By Chance (5 page)

Of course, her shoes, jackets, and other clothes were gone, along with all her bathroom items—which meant his bathroom was basically empty. On the table beside the bed was the ring, sitting there in its box. He’d originally kept the receipt in case he couldn’t go through with it. Now he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to make himself return it.

As he was thinking this, his phone went off. He pulled it from his pocket and saw that it was his sister.

“Dad told me,” she began when he answered. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he lied. “I’m fine, Mandy.”

“He said you guys are still friends.”

“So?” he asked. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

She sighed. “That just never works out. You end up jealous when the other moves on, or you start hooking up all the time.”

He snorted. “Highly doubt that. I gotta go. See you in two months, if you don’t get up here before that.”

“Jeff’s going to come fix the place up in a couple weeks. I’m coming with him.”

“Okay. See you then.”

He hung up and tossed his phone onto the bed.

T
HREE
DAYS
later, he got Dustin up on Justin, which made the kid even happier than he’d been to ride Zeus. Vince had taken a few days to feel Justin out and make sure he wasn’t going to have any sudden quirks he hadn’t shown before, but he’d turned out to be relatively easy to handle. With Vince’s instruction, Dustin did great with him, and Vince decided that they were a perfect match.

Vince was riding Xander a couple of days later when he noticed Dustin watching them from the fence. He pulled Xander up in front of him. “Want to give me hand?”

“Sure,” Dustin replied. “What can I do?”

Vince pointed to the four jumps in the arena. “Can you raise those one more level? You’ll see how to do it, it’s not hard.”

Dustin nodded and climbed over the fence. “Do you do competitions like this?” he asked as he walked toward the first jump.

“Yeah, we’ve done a few shows,” Vince answered. “I don’t want it to take away from what I do here, so I’m not super serious about it. We do have a show in July, if you want to come as my groom. I usually take Jane, but I don’t want her to feel obligated to do it.”

“I can do that,” Dustin said with a shrug. He took a moment to examine the first jump, then easily figured out how to raise the top rail. “What would I be doing?”

“Basically just helping me out with all my stuff and Xander,” Vince explained. “I usually do a lot of it myself, but it’s always good to have help.”

Dustin nodded. “I’d be happy to. You guys seem really good.”

Vince smiled. “You haven’t seen the pairs we compete against. You will, though. We’re decent, but we’re not the best of the best.”

Dustin moved on to the next fence. “Why can’t you be?”

“I have too many other horses to focus on,” Vince explained as he patted Xander’s neck. “I can’t take time from that to compete all over the country for six months out of the year, sometimes more. One or two shows a summer is good for me. Plus, I would have to take extra time to train him and not the others. And there’s no way I’m paying some professional trainer to tell me I’m doing everything wrong. I used to take lessons, but I’ve learned Xander so well, why would I change anything I’m doing? He responds like he needs to, I’m not going to confuse both of us by bringing in a new trainer. Even though we’ve won all five shows we’ve been in, we’re not considered that good without a personal trainer, and because I ride a ‘recycled’ thoroughbred, not an imported warmblood valued at tens of thousands of dollars”

Dustin had moved to the final jump. “It sounds like a very snobby sport.”

Vince laughed. “Yes, it basically is. I’d like to prove them all wrong, but like I said, this place comes first.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to try,” Dustin replied as he hopped up to sit on the fence.

Vince just shook his head and took Xander through the course again.

T
HE
FIRST
Saturday of May was the Kentucky Derby and the farm’s annual Derby party. It usually involved a lot of junk food and alcohol while watching the prerace coverage on TV. They also had their own betting system that Vince explained to Dustin as soon as everyone gathered in his father’s living room.

“Basically, you choose one horse you want to win and put anywhere between a dollar and a hundred dollars in the prize jar next to where my dad is sitting. He keeps track of who chooses what horse. The money is split between whoever chooses the winner.”

“Seems simple enough,” Dustin said with a shrug. “I don’t know how to pick one, though.”

“Just pick one that looks good,” Mia told him with a grin. “Or one with a cool name. That’s how I do it. I don’t think the guys who come up with the odds are very good at it.”

“They usually are,” Vince murmured, leaning close to Dustin’s ear. “She’s just stubborn.”

Dustin leaned away slightly to look closer at the TV. “I think I understand how the odds work. But I don’t think picking the favorite is the way to go either. There’s always an underdog.”

Vince grinned. “Exactly how I always think about it.”

As the party wore on, Vince was surprised to find himself drinking more than usual. Wes looked like he wanted to advise him against it and then like he wanted to slap him when he kept ignoring his pointed glances. Eventually, he must have decided his son was adult enough to make the choice to drink away his current emotional dilemma if he really wanted to, however, because he didn’t say anything.

The race was over by seven, and it turned out that whatever method Dustin had used to choose a winner had worked; he was the only one who had picked the right horse, which meant he got over two hundred dollars and was excused from the evening feedings.

Vince vaguely wondered if that was really because Dustin had been the only one to choose the winner—no one else had ever been given a night off for that—or because Wes wanted someone sober to take care of Vince. Dustin was the one who had offered to walk him the short distance to his house and get him anything he needed, after all.

Dustin got him inside, then went to his own cabin to stash his winnings. When he got back a few minutes later, Vince was sitting on the floor in the master bathroom, his head against the cool glass of the shower doors. Dustin handed Vince a bottle of water and sat down next to him.

“I don’t usually drink this much,” Vince mumbled as he took the cap off the water bottle. “Actually, I don’t think I ever have. Even after Mom died.”

“How’d she die?” Dustin asked quietly.

Vince took a drink of water in the hopes of washing away the taste of bile and beer in his mouth. “Breast cancer. Three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d just turned twenty-one. Dad thought I was going to go get drunk that night. But I stayed home. I held the teddy bear she made me when I was a baby. I cried until I fell asleep.” He stared at the water for a moment, then went on, “She always wanted me and Xane to start showing. So we did our first show that summer. Kicked ass. I got special pink wraps for his legs. Still use ’em. And the pink tie. Because I do every show for her. She used to tell me how she wanted to see me ride in the Olympics. But I can’t do that. I’d just let her down. I’d never make it.”

“You could always try,” Dustin said, his voice quiet and soothing.

Vince shook his head, then closed his eyes as the room spun. “Can’t.”

Dustin was quiet for a moment, then changed the subject. “So how many nicknames does Xander have?”

“Xander,” Vince mumbled. “Xanny Boy. Xane. Xan. When he’s being a nut, I call him Xandoodle.”

Dustin laughed, and Vince was sure it was the first time he’d ever really heard him laugh in the month he’d been around. Just like his voice, it was quiet and almost soothing. Vince looked over at him and saw that he was smiling brightly.

“I like Xandoodle,” Dustin told him. “Is he your first horse?”

“Nah,” Vince replied, taking another drink of water. “I had a pony when I was little. Name was Oreo, ’cause he looked like one. Black head, black butt, white in the middle.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got old. He was already twenty when I got him. I was five. He was thirty-one when we had to put him down. I didn’t have my own horse again until Xane. Even though I couldn’t ride Oreo once I was, like, twelve. I just couldn’t find the right one. I took lessons. Did shows with lesson horses. Rode Dad’s horses. But I didn’t have another horse of my own until I was nineteen. Sorry I’m rambling. But my horses are the only things I can count on.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” Vince argued, staring at the cabinet across the room from where they sat. “Nothing’s okay. Where’s my life going?”

He saw Dustin shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Only you can know that.”

“But I don’t,” Vince grumbled, throwing the cap from the water bottle across the room in frustration. “I thought I did. I thought I was gonna be with Jane and be happy. I fucking
proposed
to her. But she wouldn’t marry me. She figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” Dustin asked, his voice sounding hesitant.

“That I was hiding. I was using her. So I could be normal. So I didn’t have to worry. That I wished she was a man. That… That I’m… I’m gay.”

He spilled his water all over the floor as he dove for the toilet again.

V
INCE
WOKE
up in his bed, dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing the night before. Once he’d dealt with the more immediate effects of his hangover, he noticed an empty water bottle on the bathroom sink and a wet towel in the hamper. In his room, he found a bottle of Advil and orange juice on his bedside table. He sat down and took three pills with the orange juice, and noticed the wooden rocking chair across the room from him. On it was a pillow from his bed and a spare blanket from the hall closet, along with one of the books from his bookshelf downstairs. He moved closer to see which book and realized it was one of his books about Secretariat.

He vaguely remembered Dustin being there and sitting with him for a while. How long had he stayed? He had a weird feeling that he’d possibly told his friend things that he shouldn’t have.

He really hoped he hadn’t told him what he thought he had.

Once he had showered, changed, and coped with his hangover enough to function like a human being, he headed out to the barn.

“Hey there,” Anna said as soon as he walked in. “Feeling a little out of it this morning?”

“No,” he replied sarcastically. “I feel fine.”

She shook her head, pausing in her grooming of Star. “It’s understandable. I’d want to get it out of my system, too. Should have done it sooner.”

“What?” he asked, confused. Had he possibly told
everyone
?

She waved her brush at him. “The need to get completely smashed after ending a two-year relationship.”

He heaved an inward sigh of relief. “Oh. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

She went back to grooming and told him, “I sent Dustin home for the afternoon. He said he was up most of the night with you so you didn’t bash your head open on the way to the bathroom or choke on your own vomit. No, those are my words, not his.”

Vince ran a hand over his pounding forehead. “I need to apologize for that, then, if he’s awake.”

Anna waved him away. “I got things covered. Joe and Chris are annoyed, but they’ll get over it. God knows we’ve let them have time for their own hangovers before.”

“Thanks,” Vince replied as he turned to the door. “I’ll be back.”

He knocked on the door of Dustin’s cabin a few minutes later and heard a muffled, “Come in.” When he opened the door, he found Dustin walking out of the tiny kitchen with a mug, which Vince assumed was full of coffee by the smell of the cabin. Dustin was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt, and his shoulder-length hair was wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

“Hey,” Dustin said when he saw him. “I was going to head back out in a few minutes.”

“That’s fine,” Vince assured him. “I just came to apologize. You didn’t need to stay with me.”

Dustin shrugged. “It seemed like a better idea than leaving you on your own. I found a book to read. Can I borrow it?”

Vince nodded. Obviously, he
hadn’t
told Dustin what he thought he had, because he was acting normal toward him. “Sure. You can borrow whatever books you want, anytime.”

Dustin nodded back. “Thanks.”

“Did you sleep at all, though?” Vince questioned. He definitely
looked
exhausted.

“I slept a couple hours at your place,” Dustin answered, “and another three when Anna sent me home. I don’t want to make everyone pick up my slack all day, though. I’ll just go to bed as soon as we get the evening feeding done.”

Vince sighed. “Take your time drinking your coffee. It’s my fault you’re not working all day, I’m not going to reprimand you for it. And thanks for staying with me so long.”

Dustin smiled. “Thought it would be a way to pay you back for everything.”

“It works,” Vince agreed with a small smile. “See you when you finish your coffee.” He turned to leave but was stopped by Dustin’s voice.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. Just so you know.”

Vince froze halfway to the door and turned back to him. “What?”

Dustin looked him right in the eye. “About why you and Jane broke up.”

Vince ran his hands through his hair and sat down heavily on the couch. “I did tell you that. Fuck.” He was trying hard not to panic.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dustin assured him. “I said I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Vince argued. “I got drunk to escape my problems, not make more.”

Dustin sat down on the other side of the couch. He sat staring into his coffee for a moment, then took a deep breath. “It’s why my parents kicked me out.”

Vince turned his head to look at him. “It is?”

Dustin nodded. “Yeah. They were really strict. I told you about never being able to do a pony ride. They were also insanely religious. They told me I was no longer their son and kicked me out of the house. And I had nowhere to go. I didn’t have any friends whose parents would take me in once they knew.”