“Ugh.” I made a face. “Right, so I’m at a show one day. It’s fucking cold, it’s fuckingraining, and it’s fuckingmiserable. I wasn’t in the mood for it. My horse wasn’t in the mood for it. I’m pretty sure the judge wanted to bail by lunch.”
Eric grimaced. “God, I can imagine. I’ve been out on the trails when a storm started. Not fun.”
“Seriously. But my trainer insisted, so…” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I’m doing my test, and it’s going… I mean, it wasn’t bad? It was just training level, so nothing super complicated, and my horse and I could pretty much do it in our sleep.”
“Just cold, wet, and miserable?”
“And boring. Don’t forget boring.”
He just chuckled.
“Anyway, we’re almost to the end of the test, and it’s gone okay. Transitions between gaits could’ve been smoother, and one of our circles was more like a wildly asymmetrical polygon, but…” I half-shrugged. “Whatever. At the end of the test, you come down the centerline toward the judge, halt, and salute. Easiest part, and it means the test is fuckingover.”
Eric grimaced again. “But…?”
“But… I was extra relieved to be done with this test, so I relaxed a bit more than I should have. Which my trainer told me later shewasgoing to ream me out for, but thenjustbefore we halted, there’s this huge clap of thunder.”
“Oh no…”
“Yeah. So one second, I’m in ‘thank God this is almost over’ mode, and the next, I’m on my ass in the mud while my horse is like”—I mock-saluted—“peace out!”
Eric howled with laughter. “Oh, shit! That sucks!”
“Right?” I grinned. “Lucky for me, though, I only had one pair of white breeches. And now that they—along with my jacket—were covered in mud and there was no way to clean it that day, I was off the hook for my other two tests.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you and your horse plan that?”
“Yes. Yes, we totally did. I called the god of thunder and asked for a favor.” I gave Eric the finger, which just made him laugh again.
“I assume you were okay, though, right?” He was still smiling, so I doubted he was actually concerned.
“Yeah, I was fine. Falling in the muddy arena was a lot less painful than getting tossed into a jump, so… I’ll take it.”
He shuddered. “That still sounds—ugh, no. I’ll stick with riding andnotjumping, thanks.”
“Chickenshit.”
That gotmethe finger, and I chuckled as I brought up my coffee for another sip.
“So did she make you bring extra breeches to dressage shows after that?” Eric asked. “In case you tried to use the mud as an excuse to skip another test?”
“Pfft. No. She said if it happened again, I’d ride my next test in wet, muddy breeches and like it.”
“Wow.” He guffawed. “Your trainer sounded mean!”
“Aren’t they all?”
He quirked his lips, then nodded. “Yeah, good point. Mine wasn’t so bad, but my sister’s?” He whistled. “Pretty sure he was a drill sergeant in a past life.”
“Sounds about right. Hand to God, mine used push-ups to enforce the rules.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. She said she was tired of not getting through to people. So, she’d give you two warnings, and then she’d make you dismount right there in the arena and do five push-ups. Do it again, twenty push-ups.”
Fighting a losing battle against a grin, Eric asked, “You had to do push-ups in the dirt a few times, didn’t you?”
“What?” I put a hand to my chest. “Me?”
