones at movie night’ rule about a hundred times each already, so I barely felt guilty at all when I pulled mine out, holding my breath as I hoped for who it would be.

  I got giddy when I saw it was from him.

  Hi. You snuck away earlier—I didn’t get to say goodbye.

  My stomach fluttered. Your mother was right there. It was weird, I sent back.

  I understand. But I miss you. I wasn’t done kissing you.

  Forget the fluttering, my insides turned to absolute goo at that. Goo around a racing heart.

  Where are you? I typed back, noticing my fingers were trembling.

  Just got into my truck. Leaving campus. Had dinner with mother.

  How did it go?

  She was pissed, but I talked her down. Worse for me than you because of my job. She’ll be talking to you Monday.

  I figured. Ok, I typed back, but my stomach felt instantly sour.

  Don’t worry. It’ll work out. I promise, somehow I’ll make it work. I’m not letting you go again.

  I had no idea how he could make that promise, but I trusted him and if he’d already talked to her, he had to have a sense of how this was going to go down. Still, I was curious what the dean was going to say. Not that I was eager to talk to her and have to rehash the whole episode of her walking in on us. I wondered how long she’d watched us and what she’d thought. Had she been surprised? Angry? Hurt?

  Before I had a chance to type anything, Brady texted again. I’m really tired and should keep eyes on the road. Talk tomorrow, okay?

  Yes. Also... my fingers hovered over the letters, still trembling. It was like I wanted to say so much, to tell him everything about how I’d been feeling since I’d met him, but I didn’t want to smother him or scare him off.

  I miss you, too, I typed, feeling it was okay, since he’d said it first.

  He sent back a smiley face, which seemed so out of character for him, but I realized that outside of training and our few steamy episodes where all we seemed to do was fight to keep our hands and mouths off each other, I really didn’t know him that well.

  And he didn’t know me at all.

  We were going to have to change that.

  Judgment Day

  My first waking thought on Monday morning was my impending meeting with the dean. No matter how many times Brady told me on the phone or via text that it would be fine, I was still slightly terrified. And by slightly, I mean totally and completely.

  The good news was I didn’t have to wait all day for the meeting; she had sent me an e-mail on Sunday, telling me to meet her at her office instead of reporting to first period, and that I was to skip equestrian practice.

  Was I off the team? Brady didn’t know. Was he losing his job? He didn’t think so, though he’d been told Janette would be continuing with coaching and he wasn’t to report to the stables on Monday, either. Not a great sign. But he did know I wasn’t getting expelled, so big picture, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I’d asked him what she’d said to him about us dating, but he didn’t have much to say other than she was pissed and hadn’t made up her mind what to do about it.

  So there I was, walking down the gauntlet of terror, also known as the first floor hallway, toward the dean’s office. Emmie was at my side, chattering as she tried to make me feel better, which—though I loved her for it—was just making things worse.

  Finally we were at the outside office door and I stopped, turning toward my friend and roomma
te.

  “Let me know what happens,” she said. I nodded and we hugged quickly before I took a breath and opened the door.

  Mrs. Andrews looked up from her computer and gave me the kind of knowing smile that made me instantly blush. Of course she knew Coach Fleming was the dean’s son and of course, she now knew that we’d hooked up at the derby. And that I was here to talk to the dean about it.

  Awkward. At least she didn’t say anything about it; that would have been a thousand times worse

  “Go right in,” she said, nodding toward the dean’s door, which was open. “She’s expecting you.”

  I glanced at the clock to make sure I wasn’t late (I wasn’t) and muttered a thank you before heading into the dean’s inner office.

  She was looking at the computer screen on the right side of her desk, her fingers tapping at the keyboard. The way her head was angled, I thought she could probably see that I’d come in, so I stood there waiting silently, wondering if I should clear my throat or if that would be rude. The last thing I wanted to do was piss her off more, so I hedged my bets and just stood there.

  After just long enough to make me start to panic, she gave a final loud tap to a key and turned toward me. Her hair was pulled back in an elegant bun, but wasn’t so severe that she looked like a clichéd school marm-librarian type. She actually pulled it off and I realized she probably wasn’t as old as I’d first thought her to be. She had a few lines around her eyes, but other than the silver hair, there wasn’t much that indicated she was much over forty.

  While I stood there evaluating her, she lifted her eyebrows. “Ms. Prescott.” That was it. Just my name.

  I took a breath and nodded. If you are trying to completely intimidate me, mission accomplished.

  “Close the door and sit down, please” she finally said. At least she offered me a seat. I supposed that was either a good sign or proof that she expected me to be in her office for a long time. Ugh.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” I said lamely as I returned from closing the door and sat in the chair opposite her. I folded my hands neatly in my lap, trying to be the polite, obedient girl. Not the reckless girl who had been sucking her son’s face in a barn two days ago. Whatever girl I was, my face had to be beet red as I thought this, making me look as guilty as I felt.