Pas de deux

by E. J. Noyes

  “Only when no one’s paying attention to him. I’m sure you’ve noticed how much he loves people and he just doesn’t grasp the concept that humans can’t spend every minute interacting with him.” I flicked the thick muscle of his neck and received an attempt at mouthing my belt in response. “In addition to thinking he’s the center of the universe, he’s also a huge narcissist. Have you seen him when he hears a camera shutter go off? It’s like he turns into a Vogue model.”

  “Well if I was as good lookin’ as— uh, him, I’d probably have a touch of narcissism too.” Addie cleared her throat and pulled a small bag of peppermint Life Savers from a pocket. She gave one to Dewey, who crunched it enthusiastically while nudging her for another, then popped one in her own mouth.

  I shook my head when she offered me one, as she did every time she gave Dew a peppermint. “Hold up a minute.” I fished my phone from my pocket. “Do you mind if I take a photo?”

  “Of course not.”

  Laughing, I amended, “A photo that will be on my social media page.”

  Addie grinned. “Same answer.”

  “Great. And sorry, but trying to keep everyone happy and engaged is kind of a constant job.”

  “I get it. Now how do you want me?”

  “Exactly as you are,” I said, and could hear an underlying wistfulness that I hoped she didn’t catch. For crying out loud. When did I turn into a romance sap?

  Addie leaned against Dewey’s neck, smiling hugely as she held up the bag of peppermints and the thermometer that was always in her breast pocket. I clicked my tongue until Dew’s ears flicked forward, then snapped the photo. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I tried to ignore the nuance of that statement and wrote out a quick social media post.

  The US Dressage Team veterinarian Dr. Addie Gardner making sure Midfields Adieu is at his best, with a treat to make the not nice stuff better.

  I added my usual hashtags then linked the picture to my social media accounts. While I’d been playing publicity person, Addie had started playing with Dew who was trying his hardest to get her fingers into his mouth. I knew she’d figured out by now that he wasn’t bitey so much as mouthy so I didn’t feel my usual need to defend him and tell someone he was just playing around. She seemed oblivious to my scrutiny.

  Dew’s ears were pricked, his eyes bright as Addie kept twinkling her fingers against his lower lip. She let him win a few, sacrificing slobbery fingers to keep him happy. She’d poke his nose, wobble his lower lip, gently pinch some of his nose and then laugh when he managed to lip at her fingers. My horse was happy as a clam, playing one of his favorite games with a willing and enthusiastic participant.

  Addie laughed. “Ah! You got me. I need my fingers back, please. Yep, you got ’em! Now you don’t. Nope. Nope. Yep!” She laughed again, the sound rich and filling the space. She had an amazing laugh, loud and unashamed, as if laughing were like oxygen for her. Addie offered Dewey another Life Saver. “Last one. Sugar free or not, nobody needs that many peppermints.” She fished another one from the bag, popped it into her mouth then kissed the side of his nose. Addie seemed to finally register that I was watching, and turned to me, leaning against Dewey’s shoulder. “He’s such a hilarious goofball. Like you can tell that he’s just having such a great time and there’s no malice in him at all.”

  “Nope, not a bit. There’s very few people he’s met that he didn’t like, but he really adores you.”

  “I am pretty adorable.” That grin again, cheeky and dimpled, made my stomach tighten.

  My automatic response fell from my mouth. “That you are.” The moment I said those three words, I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth, scrabble in the air to take them back. Not because they weren’t true, but because I was afraid to let her hear my confession.

  The grin turned to a slow smile of pleasure. “How about another selfie?”

  “For your social media?”

  “I don’t really use social media, except to see what other people are doing.” She winked. “This one is for me.” Addie positioned herself on the other side of Dewey, holding her phone out.

  Dew nudged it with his nose and as he smeared Dew-snot on the screen, I shuffled in on his other side. Addie ducked under his neck, popping up barely two inches from me. “My arm’s too short. Can you take it?”

  “Sure.” I managed to ignore the thud of my heart in response to her proximity. Addie ducked back to the other side and leaned in to kiss the side of Dewey’s nose while I did the same on my side. Dew yawned—oh the boredom of being photographed—and I quickly snapped some photos.

  Dewey raised his head and moved away to make friends with his hay feeder, leaving Addie and I in the same position but without a horse between us. I turned my head slowly, simultaneously hoping I wasn’t going to bump into her mouth and then being disappointed when I didn’t. My heart hammered and my mouth was so dry I wouldn’t have been able to speak, even if I’d been able to think of what to say.

  “This is like Lady and the Tramp,” Addie blurted. “But with a horse instead of spaghetti.”

  “Lady and the Tramp?” I raised my eyebrows. “And which one am I?”

  She exhaled a shaky laugh and backed up so we weren’t inches from each other. But she was still so close I could smell the peppermint. Still so close that all it would take was the slightest movement and I could press my lips to hers, kiss her long and deep until we were both gasping for air. The corners of Addie’s mouth turned up. “That’s a question that doesn’t have a correct answer, so I’m pleading the fifth.” There was a hint of pink dusting her cheeks and neck.

  I moved forward into the space Dew had vacated. “Really? No witty pun or comeback?” The low husky intimacy of my voice didn’t surprise me at all. What did surprise me was the sudden intensity of my feelings.

  Addie’s eyes widened and I heard the crunch as she bit the peppermint. Dew’s ears pricked and he abandoned his hay to snuffle her neck. Lucky. Addie pushed him away and I could see her nervous swallow. After an eternity she said, “No. I can’t think of anything to say.”

  “I can think of plenty I want to say to you,” I murmured, reaching for her. She didn’t resist when I pulled her toward me.

  But she did hesitate. “Caitlyn, about what I said yesterday morning. That admission. I don’t want it to make things weird between us.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Like an expectation, you know like oh hey we’re both into ladies and here we are together…”

  “No? What if I’m okay with an expectation?” This was so not a good idea. Actually, it was a great idea but perhaps not in our current location. I glanced around, noting nobody was around and that we also had a horse to shield us from outside view.

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh. Well in that case…”

  If we were quick, we could— I dismissed the idea. I didn’t want to be quick. I wanted to be indulgent. Addie stood utterly still, eyes locked with mine, and her expression of want and acceptance broke the last of my resolve. I couldn’t help myself, I had to touch her. She didn’t move when I brought my hand up to touch her face, lightly stroking my fingertips along the line of her jaw. She didn’t move when my thumb brushed the edge of her mouth.

  But she did move when Wren’s voice boomed from behind us. “Hey, that’s where you are.” I damned well moved too, cursing Wren under my breath as Addie and I jumped apart. My groom had the worst timing. She leaned over the stall door, her gaze moving between both of us. “Sorry, was I interrupting a…consult?” The question was sly, knowing, and she had her teeth in her lower lip as if forcibly restraining herself from saying anything further. Judging by the lip twitching, she was barely restraining a manic grin.

  Addie’s composure was admirable. She offered a smooth, “Not at all. I’m all done.” She turned to me, her expression its usual calm, friendly one but with an underlying helplessness. “Hooves look great. No heat in any limbs and vitals are spot on as usual. He gets an
A-plus.”

  All I could do was nod and mumble, “Great, thanks.”

  “I’ll catch you both later.” Addie slipped out of the stall, and Wren slipped in.

  The moment she’d latched lower half-door, Wren spun around. “Holy shit. You two looked like you were about to devour each other.”

  “Mmm. Thanks for the interruption by the way.”

  Both hands came up, and her face melted from manic to conciliatory. “I’m so sorry, I’d already spoken before I realized I was interrupting whatever that was.”

  “I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what’s going on. If anything actually is.” It’d happened so quickly, been so unexpected that I hadn’t thought. Just acted.

  “Seems to me like something is going on. And anyone with eyes who’s paying attention to you two would agree.”

  “Great. So it’s totally obvious that I’m—” I broke off, not even knowing what I was, aside from acting like someone with a very neglected libido. “How can I go from being totally not friends to wanting to jump her bones?”

  “Because Addie is great? And you’re allowed to change your mind, Caitlyn. There’s no rule stating that you gotta hang on to feelings just because you think you should.”

  I knew there was nothing wrong with upending long held notions, but this all felt sudden and confusing. “I know that. But why and how? Because she’s nice to my horse and nice to me, all of a sudden I want us to be…” I trailed off, not even knowing exactly what I wanted to happen between us.

  “Well why not? Isn’t that as good a reason as any?” She leaned against the stall wall. “What are you holding on to? Has she apologized for back then?”

  “Yes, and I believe her, and I think I’ve let it all go. I just don’t need this right now.”

  “Friendship?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean it’s just—” After a long pause I mumbled, “My stupid libido. She’s super cute, all right? She’s fun and funny and I like the way I feel when I’m around her, but the timing is awful and even if it wasn’t I have no idea how we could sustain anything back home.” Because of course my brain had gone there—I wasn’t the fling type and the idea of me and Addie just having some fun and saying see you later wasn’t something that interested me. “We live in different states and are both so ridiculously busy we barely manage our lives now. I need to put a lid on this or I’m going to lose all my focus because of a woman.”

  “You have the best focus of anyone I know. I don’t think an attraction is going to get in the way of anything.” The panic I felt at her use of attraction apparently wasn’t as hidden as I’d have liked it to be. Wren laughed. “Yes, Caitlyn. Attraction. I’ve been watching you two make googly eyes at each other for weeks now. And I have never seen you so relaxed with someone so quickly.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said airily and not at all convincingly.

  “Right.” Wren sighed. “You two are either completely oblivious or just masters of trying to ignore the fucking obvious.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Addie

  The whole team of riders, horses, grooms, management, and me had moved to a dressage-competition facility in Den Bosch, an hour outside of Rotterdam, for four weeks of training and team cohesion stuff before we left for Brazil. The venue was set up for long-term accommodation with small modular cabins in a row beside the horse stalls for those of us who didn’t have huge horse trucks with living quarters that rivaled a four-star hotel.

  My cabin was closest to the stalls, which was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing—close to the things I had to check on at all hours. Curse—everyone passed by on their way to the horses, and some of them didn’t know the meaning of “Let the vet have an hour off the clock unless your horse is injured or dying.”

  While the others rarely troubled me and the only time I saw them was during my daily checks, Dakota Turner had quickly become the most demanding member of the team, stretching both my personal and professional patience to its limits. Not only did she manage to find me when I was working with other horses, but she’d developed a habit of knocking on my door to impart her opinions.

  By the start of the third week everyone had settled in, the horses were working well and I’d managed to control my rampant thoughts about Caitlyn so they only occupied about twenty percent of my waking hours. Most of that twenty percent was thinking about our very-almost-a-kiss. How she’d pulled me toward her. The way she’d cupped my face, the slow caress of her thumb over my lips. And, of course, what might have happened if we hadn’t been interrupted. That thought had kept me awake every night since it’d happened and if my soft arousal each morning was any indication—I’d probably been dreaming about it too.

  The team had a meeting that didn’t require my attendance, so with nothing on the agenda for the afternoon, I drove into town to do some shopping. Thanks to Google I’d found the two stores I wanted: a boutique to buy a dress and a pet supplies store. The last thing I’d expected to need in the Netherlands were either of those two things, but here we were.

  The dress was for a team dinner at some fancy restaurant before we left for Rio, which I would have loved to have known about earlier so I could have packed a suitable outfit. Scrolling through various websites, I’d picked two dresses I thought might suit and sent a quick email to the boutique asking nicely if they’d hold them in my size. I was in the door and out again with a dress, clutch, jewelry and pair of matching shoes in twenty minutes. If only all clothes shopping was so easy. The pet store visit was just as smooth, and even after stopping for groceries and wine I was back at the dressage facility in less than two hours.

  Judging by the people exiting the building, my timing was perfect. Caitlyn was heading toward the stalls, her face a mask of concentration. When she spotted me pulling bags from the car, she came over right away. “Hey. I wondered where you were.”

  “Hey yourself. I had some errands to run. How’s everything?”

  “All fine, just getting the dos and don’ts for Rio.” With a smile she added, “There are a lot of don’ts.”

  “Oh? I might need you to be my Rio mentor then if you’ve now got all the inside information. Far more interestin’ than reading my vet’s information packet.”

  “Consider yourself mentored.” Caitlyn pointed a thumb behind herself, in the direction of the stalls. “I’m just going to check Dewey. We think he’s spiraled deep into cat withdrawals without Poffertje. With any luck some super friendly stray will come along and he can have a pal.” She grinned. “It would be super irresponsible to go pick up a cat from a shelter for him, right?”

  “Super irresponsible,” I echoed.

  “You want to come with me to break the news of no cat to him?”

  “I can do better than that.” I fumbled with the bags until I found the right one. “Here.”

  Caitlyn took the bag, holding it up as if she could see through the paper. “What’s this?”

  “A gift.”

  “Oh, thank you. I wasn’t expecting anything.” She dipped her hand into the bag and withdrew a dog toy. Her eyebrows creased together as she studied the item. “Um, thanks. It’s…great.” The forced politeness of her reaction was adorable.

  Time to put her out of her misery. “It’s not actually for you.” I took it from her, tugging the rubber handles at both ends of the black and white cat. Or cat-ish. Given the toy was made of rubber, the shape was a little indeterminate. “It’s for Dewey. Apparently robust enough to withstand even the chewiest of dog jaws, and no fluff or anything to cause trouble. Big enough that he can’t swallow it, and no squeaker inside to cause a noise complaint. Perfect toy for a bored equine. I mean it’s not a real cat, obviously but I thought it might be a decent stand-in.”

  Caitlyn laughed. “Well now I feel really stupid.” She turned the toy over in her hands. “So you went out shopping, and you thought of us?”

  “I did. Just a little something I thought Dewey might like. Wren me
ntioned yesterday he’s started trying to get hold of the blanket buckles at his chest while in his stall, so I thought a toy might help keep that mouth busy when it doesn’t have bits in it.”

  “That’s so sweet and thoughtful. I love that you got Dew something. He’s going to love it. He loves anything he’s allowed to put in his mouth,” she added, as if sensing I was about to ask how she knew.

  “Great. Anything that keeps him happy makes me happy.”

  “Same,” Caitlyn said quietly. Her expression turned inward for a moment before she seemed to remember I was there. She smiled, but it was an automatic kind of smile, as if her brain had triggered a cue for Social interaction, smile!

  I touched her arm and felt the muscle tense under my hand. “What is it?”

  “I…” She paused, swiped her tongue along her lower lip. “Uh, should probably go give this to him.”

  “No problem.”

  Caitlyn held up the cat. “Thanks for this. I’ll let you know how it goes.” She walked away, swinging the cat by a handle. I stared after her for a few moments then turned back to my shopping haul.

  Dakota’s knock and call of, “Addison?” at seven p.m. while I was preparing dinner added another straw to my metaphorical camel’s back. I cringed internally at the sound of my full name. She was the only rider who did it and I had no idea why the shortened version, which I’d cheerfully and repeatedly said she could call me, was so offensive to her.

  I opened the door a crack, not wanting her to see into my personal space which was admittedly a mess of partially unpacked clothes, folders and laptop resting on top of my unmade bed, tablet beside the stove and yet-to-be-washed dishes. In the dim light I could see she was, as usual, fully made up and dressed not in riding gear, but as if she were about to hit the clubs.

  I offered a friendly, “Hi.” Nothing more, nothing less. It was up to her to tell me why she needed me.

  “Addison,” she said again. “Can you please check Pierre’s temperature? I’m not sure the previous reading was correct.”