Spades shifted again, and this time I adjusted without panicking. Marlon noticed.
“Better,” he said.
I smiled slightly but apparently Spades thought I was getting a bit too comfortable. We made it a little further before he decided he was done listening and he just… stopped.
I blinked. “Why did we stop?”
“You did something wrong,” Marlon said.
“I didn’t do anything—” Before I could finish responding, Spades shifted hard to the side. “Okay—no—nope?—”
My balance slipped and I grabbed for anything. Which ended up being Marlon.
My leg slid, my grip failed, and next thing I knew I was halfway off the horse and fully grabbing onto Marlon to keep from hitting the ground.
He caught me quick. One arm around my waist, the other steadying me before I could fall completely.
For a second, neither of us moved.
“…I don’t like this method,” I said.
His grip tightened slightly before he eased me the rest of the way down. “And I don’t like to be touched. Yet here we are.”
I dusted myself off. “It’s not like I had a choice! He threw me off!”
“That’s because you weren’t paying attention to him.”
Chewy came running back then, clearly in a playful mood. Spades must be in one too because he started cantering as Chewy ran between his feet, giving me a damn heart attack.
“Chew Toy your ass is too expensive to be playing these types of games! What if he steps on you!”
But I was wasting my breath, because the two of them took off playing together as they ran down the row, passing the workers with ease.
“Welp,” Marlon shook his head. “There goes our ride.”
“What do we do now?”
He just shrugged, then walked in the direction our children took off in with his hands in his pockets.
Great.
We walked in a slow line between the rows. The sun sat higher now, warming everything without making it unbearable. Workers were scattered further down, some already ending their day.
I glanced over at him, watching the way his hand brushed along a cluster of grapes as we passed.
“Marley?”
“Hm?”
“Why did you and my daddy take over this place?”
He didn’t answer right away, he kept walking with eyes forward in focus.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I stepped over a low patch of uneven ground, adjusting my pace to match his. “You both were young when you got it. You could’ve sold it and got something else or done something else entirely. So why stay?”
He slowed slightly like the question made him think.
