Pas de deux

by E. J. Noyes

  She dipped her head. “Thank you. You may curtsey at any time.”

  I did the best curtsey I could, which wasn’t very good, then took her hand and kissed the back of it. “M’lady, thou dost ridest dressage most excellently…est.”

  Caitlyn playfully slapped my shoulder. “You dork.”

  “Only for you.” I straightened and ushered her though the door. “Come into the cool.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier.” She flushed. “I got your text.”

  I felt myself flush too. “Yeah, sorry. Uh, you may have guessed I’m not much of a wordsmith.”

  “It was beautiful,” Caitlyn murmured. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I cleared my throat but it didn’t clear away my embarrassment. “What’s in the bag? You sneak in some Blow Pops and a Magnum of Cristal?”

  “Close. It’s clothes etcetera for an overnight stay. With you.”

  “Ah. A sleepover. Gettin’ a little presumptuous there, aren’t you?” I teased.

  “Not at all.” She grinned. “I told you I was going to see you after the Freestyle and I’d be in the mood to either celebrate or commiserate.”

  “That you did.” I sat down and propped my feet up on the trunk of veterinary supplies. “How d’you want to mark this momentous occasion?”

  Caitlyn took the other chair. “I’m not sure. Some of the other riders were talking about what they were doing. Champagne, visiting Christ the Redeemer with a tour group, partying. And when they asked what I was going to do I was just…blank.”

  “Glass of wine and early to bed?” I suggested. “That’s my go-to whenever I want to pat myself on the back. As you can tell, I’m a real party animal.”

  “Close and tempting. I just know that I want to do something with you. I’ve never really celebrated my wins, big or small. There’s no time after a competition because as soon as it’s over we pack up and go home and then it’s straight back into preparations for the next one or training another horse, or something else that’s going to occupy my time.”

  “Ah. The price of excellence?”

  A wry smile quirked her mouth. “Something like that. I mean it’s never seemed all that important because there’s always room to be better in dressage, so why celebrate?” The smile turned laughing. “Sorry, that sounds a bit ‘harsh disciplinarian.’ I’m thrilled.” She fiddled with the strap on her duffel. “I’ve realized that I’d like some balance between horses and my personal life. Starting with wanting to celebrate my success this time. And I want you to help me do that.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I could think of plenty of ways to celebrate and congratulate her. My planning was interrupted by a message on my phone. “I’m so sorry, have to check this.”

  “No problem.”

  But it was. Caitlyn had just hinted at a personal life that seemed to involve a significant other. But this was my life, with work things intruding at inopportune times. “Every sample from the dressage competition returned clean results. The horses that is, I don’t know what’s going on with human pee.” I laughed. “Congratulations, you get to keep your medals. And I might get to keep my USDF job.”

  She pretended to wipe fake sweat from her forehead. “Phew. We live to ride another day.”

  “I probably would have been fired if I’d gotten you banned from the Olympics on my first rotation as the team veterinarian.”

  “Probably. But you were an absolute rock star keeping everyone healthy this whole time. So I guess it’s a double celebration tonight.”

  “True.” I buffed my nails on my chest. “Now, how do you want spend the evening? I think I have some cheese and crackers. Do you want to go against all the advice and sneak out for a nice dinner? Or should we get something delivered?”

  “Truth be told, I’m not huge on big fancy dinners. My idea of a great night is staying in with someone I…like very much, eating food I haven’t cooked, drinking some wine, maybe a movie or a board game or something like that and then…” She didn’t need to say what she was thinking—the implication that we’d fall into bed and have amazing sex until we fell asleep was clear.

  “It’s like you’re looking into my brain. Let’s go.”

  Calling from the car on the way to my place, we ordered dinner from the churrascaria that the Brazilian team vet had told me was a must-try. With the help of Google Translate supplementing my abysmal Portuguese, we’d asked the driver to stop by a liquor store and while we waited for our delivery of delicious barbequed meats I sneakily chilled the bottle of red. By the time we’d taken quick, separate showers dinner had been delivered. Once we’d set everything out and settled, I poured wine. “Are we toasting something?”

  “We can. I always feel so weird about toasts, especially if they’re directed toward me.”

  “Same.” I picked up my glass. “Toastless it is. We know we’re great.”

  “That we are.” The we had a soft emphasis on it.

  We ate dinner in a quiet, contemplative silence and once we’d tidied up, moved to the couch. She had an arm slung over my shoulders, and as I leaned into her, that hand softly stroked my skin. We didn’t talk, just sat together. Caitlyn broke the silence first. “So, what’s next? I mean after packing up and getting horses on a plane tomorrow.” While some of the riders were staying on for the closing ceremony, my job was done.

  I sighed at the sensation of her deft fingers sliding through my hair, gliding over the back of my neck and had to force myself to focus on what I wanted to say, not the fact her touch was turning me to mush. “Is this where we talk about what’ll happen when we go home?”

  “I think so.” Caitlyn shifted slightly so we were facing each other. “You first or me first?”

  “Well mine is pretty simple. I care about you. I care about Dewey. I love being with you and how I feel when I’m around you, like that niggling thing I’ve been looking for has suddenly just appeared. I want more of this, to build on what we’ve started here. And I can see something between us if we just give it a chance.”

  “Me too,” she quietly said. “I love the way you’ve challenged me to look at what I really want, the way you make me think about things, make me want to do things. And not even in a scary way that makes little introvert me want to crumble.” She inhaled shakily and when she spoke again it was tremulous. “I love how being with you makes me feel like I’m doing something right, something other than dressage. Before you, the only time I felt right was when I was on a horse.”

  I took her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I feel like there’s a but coming on.”

  “This is why I like you so much. You always seem to know just what I’m thinking.” She held intense eye contact with me, as if willing me to really listen, to pay attention. “There is a but. Not a big one, or scary or—”

  My kiss cut her off and Caitlyn let me cut her off for a little longer. With a quiet groan, I pulled away. “Tell me this but. It’s just me, Caitlyn. I don’t bite.” My teeth raked my lower lip. “Except those times you asked me to…”

  “That was an unfair distraction.” She exhaled a long breath. “I keep thinking about it, wanting it, looking for ways, but I just don’t see how this can work. Unless we both commit to long distance.” She let the unspoken linger. It wasn’t really unspoken because we’d been over this before.

  I knew exactly what she wasn’t saying. That she was afraid I would do what Elin had. I’d had such little time to chip away at her armor and it seemed I hadn’t succeeded in showing her that I wasn’t the past. Not our past as teenagers, but her more recent past where she’d been hurt. I’d just have to try harder and help her see that I wouldn’t hurt her. “Do you want it to work?” I quietly asked, but I feared the answer because everything about her screamed that it was too much and she wanted to give it up.

  “Yes,” she said immediately. “I do, very much. But we just live such…incompatible lives, have incompatible lifestyles.” The way she’d said it wasn’t flat. W
asn’t sarcastic. Wasn’t cruel. It was musing, as if she was trying to work out how our differing lives could actually fit.

  “Incompatible,” I repeated. “You know, when I was a kid and trying to be your friend and trying to make you notice me, after a while I began to think maybe the reason you kept ignoring me was that we were too different—chalk and cheese. Now I know, after these past few months, that’s not the reason. We are not incompatible, Caitlyn, not by a long shot. We are not our lifestyles.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Aren’t we though? My life is dressage and that’s basically it. I have no close friends, because I have no time. The thought of figuring out where you can fit in my life, and where I can fit in yours is terrifying.”

  “I agree. But I’ve always been one for facing terror head on, and I’m not saying we need to uproot our lives in order to try a new one together.”

  “What are you saying then?”

  “That maybe we should just dig around a little and see what we can unearth. We don’t have to change anything big right now, just maybe we think about how we can try and make our lives intersect. I know we can.”

  She exhaled. “I just don’t know if you’re really aware of how inflexible my life is. And me being the immovable object that you always have to come to isn’t a fair way to have a relationship.”

  “Agreed, balance is always good, but isn’t it for me to decide if I can handle being the one who’s doing most of the travel? Because if it’s a choice between that or nothing, then I choose travel. I will milk the shit out of some frequent flyer program. I choose emails and phone calls and texts. Video calls. Sexting and video sex. I choose all of that over giving up what feels like the start of something incredible. It’s a no-brainer.”

  An unpleasant thought intruded. What about the future, when distance wasn’t enough? One of us would have to be the moveable object. I knew it would have to be me and I fought to squash my anxiety at the thought of leaving my current workplace. Despite the numerous issues with Seth Ranger and Associates, the pay was excellent, and the small part of me that recalled scraping for every dollar as a kid feared losing that solid financial security. The financial security that’d paid a solid chunk of my college debt and kept me otherwise debt-free. Sure, all jobs came with salary, but…

  My thoughts raced and I tried to center myself, to focus on the present, not the what-ifs, before I totally fucked up what I was trying to say. “My feeling of pride when watching you ride is indescribable. I want to keep havin’ that feeling, keep being there with you when you have all those big moments. I can’t believe I’m about to say this corniest thing ever but…I want to create moments with you.”

  After what felt like an eternity Caitlyn quietly agreed, “Okay. Okay, you’re right. When we’re both home, let’s get settled in and start seeing if we can make some plans. No pressure, just seeing what we can do when we can do it.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.” I paused. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but are you sure? I don’t want you to agree to this just because you’ve been persuaded by my charm and rousing arguments for us taking this beyond here.”

  “I’m sure. One hundred percent.” She blew out a long breath, followed up with a smile that was sweet and genuine. Her hand slid down my arm to my hand, and she entwined our fingers. “Now, what d’you say about a little not-gonna-see-you-for-a-month nookie?”

  “I say…” I pulled my hands free to slip both under her tee. In one movement, I lifted it up and off over her head, leaving her torso deliciously bare. Her nipples were too tempting to resist, so I didn’t, bending to take one in my mouth. Caitlyn cupped my face as I sucked one nipple then the other, and when I moved to glide my tongue between her breasts, she pulled my face up. Her kiss was fierce, needy, as if she feared this might be our last. No chance of that. I opened my mouth, sucked her tongue gently, lightly bit her lower lip.

  Caitlyn’s inhalation was quick, her breathing shallow and ragged. “I think what you’re saying is yes please, make me come?”

  I leaned in and traced the curve of her ear with my tongue. “Excellent translation.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Caitlyn

  Though I would have loved to hang around Brazil to watch some other Olympic sports and attend the closing ceremony with my teammates—it was time to go home. After over three months away I needed to get everything back on track and start my horse training and financial balls rolling again. Odd-one-out Caitlyn strikes again.

  Wren and I were on separate flights to the States where she would go to Miami to be with Dew during his seven-day quarantine while I went to Kentucky and straight back to work. Unlike my mess of connecting flights, the flights for equines were specially chartered nonstop adventures accompanied by grooms and a veterinarian. Knowing both Wren and Addie would be with Dew eased some of the usual anxiety I had about leaving him.

  I’d given Dew a tight hug and wished him a nice flight before they loaded him into the pallet and began rolling him along the conveyor that would lift him into the plane. He’d made it about five feet in the air before he reached the limits of his attention span and I had to call for him to stop trying to bite his pallet-mate’s halter. Dew swung his head in my direction and vocalized a huge whinny which shook the crane. I smiled at his adorable acknowledgment and then groaned when he seemed to take my direction to stop biting as meaning he should bite harder. Pierre had drawn the short straw of being next to Dew and mercifully seemed to have perfected the art of ignoring my idiot horse.

  “Good luck with him,” I murmured to Addie.

  “I’ve got it under control,” she assured me. She crouched to open one of the duffels at her feet, revealing bags of carrots, apples, and Life Savers. “When all else fails, bribery as a distraction.”

  “Smart. Just so you know, that also works with me.”

  “Good to know. I’ll have to buy shares in Blow Pops.” Addie stood again, shielding her eyes against the fading Rio sun. “Well, I guess this is where we say goodbye. You’ve got your own flights to catch and I have to get to work. I want to make sure everything is right and double check everyone’s locked down tight.”

  “Of course.” I fought to keep my voice and expression neutral instead of melting into a pile of upset. “Uh, have a good flight then I guess.”

  “You too.” Her expression turned pained. “Stupid public goodbyes. I’ll be thinkin’ about you. When I have a free moment around keeping Dewey from chewing things.”

  Wincing, I said, “Sorry. Just growl at him if he’s being annoying and biting things.”

  “It’s fine. I like having him around. He reminds me of you.”

  “Because I’m…annoying?”

  “Not so much. Just because he’s yours. He makes me think about you. But I seem to recall you do like to bite things.” Her teeth grazed her lower lip.

  A rush of excitement filled my belly and my response was hoarse. “You’re right. But only certain things.” I tilted my head to the side, trying to see the faint mark from last night but it was hidden under her shirt collar.

  Addie exhaled a long breath. “Right, okay. I really am going now. Otherwise I’ll just stand here and stare dreamily at you for the rest of time. I—” Smiling, she shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll just talk to you when I do. Soon. Safe travels, sweetheart.”

  “You too.” If she kept calling me sweetheart, I was going to lose my heart. Fast.

  I slept for most of the flights home and turned on my phone to another barrage of messages. Family, friends, sponsors, my coaches at home, journalists, Lotte, Mary. Then a few from Wren and Addie who had texted me at almost the same time with much the same message to let me know they’d landed and Dewey had traveled well. They’d also both included pictures of him in his travel stall on the plane and also being unloaded by the lift. He was stretched out trying to reach the lift arm with his nose. Typical.

  As I waited for my bags I responded to the messages from friends and family,
and those from Wren. Then there were Addie’s texts. Everything I tried to say in response felt stupid and hollow, too deep for such a simple message to let me know my horse was safe. In the end, I typed out a simple and cowardly Great! Glad he behaved himself for you. If I said anything deeper then the ache of missing her would grow even more unbearable.

  The first thing I noticed when I walked out of the airport was Brandon in the pick-up area. The second thing was that he wore a glitter-encrusted party hat and had a party horn in his mouth, which he started blowing obnoxiously the moment he spotted me. He skipped over to me and scooped me into a hug. “Welcome home, Olympic Badass!”

  Laughing, I hugged him back as he lifted me up. “Thank you. It’s so good to be home.”

  “I bet,” he said as he lowered me to the ground. Grinning around the party horn in his mouth, he puffed out his cheeks and blew it until the damned thing unfurled and hit me in the forehead.

  “Clown. You obviously spend too much time with Dewey.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He pulled the horn from his mouth. “Have you spoken to Wren?” There was a hint of excitement in his question, and I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t imagine what it took for them to be physically separated for so long, and yet again felt a twinge of guilt. I knew it was part of their job and I accommodated as best I could. They never complained, and they reassured me constantly. But it was still a shitty situation, and one I was starting to understand more. I was missing Addie and we’d only been apart for a day. “Just before Dewey loaded, and then texts when they landed.” I nudged him with my elbow. “A little over a week.”

  He grinned. “Yeah. Heart grown fonder and all that.” Brandon grabbed the bigger of my two bags and one boot bag while I dealt with my smaller bag and the other boot bag, which I slung over my shoulder. There was still more gear to arrive with Wren and Dew next week.

  On the drive home, Brandon filled me in on the goings-on while I’d been away. I already knew most of it from his emails. All the horses were sound and in good health, all were working well, nothing had broken or burned down. All in all, a successful time away. We made a quick stop for grocery essentials and were rolling through my double gates by three in the afternoon. As always when I saw the Midfields signs on the stone walls either side of my wrought iron gate, my chest swelled with pride.