By Chance (13 page)

“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.

V
INCE
’
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.

He hesitated, then reached out and lightly touched Dustin’s cheek. It was clammy from sweat and tears. “God, I fucked this up,” he murmured to himself. He leaned forward and kissed Dustin’s forehead, knowing Dustin would never know about it. “I hope you forget about all of this,” he added quietly, then stood and left.

V
INCE
DIDN
’
T
see Dustin until the next afternoon. He had woken up early to do all of Dustin’s morning chores and then worked a few of the horses. Chris was the only one who wanted to know why Dustin wasn’t working, but Anna had sternly reminded him that Vince covered for all of them at some time or another and to shut up before she kicked his ass back to the trailer park he came from.

That had failed to get a smile out of Vince, and only walking away had kept Anna from noticing. He didn’t need everyone asking what was wrong with him now, of all times. He’d fucked up, and he had no idea how to fix it.

As soon as he was done working with the horses he was retraining, he got on Xander and jumped him with no tack at all. At one point, he looked up and saw a group at the fence watching him—his sister, Jane, Dustin, Anna, and Joe. Even from a distance, Dustin looked like hell.

“Can you guys raise the jumps for me?” he called.

“Do you have a fucking death wish?” Anna called back.

“Maybe I do.”

“You’re already jumping five feet,” she pointed out. “Whatever has you so worked up, find less dangerous ways of dealing with it!”

“I’m your fucking boss, Anna!” he yelled. “Raise the fucking jumps!”

She just shook her head and walked away, followed shortly by Joe. Frustrated, Vince kicked Xander back into motion. By the time he looked up, only Dustin was still at the fence. After another round, though, even he was gone.

Vince slumped forward and wrapped his arms around Xander’s neck. He could have made things right at that moment, when it had just been the two of them and Xander, but he’d let the moment pass. He was falling deeper into a well of despair that he had no idea how to climb out of.

H
E
DIDN
’
T
get to see Dustin alone at any other point that day. He’d given up on even trying when his dad called him at nine.

“Come to the house” was all he said.

“Why?”

But Wes had already ended the call. “That was a waste of effort,” he grumbled as he got up from the couch, where he had been staring blankly into space while hating himself, and left his house.

When he got to his dad’s house, he was surprised when he saw both Jane’s and Jeff’s cars still in the driveway. What were they still doing there? The party had been twenty-four hours ago. Didn’t they want to get back to their own lives?

He got his answer when he walked into the house and found a large group waiting for him in the living room. His dad was there with Mandy, Jeff, Jane, and all the stable hands except for Chris. Vince had a bad feeling this was some sort of intervention, but he had no idea what for. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with him and Dustin; why would he or Jane tell everyone about the situation like that? They wouldn’t. Was it about Chris? He wasn’t there, but whatever the issue was with him, it wouldn’t involve Mandy, Jeff, or Jane.

“Sit,” Wes said, motioning to the only empty seat in the room—a footstool.

This really was an intervention. What the hell was going on?

He did as he was told and sat down, looking around at everyone. He couldn’t help but feel worried and confused at the same time.

“I was told,” Wes began, leaning against the couch where Mandy and Anna were sitting, “that you were jumping Xander completely tackless today. Five-foot fences.”