by Jade West
Rick glanced behind me, eyes sparkling, waiting. His smile dropped as I kicked the door shut.
“Where’s our pretty lady?” he said. “I thought we were celebrating?”
I dropped my keys on the side. “She, um.” I couldn’t look at him. “She had bad news, about the yard.”
He took a step forward, I could feel his eyes burning. “Shit! What bad news? Is she ok?”
“Yard is up for sale, bank repossession, or close to.” I slipped off my jacket, hung it over the bottom of the stairs, fiddled with my cufflinks.
“So she can’t rent it from Jack anymore? Bummer. That fucking stinks, man.” He shook his head. “Talk about a shit end to the day. I bet she’s fucking gutted.”
The thought hit my belly, and it hit hard. “She was upset.”
Rick paced a bit, dropped the champagne next to my keys. His hand was on his forehead, rubbing. “She should have come home with you, we could’ve talked about it, worked something out. There must be something we can do.” He stared at me. “Maybe we could talk to the bank? With Jack, I mean. Find out what’s owing. Back Katie up with the rent money, let the bank know he has the cash coming in to clear some debt. That could work, right? It’s worth a shot.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Is she still with Jack? I’ll call her, tell her to come home.”
He’d pressed the call button before he registered the truth. His phone to his ear before his eyes met mine and stayed there.
“Except she’s not there, is she? You’d never just leave her there…” He cancelled the call, walked past me, opened the door. “Her car’s still here. Why would she stay at the yard without a car, Carl? What’s going on?”
I braced myself. “She needed space…”
And he knew. He fucking knew.
“What did you do?”
“She was upset. I tried to help.”
He let go of the balloon, I heard it bop against the ceiling. “Help?”
I walked through to the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of red. He followed me, hands open wide, demanding.
I poured a glass, downed it in one. “I offered to buy the yard.”
“You what?!”
“I offered to buy the yard, for her.”
“How much?”
“Couple of big ones.”
He shook his head. “Big ones? What the fuck does that even mean?”
I took a breath. “Couple of hundred grand.”
His eyes were wide. “You offered to spend a couple of hundred grand on a riding yard? Just like that? Fucking hell, Carl. And what did she say to that?”
I shrugged. “She said no, said it was too much. Said it was crazy. She didn’t understand why I’d offer, wanted to know why.”
“No fucking shit. And what did you say?”
I didn’t answer.
“Please tell me you didn’t. Not like that. Not when her dreams have gone to shit and there’s an offer of a crazy fucking bankroll swaying over her head. Please tell me you didn’t fucking do that, Carl.”
I had no words. I refilled my glass.
His face turned pale, a hand over his mouth, pacing back and forth. “You told her, didn’t you? Fucking hell, Carl, you fucking told her.”
“She wanted to know why. She wanted to know what I wanted. She wanted to know, Rick.”
“And so you just told her. Great. That’s fucking great.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. “I should have waited. I should have given it more time.”
He slammed his palm on the island. “Too fucking right you should have waited, Carl! Too fucking right!” He let out a sigh that sounded more like a wail. “We had it good, Carl. She was good. She was amazing. She was everything we fucking wanted, everything I fucking wanted.” He clenched his fists against the marble. “I fucking love her, Carl.”
There were tears in his eyes and an ache in my stomach, a horrible pitiful pang of regret. “So do I.”
He shook his head, eyes closed. “Tell me everything. Every fucking thing you said.”
And so I did. I told him everything.
Rick listened and shook his head all the way through my sorry recap. His face said it all, reinforced what I already knew. I’d fucking blown it.
“She said it’s not goodbye,” I said. “She said it was a see you later, not a goodbye.”
“She’s going to say that, isn’t she?” He grabbed himself a beer from the fridge, chugged it back. He pulled his tobacco from his pocket, rolled a cigarette. “I can’t believe you did it. After everything we said.”
“You can believe it,” I said. “Of course you can. She asked, I answered.”
He held up a hand, waved me to shut the fuck up. “I need a fucking smoke,” he said, and left me. He let himself out through the back door, and the security light came on, illuminated him as he paced up and down the path. He smoked one and lit up another, and I watched, sipping wine in misery while he fumed.
He was outside for an age, pacing and smoking.
I’d moved to the living room by the time he came back in, my stomach paining worse than ever as reality set in.
He propped himself in the doorway, his face stripped of its easy charm. I sat forward in my seat, forced out the words I’d been churning around my mind.
“Her issues are with me, Rick, not you. It was all about what I wanted.”
He shrugged. “So? What does that matter now?”
I met his eyes, holding the gaze even through the anger in his. “My point is you could… be with her. You two could still… without me… I’m the problem, Rick, I know I’m the problem. She knows it, too.”
His lips were tight, eyes hollow and wide. “What the fuck are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say I’m sorry, that I don’t want to ruin this for you, for either of you.” It hurt so fucking bad to say it. “I’m saying you could be with her. You and her.” I clasped my hands in my lap. “I’d understand, Rick. You shouldn’t have to pay the price for my mistakes.”
I didn’t want to look at him, turned my head away as he stepped towards me.
“Hey,” he said, dropping to my side on the sofa. “What the hell is this?”
“I fucked up,” I admitted, and my words came out choked.
“Probably,” he said. “But we’re together, you and me. We come together or not at all. That’s never gonna change, Carl, no matter what.” He pressed his hand to my cheek, turned my face to his. “Look at me.”
I looked at him, and I felt defeated. Empty. Guilty.
“I’m pissed off, and fucking gutted, and think you’re a dick for running your blunt fucking mouth off, but you’re still the best fucking man I’ve ever known. You’re still the one I want to be with. Christ, Carl, I still fucking love you.”
I leaned forward, pressed my forehead to his, and his hands clasped my face, held me there. I closed my eyes, and breathed, just breathed. “It hurts,” I said. “This one hurts so bad. I thought this one…”
“I know,” he said. “I’m right fucking there with you.” He sighed, long and deep. “Come here.” He folded me in strong arms, pulled me close. He kissed my cheek, held me tight, and I held him back. I felt weak, exposed. Open. The dull ache in the pit of me making me nauseous. “You’re so fucking strong,” he said. “Like a bull. Always so fucking unstoppable.” He kissed my mouth, his lips firm. “You’ve got to stop sometimes, you’ve got to learn to ease up on the fucking reins.”
I didn’t have any words left. I just nodded, just enough for him to see.
“We make decisions together, we’re supposed to be a team.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
I squeezed him tight, my arms around his muscular shoulders, and he was rigid and strong, and there. Rick was right there with me.
Rick was always there.
And I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst.
Chapter Twenty-One
Katie
Samson picked up pace as we headed up
through Haugh Wood, his hooves churning up the track as he broke into a canter. We were early, the sun still climbing through the trees to the east. I squeezed Samson on, driving him faster, and he put his head down, ears forward and alert, breath steady. I gave him free rein and he extended himself, a snort and he was away, galloping up the main incline.
I loved it here so much. So did he.
We belonged here. I’d always known we belonged here.
Only we didn’t.
Not anymore. Not now.
I fought the lump in my throat, blinked away the tears that threatened. Like I hadn’t cried enough already.
A night in my own bed sucked bad. I’d never realised it was lumpy on one side. Lumpy and a little too soft. Cold, too. It was cold in bed without Carl and Rick.
Everything was cold without Carl and Rick.
Losing the dream of Jack’s yard was shitty enough, and I’d cried, a lot. But Carl’s big revelation had hit like a car wreck, a big-arsed truck ploughing into my small town dreams. A big splodge of what the fuck on my cute little life plan.
What life plan?
Plan A — rent Jack’s yard, Katiefy it and make it pretty and smart, fill it with happy kids wanting riding lessons. Smile and congratulate myself on completing life plan at age twenty-two.
Plan B —
There was no plan B. There had never been a plan B.
Samson slowed on the brow of the hill, stretched out his neck and snorted. I gave him a pat, ruffled his mane, and he slowed further, his hooves clop-clopping as he dropped to a walk. I leaned back in the saddle, listening to the songbirds. I really fucking loved it here. I could stay here forever, Samson and me.
My phone bleeped and I dug it out of my pocket. My heart did a little stutter at the prospect it was one of the boys, but it wasn’t. It was Mum.
I’m sorry about the yard, Katie, but maybe it’s for the best. You’ve got a real shot at making something of yourself at your dad’s, an actual career, Katie. It’s not so bad, sweetheart. Really it’s not. x
Her words were nothing new, I’d heard them last night already as I’d cried until I was a sniffly mess.
It really was so bad.
I shoved the phone away.
She just didn’t get it. Couldn’t possibly get it.
I turned Samson off the main track and headed deeper into the woods, where the undergrowth was wilder and the trees were thicker. We explored those hidden areas of the woods we’d conquered like explorers back when he was fresh and green, and it was all so exciting. I felt it all over again. I loved it all over again.
It’s amazing how that happens, how something feels so much sweeter when it’s hurtling towards the end of its time. Bittersweet.
Were Carl and Rick like that? Is that why life around them felt so powerful? So all-consuming?
Did I love Carl and Rick so much because it was supposed to be temporary? Nothing but a six-month foray into a life between two men?
“What are we going to do, boy?” I said, and Samson’s ears flicked in my direction. “Just what the hell are we going to do?”
Eat a big bit of hedge was his answer.
That would have to do for now.
We trekked for hours, reliving our early days, following every path and every turn, cantering along every straight. We waved to the cyclists we’d come to know so well, listened to the same old dogs barking as their owners called their names.
I soaked it all in, as though this one ride could sustain me for all time, its memory enough to stave off the pain of losing this place I’d come to know so well, love so much.
Acceptance. Maybe this was the beginning of acceptance of a cruel sleight of fate. Pipped to the post by a bank who couldn’t wait just a few cruddy months longer. Assholes.
Samson was loose-limbed and happy as we headed back onto the yard, but me not so much. A few months from now and this would really be over. New people here, people with their own dreams for the place, probably so different to mine. I felt defeated as we walked past the farmhouse, defeated as I stared at Jack’s empty parking space, already a morbid omen of what was to come.
The lump in my throat was back, eyes hot and a little itchy, stomach twisting and empty.
Until there was Rick.
His car was by my trailer, silver and shiny against the dull metal shell of the barn. I squeezed Samson on, headed over to it, but Rick wasn’t inside.
My heart was thumping at the thought of him, the unmistakeable fizz of excitement overriding my misery. But I was nervous, too. Really nervous.
“Hey, pretty lady.”
My belly fluttered at his voice. I turned in the saddle to face him, shielding my eyes from the glare of sunlight, and he looked nervous, too.
He was wearing a green checked shirt over jeans, a pair of old boots on his feet. His hair was messy and stylishly unstyled, his smile warm and bright. The nerves were all in his eyes.
“Hey, sexy boy.” I smiled.
“Not such a boy,” he said, and walked over. He ran a hand over Samson’s neck, gave him a pat. “Good ride?”
I nodded. “Saying my first goodbye to the woods. I hope it takes ages, I hope I get to say hundreds of goodbyes.”
“I hope so, too,” he said. “Final goodbyes suck like shit.” He gave Samson a mint. “Who’s a boy, Sammy?”
He walked at our side as we headed to the stable block, his arms waiting as I dismounted. He didn’t linger, just gave me a squeeze and fastened Samson’s head collar around his neck. I loosened Samson’s girth, took down his saddle, and Rick was already in action, filling up a bucket and sponging down his back as I took off his bridle. We didn’t speak, our eyes making fleeting contact as we carried on with horsey business, and the tickle in my belly was so strong it made me squirmy, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I brushed Samson down.
I fastened up his rug and Rick loosened the lead rope. He led Samson to the field and I walked at his side. I watched Rick’s face as he let Samson free, his eyes full of genuine affection for my furry boy. He pulled the gate closed and stood to watch Samson away, arms folded on the top bar. I stepped up alongside him, breathed in the country air.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Katie.” His voice was quieter than usual. “I’m sorry about the yard. It’s such a fucking shitter.” He paused. “I’m sorry about…” He sighed. “I’m sorry about everything.”
“Where’s Carl?” I said.
“Working.” He sighed again, then he looked at me. “No, he’s not working. He’s at home. I asked him not to come.”
Tickly belly. Tickly everything.
I tried to find words. “Are you… um… is it what you both want?”
“A baby?” He looked back at the field. “Yeah, it’s what we both want. Carl is more… impatient.” He took out his tobacco, rolled a cigarette. “Carl’s older, more single-minded. It’s more urgent for him.” He lit up. “He’s sorry. He knows he fucked up.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “He offered me everything, Rick, offered me my dream. I just… I can’t take it. I can’t give him what he wants.”
“You’re sure? Not ever?”
I shrugged. “Shit, Rick, I don’t know. Forever’s a long time. Yesterday I was celebrating kicking Verity’s ass and planning to do it again at the Cheltenham Chase. I was planning what I’d do with this place, once I was officially renting. I was thinking about you guys, spending the weekend with you, chilling out and having fun, probably drinking too much wine and taking more cock than is good for my riding.” I pulled the hair back from my face. “I wasn’t thinking about losing all of this. I sure as fuck wasn’t thinking about babies and dirty nappies and bringing up a kid with two men I barely even know.”
“You know us,” he said. “There’s nothing much more to see than you’ve seen already.”
“I like what I’ve seen already,” I said. “I just… a baby, Rick. That’s so… big.”
“Too big.” He took a long drag. “Too big and way too soon.”<
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“But I’m glad he told me, I’m glad I know. This kind of thing doesn’t get any easier down the line, people just get more invested. I’d have been more invested in six months.”
“And maybe that would’ve made all the difference.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I never really wanted to do the kid thing, Rick. I never felt it.”
“I know,” he said simply.
“Mum tried her best but it was hard. I watched her sacrifice everything, as soon as I was old enough to get it. She was young, her friends were going out, she was always home, always with me. Working loads of crappy hours to keep me in uniform and shoes and school dinners.” I shook my head. “That’s not what I want. Not for me.”
“It wouldn’t be like that for you.”
“Maybe not.”
I could feel his eyes on me. “Definitely not.”
I laughed a little to myself. “It’s funny. When I was a little girl I used to wonder about my dad. Used to dream about who he was and where he was. Used to conjure up all these crazy fantasies about how he was a soldier, or a faraway prince, or a pirate even, that he couldn’t be there for me because he was on some adventure somewhere he couldn’t get out of. I’d plan it all out, imagine how I’d feel when he turned up one day, and he’d be like Katie, I’m your dad, I’ve been thinking about you your whole life. Only then I realised my dad wasn’t a soldier, or a prince, or a pirate. He was just some douchebag who knocked up my mum and abandoned us both.”
Rick didn’t say a word.
“I used to wish for a dad, every birthday, every Christmas. Eventually I got one shitty half rate one.” I smiled. “And here I am, with the offer of two good dads for a baby I may never have. Isn’t fate weird?”
“Yeah, it is.”