“Like, go somewhere you mean?” He shakes his head and I relax. Thank God. The last thing I want to do is go into town and be around other people.
“No, here. Give me ten minutes to set everything up, and then meet me on the roof.”
With that, he leaves the loft and jogs down the stairs. I glance up at the ceiling. Meet him on theroof?
19
Nate
A stick cracksunder the hoof of my horse, startling a bird from the brush. I look over at Marcos, ready to grab his reins, but Friday does nothing more than bob her head and swivel her ears. I’d picked her for Marcos for a reason, but even so—accidents happen and I’m terrified of him being thrown off and getting hurt; being too scared to try again.
We’re walking through a section of the woods that’s wide enough for us to have the horses next to one another. Every now and then our legs bump and Marcos looks over at me, expression serious as he tries to concentrate. After several weeks of practice, he’s a lot more comfortable on horseback than he was, but still not at the point where we might go galloping across a meadow together. Maybe one day.
The sun slants through the trees, dappling the path ahead of us. It’s cooler here in the shade—a much more comfortable temperature than the unrelenting heat of riding across the open fields. Leaning down, I pull a water bottlefrom the saddlebag, take a swig, and offer it to Marcos. He starts to reach for it, but changes his mind halfway there. I pull my horse to a stop and Friday halts as well, without any direction from Marcos.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, taking the bottle from me and sipping. Friday chews on her bit, ducking her face to scratch an itch on her leg with her nose.
“No worries. You’re doing so good, sometimes I forget you’re new to this.”
He hands the water back to me, and I take another drink before tucking it away. Adjusting my seat, I reach out and pat the neck of my horse.
“You good for more, or do you want to hop down and stretch your legs?” I ask Marcos. I’m not taking him too far away, but this will still be the longest ride he’s done here. No amount of breaks is going to stop him from being sore, but it’ll keep him more comfortable now. He looks around.
“Is there somewhere you usually stop to rest?”
“A little way up ahead we’re going to cross a river. We could take a quick break there, and let the horses drink.”
He looks a little perturbed by the mention of crossing a river, but nods. “Let’s do that.”
When we get to the river—which, really, is more of a stream than anything—Marcos staggers a bit once his feet hit the ground, still a little shaky on the dismount. Gripping Friday’s reins tightly as though worried she’ll run off, he leads her over to the water and pats her shoulder as she lowers her head to drink. Tossing the reins over the pommel, I leave my own horse to drink and walk over to Marcos.
“Don’t you have to hold him?” he asks, glancing behind me.
“No, and you don’t either. They’re very well behaved.” Itug the reins gently from him, and loop them around the saddle horn. Friday continues to drink, unbothered.
“Wait a second, that’s not the horse you were riding yesterday,” Marcos notes, peering more intently at Chance. “Is it? All the brown ones are sort of hard to tell apart.”
“No, yesterday was Rattlesnake, one of our geldings. This guy is Chance.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “Didn’t make it as a racer, and he doesn’t quite have the pedigree for them to keep him as a stud. My uncle has a thing for failed racers, so he bought him on a whim; he’s actually turned out to be a pretty good pleasure horse. He’s chill as fuck, which probably explains why he wasn’t good at racing.”
“Chance? Nate, you guys really aren’t good at picking names.”
Laughing, I lean down as though to kiss him, but wait for him to close the distance. He does, so I give him a peck on the cheek as well.
“Second Chance Romance is his actual name, if you can believe it. Racehorse names are even dumber than our food names.”
“Truly,” Marcos agrees. “So why are you riding him for the camping trip? I thought you were trying to get the other one used to trail riding?”
“Yeah,” I agree, pleased that he remembered. “But this is your first time doing an overnight trip like this, and we’re going a lot farther from home. Chance and Friday are both super calm, and they’ll feed off each other’s energy. Snake, on the other hand, might get worked up, and then Friday could spook and?—”
“And you don’t want me to fall off,” he finishes. I nod.
“Everyone falls off eventually, but I’m on a mission to keep you nice and safe and pristine for as long as I can.” Armaround his shoulders, carefully avoiding skin, I pull him into my side and kiss the top of his head. He smells like fresh air, sun, and horse. Perfect. “Want a snack?”
“Sure,” he agrees. “Thank you.”
I head over to rummage around in Chance’s saddlebag, looking for a pair of granola bars. Behind me, rocks crunch under Marcos’ feet as he strolls aimlessly around, stretching his legs. Granola bars acquired, I turn around and just look at him for a moment. His hair always looks so dark when we’re indoors, but out here in the direct sunlight I can see the deep brown of it. His eyes, too, seem to change depending on the light. Anyone who says brown eyes are boring has obviously never looked into Marcos.’
I toss him a granola bar and we eat them silently, standing next to the water. I think about filling up the water bottle and using an iodine tablet, but there isn’t too much farther to go and we’ve still got plenty. Holding a hand out for his trash, I tuck it back into the saddlebag and smile at him.
