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I felt like I was meeting the parents. That’s how serious she was.
I nodded. “Lead the way.”
She ambled along in spite of the soreness and Rick flashed me the biggest smile over his shoulder. His smile saidI love you.It also saidwin. Seems he wanted to meet the horse as much as she wanted to introduce him.
We trudged past a stable block and I can’t say I was all that impressed. Rough around the edges was putting it kindly. It was the kind of dirty you get from age, mud and lack of funds, not from lack of care. The roof looked as though it was a bodge job, and some of the doors looked about to fall off. Then there was mud, a lot of mud, and there’d been rain here, enough that I feared for my shoes. She trooped on regardless of care for her pumps, and led us through a wood-chipped dressage ring that was missing a couple of sections of fencing, until she stopped, at a gate, and there were open fields beyond.
I scanned the pasture and there were a couple of horse-shaped dots in the distance. I was trying to guess which one was hers when she surprised me.
Sweet little Katie put her hands around her mouth and she bellowed.
“Samsonnnnnnnnnn.”
It was quite a volume.
She stepped up onto the bottom bar of the gate and did it again, and I was about to suggest we just walk on down the field and catch the beast as I presumed most horse owners needed to do when there was a rumble of hooves, thumping up the grass at some pace. I stepped away from the gate on instinct, and so did Rick, and the horse came into view, charging up the bank at reckless speed. Katie leaned over regardless, holding out her arms and calling his name, and I nearly grabbed her, nearly pulled her back and out of harm’s way before the hairy brute ploughed into her, but he didn’t. He pulled to an instant halt, and he was all snorts, and nudging. His big furry head was over the fence, butting her in a way that I can onlyassume was affectionate, and she was giggling, happy.
“This is Samson,” she said, like an introduction was necessary. “This is my big baby boy.”
He was a big fucking boy. A huge black beast with a white stripe down his face. She kissed his nose, and reached up to scratch his ears, and Rick scratched his ears, too.
“Come see him, Carl,” she said. “He’s friendly.”
But the beast didn’t like me. Not all that much. I stepped forward and I was tense, and wary of him, and he was wary of me. He eyeballed me, then flinched, taking a step back and snorting like a fucking dragon.
“Steady,” she said to him. “Hey, boy, steady.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I said.
“He will,” she laughed. “He’s just nervous of you. You must be… tense.”
“Tense?”
“They pick up on body language,” she said. “Energy, emotion, fear, anger. Whatever. They pick up on everything.”
“You’re too fucking stiff,” Rick laughed. “You’re not at the office now, you know. You need to loosen up, chillax. Let it all hang out.”
I beckoned to the horse, tried to keep my tone light, but he’d have none of it. He didn’t care for me at all.
I felt strangely disappointed.
“Never mind,” Katie said. “He’ll get used to you.” She realised what she’d said and her eyes widened. “If you come back, I mean.”
“We’ll be back,” Rick said. “Won’t we, Carl?”
Two sets of eyes on me, looking to me, looking for answers to a question I couldn’t answer. Not really.
“Sure,” I said. I started walking back the way we came. “Now let’s get shovelling this fucking horseshit before I change my mind.”
I should’ve gone home. I meantechnicallyI’m only theirs for the weekend, and Sunday night was in the realms of overtime, surplus to the requirements of our arrangement. But I stayed.
I stayed because I wanted to, because they offered, because I liked them.
Both of them.
I stayed because I wanted to fall asleep between two hot bodies again. I stayed because, despite the fact I could still feel the ache of the pounding I’d taken the night before, I wanted them again.
I wanted them so much I was a sticky hot mess.
