By Chance

by Sasha Kay Riley

  He shrugged. “Yesterday.”

  “Took you long enough,” she mumbled. “How do you think he feels?”

  He shrugged again. “No idea. I mean, he’s flirted with me before, but who’s to say that means anything or if he even realized he was doing it?”

  He tried not to think of Dustin telling him that he obviously didn’t know when someone was flirting with him, because that would just mean that he had done it consciously. How could he think about that with any level of sanity? He couldn’t.

  Jane thought for a moment, then took a sip of her coffee and placed her cup down on the table. “You’re not going to like what I have to say,” she stated.

  Vince sighed. “Just tell me.”

  “You should talk to him,” she replied. “Ask him why he’s not sure about leaving. Ask if he’s happy. Find out if he wants a relationship.”

  “There are two problems with that,” he argued. “First, how do you expect me to start a conversation like that with anyone? Any time I’ve ever talked about feelings with you, you started it.”

  “You asked for my help,” she interrupted. “You asked me how to cope with your emotions. So you started this conversation.”

  “How many other times have I, though?” he countered. “I’m talking now because I need help. I have a situation that I can’t handle on my own. I haven’t needed help like this before.”

  She waved her coffee cup at him. “Okay, I give you that. What’s the second issue?”

  “I don’t want a relationship right now,” he stated plainly.

  “You said you discovered feelings for him,” she pointed out. “The logical next step is to start dating him. Before you both end up hurt.”

  He toyed with the cardboard slip on his cup that was supposed to protect his hands from the hot coffee. “I don’t want to hurt him. But dating him will hurt him. Then he’ll be on his own again. I don’t care about me. I care about him.”

  “Exactly why you need to do something,” she agreed.

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “No,” he said firmly, glaring at her. “No way in hell.”

  Jane shrugged. “Then do whatever you want. I gave you my advice. If you don’t want to take it, that’s up to you. I just want you to find some real happiness,” she added quietly.

  Vince nodded. “I know. I just can’t do that.”

  She nodded sadly. “I’m sorry.”

  They drank their coffee in silence for a moment before Jane spoke again.

  “Why are you here anyway?”

  “I had to return something,” he answered, not meeting her eyes.

  “At least, it wasn’t a waste,” she murmured.

  “Yeah. I guess I had low expectations when I saved the receipt. And that has nothing to do with you, so don’t be offended.”

  Jane nodded. “I know you. The only time you have any self-esteem or confidence is when you’re working with a horse.”

  “I’d have been kicked to death by now if I wasn’t confident around them,” he stated, taking another drink of his coffee. “And it’s easier to have a bond with a horse than a person.”

  “I know what you mean,” she admitted. “Sometimes, it’s hard to trust and depend on another person. And that’s not a personal attack on you, either.”

  Vince nodded. “I know.”

  She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “You’ll be okay. Just think about what I told you to do.”

  “I’ll try.”

  But in reality, he wondered if he would ever be brave enough to try. When it came down to losing Dustin forever or having a chance to really be with him, could he do it?

  He doubted it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  VINCE WAS worried that Dustin would be able to tell that he felt awkward around him, but he couldn’t help the feeling. Somehow, it also felt like Dustin was avoiding him, and he wondered why. Finally, he decided to try making things normal again, no matter how hard it would be.

  He found Dustin in one of the pastures a few days after his meeting with Jane and let himself in to talk to him. “Is everything okay?” he asked, watching the horses graze.

  “I guess,” Dustin replied, not looking at Vince.

  “Can I do anything to help?” Vince questioned.

  Dustin sighed. “I don’t think so,” he answered quietly.

  Vince finally looked at him. “Are you sure?”

  Dustin nodded. “Yeah. Seriously. I’m fine.”

  Vince nodded reluctantly. “I’m around if you ever need anything,” he offered, then turned and headed back to the barn.

  THERE WERE really only two sports Vince cared about—horse racing and the highest level of show jumping. Sometimes, following jumping made him dream about making it to that level and being able to compete internationally, but he knew it wasn’t possible. He’d have to essentially give up on the other horses he was supposed to be training to focus solely on himself and Xander. The barn was his first priority in life. Everything else came after.

  That didn’t stop him from sitting in the aisle of the barn with his laptop, watching the Olympic competition in August. He was the boss, so he figured he was allowed some time to dream once every four years. And his dad had put wireless Internet in the barn for the office computer, so it wasn’t as if he was sitting in his house away from everything.

  “Hey, slacker.”

  He looked up as Anna pulled a folding chair over next to his. “I’m in the barn, so I’m only half slacking. It’s the final round of team jumping; I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “How are we doing?” she asked, leaning over to look at the screen.

  Vince adjusted the screen so they could both see it. “Out of contention. My bet’s on Britain.”

  “Home arena advantage,” she commented. “How far in are they?”

  “Probably have another half an hour, if there’s no jump off.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Vince looked up again, this time at Mia, and Dustin coming up behind her. He knew Joe wouldn’t be far behind, either.

  “Final round of show jumping from London,” Anna answered.

  “You guys can find a couple chairs and watch, too,” Vince added. “Oh, and can you bring one of the lighter tack boxes from the tack room? I could use a table.”

  Both Mia and Dustin turned around for the tack room and returned a minute later, dragging a tack box between them. They set it down in front of Vince and Anna before taking two chairs out from it. They had just gotten situated when Joe joined them.

  “Crap those fences are high,” Dustin observed.

  Vince hadn’t failed to notice that he had let Mia sit between them. It made him both sad and relieved at the same time, which he wasn’t sure he understood. “They’re about five foot four,” he explained.

  “That’s almost as tall as I am,” Dustin commented. He sounded almost like he was in awe. “Can Xander jump that?”

  “Right now? No,” Vince answered. “I’ve jumped him close to five feet, but we’d have to work up to that.”

  “But he’d try,” Anna pointed out. “That horse would never refuse anything you pointed him at. He might not clear it, but he’d try his damnedest.”

  He had to admit that she was right; Xander had never given him a refusal, even during training. He liked to think it was because they had a special bond, but everyone tended to think that when they had an amazing horse. Xander just trusted him enough to do everything Vince asked of him, but Vince didn’t beat him to get him to work.

  “You guys could do this,” Mia said, pointing at the computer screen. “You know, compete in the Olympics.”

  Vince laughed. “There’s so much work that goes into something like that, and the chances of making it are so low, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

  “If you say so,” Joe said. “Someone just doesn’t want to try.”

  “I don’t,” Vince lied. “It�
�s not for me. I’m just a casual competitor.”

  “If you say so,” Anna said, repeating Joe.

  Vince just shook his head. “Well, looks like we might get to watch a jump off.”

  “Turn up the volume,” Mia commanded. “So we can hear what they’re saying about it.”

  “It’s an old laptop, the audio sucks,” Vince replied. “I know how it goes anyway. All four members of the team ride again. The goal is just to go clear at first. If there’s still a tied score after they all ride, it’ll come down to who rode faster.”

  “So they shouldn’t worry about the clock?” Anna asked.

  “Well, they should,” Vince explained, “in case they can’t win on jumping faults alone. Normally, they’d be worried about time faults for going over the allotted time, but there are no time faults in the jump off, just the jumping faults for rails down.”

  “Does Team USA ever do well?” Mia questioned, watching the current riding in the ring on the computer screen.

  “We had team gold in Beijing,” Vince answered with a shrug. “Lately, we haven’t done well in international competition, though.”

  “You and Xane could change that,” Joe threw in.

  Vince rolled his eyes. This was almost getting annoying. “Keep thinking that, Joe.”

  Despite his words, Vince let himself dream for just the duration of the jump-off. His mother had always wanted him to try to compete at the highest level, and part of him wished he could make her proud by doing so, but the other part of him knew it would be irresponsible because he’d be neglecting the farm. He supposed there was nothing wrong with dreaming for a moment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  VINCE’S TWENTY-FOURTH birthday was at the end of August, and once again, Wes hosted a gathering for the whole farm, as well as Mandy, Jeff, and Jane. There were glorious amounts of junk food, alcohol, music, and cake. There was also a horseshoe tournament, made all the better by not only alcohol but the fact that each horseshoe had actually been on a horse at one point and was slightly different from all the others. Vince had never been good at the game.

  Every year, the stable hands pooled funds to get him a gift card—they did the same for Wes—but this year, Vince was very aware of the fact that Chris’s name was missing from the birthday card it came with. The amount on the gift card was also slightly lower than usual, which Anna apologized to him about privately.

  “The money doesn’t matter,” Vince assured her. “I’m happy just getting something from you guys. You know none of you need to do that.”

  “Well,” she argued with a smile, “sometimes you’re more like a brother than a boss.”

  Vince wasn’t sure which he was acting like when he watched Dustin get himself drunker and drunker as the night wore on. He hadn’t actually seen the kid drink much, but he was thin—not as thin as when Vince had first met him, but still not bulky like the other guys—and probably hadn’t had much experience with alcohol. He was only nineteen, after all, and from a strict family. Plus he claimed he never got into drugs or drinking while he was on the streets. Vince’s feelings were divided between worrying about him and just wanting the kid to enjoy himself. After all, none of them were leaving the farm that night, not even Jane, Mandy, and Jeff, who were staying in guest rooms at Wes’s house.

  By the end of the night, Vince decided that, despite all the emotional confusion of the last few weeks, Dustin deserved to have someone there for him like he’d been there for Vince back in May.

  As the party ended late that night, he walked up next to Dustin and said, “I’ll walk with you.”

  “Why?” Dustin asked, looking at him in confusion.

  “Because you did it for me once,” Vince replied, motioning him to walk.

  “I want to see Justin,” Dustin stated as he started walking away from the back lawn littered with bottles, wrappers, and balloons.

  Vince caught his arm as he took an awkward step onto the gravel driveway. “Okay, but you are definitely not going into the barn alone right now.”

  “Justin won’t hurt me,” Dustin argued. “He cares about me.”

  “Yeah, well, so do I, and that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be worried about the beer he can smell on you. I don’t let people around the horses when they’re drunk. I wouldn’t even go into Xander’s stall in your state. I trust that horse with my life, but only when I’m sober enough to understand his body language.”

  “Justin won’t hurt me,” Dustin repeated.

  “Not intentionally,” Vince agreed. “Just listen to me, okay? I make the rules, remember?”

  Dustin grumbled something that Vince didn’t quite hear as they stepped into the barn. Vince walked with Dustin to Justin’s stall, where he let Dustin lean on the stall door and rub the horse’s forehead. Justin seemed not to care that his master was drunk, he was just sleepy and enjoyed being petted.

  “See?” Dustin asked, looking at Vince. “He won’t hurt me.”

  “Not if you stay out here with me,” Vince replied with a nod. “He does love you, though.”

  Dustin nodded. “It’s nice that he does. He’s the only person I trust, and he’s not even a person. And he’s the only person who loves me.”

  “How do you know that for sure?” Vince argued, just trying to keep a conversation going.

  “He’s the only one who shows it,” Dustin answered.

  “I doubt that,” Vince argued gently.

  Dustin shrugged. “Except for my sister. She used to.”

  “You have a sister?” Vince asked in surprise.

  Dustin nodded. “She’s your age. Five years older than me. She was at college when I got kicked out. Never tried to find me, though. So I guess she really didn’t care.”

  “How do you know she didn’t try to find you?”

  “She would have found me if she tried hard enough,” Dustin answered simply.

  “That doesn’t mean she didn’t try at all,” Vince pointed out. “Or that she doesn’t love you.”

  Dustin shrugged. “I wish someday I could have a person who loves me like Justin does. I wish he was a person.”

  “You’ll have that someday.”

  Dustin shook his head. “No one wants someone like me. I’m worthless.”

  Vince reminded himself that the kid would hardly remember this conversation in the morning even as he argued with this assessment. “You’re far from worthless, Dust. I know someone will make you happy.”

  “The person I think will make me happy doesn’t want me,” Dustin declared.

  “Who is that?” Vince asked, trying not to get his hopes up.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Is this what’s been bothering you?”

  Dustin nodded.

  Vince leaned on the stall door and braced himself mentally. “Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “He is clueless,” Dustin stated as he watched Justin sleep.

  “Seems to be a common problem among men,” Vince commented. “Or so Jane has always told me.”

  Dustin turned and looked at him for a long moment, then moved slightly closer. Despite everything Vince had told Jane about wanting Dustin to make the first move if he really wanted to, he knew one thing—he did not want Dustin to be drunk when he did it. The chances of him regretting it, no matter what actually happened, were too great. Vince would rather have him fully aware of what he was doing. But he couldn’t make himself react as Dustin moved closer, even though he knew he should do something to stop what was happening. Rough lips pressed hard against his own, accompanied by the scent of beer, as Dustin kissed him. Vince wanted desperately to return the kiss, to press in deeper and spend an hour making out right there in the barn. But the smell of beer on Dustin’s breath reminded him that it wouldn’t be the best idea.

  He put a hand on Dustin’s shoulder and pushed him back gently. “Dust,” he said when Dustin looked at him in confusion, “stop. You’re drunk.”

  “So?” Dustin demanded.

  “So I
don’t want you to do this,” Vince replied.

  Dustin moved faster than Vince would have expected, turning around and walking quickly toward the door.

  “Dust!” Vince called, going after him.

  “Leave me alone,” Dustin told him as he caught up.

  “Dust, wait.” Vince grabbed his arm.

  “No,” Dustin growled, yanking his arm away.

  Vince backed off but kept following him. There was no way he was going to let Dustin go anywhere alone in his current state. He followed Dustin back to his cabin.

  “Let me help you,” he said, catching the front door as Dustin started to slam it shut.

  “Go away!” Dustin yelled, storming to his bedroom.

  Instead of leaving, Vince sat down in the living room. He sat there for over an hour, his head in his hands, listening to Dustin let out his frustration until he was physically sick and sobbing. Vince didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t leave Dustin like this, but he couldn’t have a serious conversation about the situation with him, either. If he couldn’t get things sorted out now, he just wanted to be able to take care of Dustin like Dustin had taken care of him, even if that meant sitting around listening as Dustin told himself how stupid he was over and over again.

  When the cabin finally fell silent, Vince checked on Dustin, who was sound asleep in his bed, still fully dressed and with his blankets in disarray. Vince left the cabin for the barn, where he grabbed a spare feed bucket and headed back. He put the bucket by Dustin’s bed if he needed it, then set a glass of water on the nightstand. He spent a minute figuring out the alarm clock and finally unset it for the morning. Then he pulled a sheet over Dustin and switched on the window air conditioning unit—how the kid had fallen asleep in the late summer heat was beyond Vince, even if he was emotionally exhausted.

  Vince went back to the kitchen and found a sheet of paper and a pen. He scrawled a note quickly.

  I’ll do your morning chores, don’t worry. Feel better.—V.

  He considered adding “we’ll talk later” but thought that would be too ominous—it always was when Jane said it—so he left it at that. He put the note next to the glass of water and knelt down next to the bed. Dustin was frowning in his sleep, and Vince couldn’t help feeling terrible. He’d wanted Dustin to do this, let him know what he wanted before Vince took that risk. Instead, he’d made Dustin take the risk and had clearly hurt him. Dustin assumed Vince was rejecting him, but Vince didn’t want to. He knew that now; he really didn’t want to.