By Fault Read online

  Vince grinned. “I hope so too.”

  Though he really wanted his victory hug from Dustin, Vince let his teammates have theirs first. Even Greg wanted one. By the time the hugs and obligatory slaps on the back were over, it was time to head back into the arena for the award presentation. Finally Vince got to give Dustin the fierce hug he’d been waiting for, and followed it with a quick kiss on the cheek.

  Dustin smiled brightly at him. “I told you you could do it.”

  “Thank you,” Vince replied, then gave him one more quick kiss.

  “By the way,” Greg told them as they got ready to head back into the arena, “we’re all going out for drinks after this. And yes,” he added, glancing directly at Vince, “grooms included. My treat. Well, one round anyway.”

  Vince nodded to him with a smile. He was relieved that no one on his team objected to his relationship with Dustin, or if they did, they kept it to themselves. Riding with someone who openly disliked him would have been difficult. Hopefully, if he did make it into another team event, he’d luck out again. He assumed that his ability to ride Xander well and win would be more important than who he loved.

  He and Xander just had to keep winning.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IT HAD been almost a year since Vince had last had a night out. Jane had convinced him that Dustin needed to actually go out to celebrate his twenty-first birthday, though Vince hadn’t known what he was getting into when he agreed to the triple date with Jane and Scott, and Vince’s sister Mandy and her husband Jeff. They’d ended up at the only gay-friendly club Vince had ever heard of at home, where Vince was seriously outside his comfort zone. It had taken more drinks than Vince could remember before Dustin could even talk him into leaving their table for the dance floor. Clubs had never been his thing, and he was definitely not someone who tended to dance. Ever. Hell, Mandy was lucky he had danced with her at her wedding, and he only did it so Wes could have the Kodak Moment.

  But an upscale bar in an upscale town didn’t have much dancing, thankfully. It was a cozy place with a lot of polished wooden surfaces and more TVs than almost anything else, each on a seemingly different channel. Most of the channels appeared to be showing golf tournaments or general sports talk, but a few showed live horse racing from around the country and internationally.

  Both Mary and Max’s grooms had opted to stay at the stables and promised to check on Xander and Nick’s horse, Boston. That made their group seven people, and they had to push two tables together at the back of the room to accommodate them. Greg ordered appetizers and allowed everyone to order whatever drinks they wanted. Dustin had insisted on driving so Vince could celebrate, but Vince didn’t know what half of the drinks on the menu were. At least the place wasn’t too classy for beer.

  “So I got a funny question for you,” Max said, waving his hand to Vince and Dustin.

  Max had three and a half drinks in him by then, so Vince wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. But it certainly wasn’t what came next.

  “The whole being gay thing,” Max went on, still waving his hand around. “How does that work with horses? I mean, do you, you know, get like, horny when you see horse dicks?”

  Dustin choked on his water. Vince was too dumbfounded to say anything, so he just blinked at Max, who was apparently just realizing what he’d asked, based on how much more red his face got.

  Nick reached over and took Max’s drink. “I’m cutting you off.”

  “Hey!” Max complained. “I bought that one. And I really was curious.”

  Vince finally found words and pointed to Mary. “Ask her the same question.”

  “Don’t you dare, Maxwell,” Mary warned. “You better keep your ideas of bestiality to yourself.”

  “Please,” Greg added, running a hand over his face. “How old are you?”

  Max, looking rather ashamed of himself, glanced back at Vince and Dustin. “I’m sorry. Guess I shoulda stopped at two drinks.”

  Vince shook his head. “I try not to judge people by what they say when they’re drunk. Just don’t ask me when you’re sober.”

  Dustin nodded in agreement, then added, “But I’ll never be able to give Xander a bath again without laughing about this conversation.”

  Max laughed. “Glad I could amuse ya, I guess.”

  VINCE WAS happy to support the young rider team that was competing on Saturday. All he had to do was watch them train and introduce himself to them and their parents, just like the rest of his teammates did. The team consisted of two girls—Bethany and Taylor—and two guys—Ty and Kevin. All four were in their teens.

  They all seemed to be using the same trainer, and Vince didn’t like the guy at all. His name was Harold Becket. He had to be in his sixties and was more disrespectful than anyone Vince had ever met. The guy was one of the top trainers in the country, but he didn’t understand why people paid the guy money to treat them like shit. There was a difference between being a tough trainer and having no ounce of respect for students.

  The first issue was that he wouldn’t let the training session start until Bethany put her hair in a hairnet instead of just letting it be in a ponytail below her helmet. Then he berated her for making the session start late.

  “The hell is wrong with having a ponytail?” Vince asked Mary, who was standing at the arena fence beside him. “It’s not like they’re competing right now, and I’ve seen women ride without hairnets even in classes.”

  Mary shrugged. “In my opinion? This guy is just an asshole,” she declared, loudly enough for the rest of the people at the fence to hear, but not Harold, who was busy still chewing out the poor girl, who was clearly close to tears.

  Bethany’s parents looked over at them but didn’t say anything.

  “And if you’re going to cry like the little girl that you are,” Harold went on relentlessly, “get off that horse and don’t bother showing tonight.”

  Bethany nodded and squared her shoulders, visibly taking a deep breath.

  A short time later he dug into Ty when his horse refused a jump twice in a row. Both times the horse half reared and tossed its head repeatedly as soon as Ty started to circle it back around.

  “Get after him,” Harold ordered. “Don’t be such a weak-boned pansy and get him over that jump.”

  Ty yanked hard on the reins and shortened them, a look of determination on his face. On the third attempt Ty smacked his horse with the riding crop so hard that the sound of it seemed to carry for miles. The horse snorted and finally jumped, though he knocked down the top rail.

  Vince didn’t realize he had a death grip on the fence rail until Mary patted his arm.

  “I know how you feel,” she told him quietly. “I wish I had the balls to confront this guy.”

  “So do I,” Vince grumbled.

  At the close of the hour-long session, Harold brought the group back to the center of the arena for a final talk, and Vince’s patience reached its maximum when he heard what Harold had to say.

  He excused Ty and Kevin, then spoke briefly to the girls. “Now remember, you need to keep in riding form. I know there are a lot of tempting food vendors here, but if I catch you eating or drinking anything, you won’t be welcome back for any more lessons.”

  Both girls nodded and Vince squeezed the fence rail. It wasn’t a hot day, but it was warm enough that telling anyone not to drink or eat would be the dumbest thing to do. And the fact that he directed these words only to the two girls….

  “No one with any sense tells teenage girls not to eat. How fucking pathetic for a trainer to say something like that.”

  Vince had no idea just how loudly he was speaking until Harold turned around and looked right at him, expression stony.

  “The ignorant should keep their opinions to themselves.”

  “Ignorant?” Vince demanded.

  Mary grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the fence. “Ignore the bastard,” she told him, her voice quieter than his had been. “Let it go.”

&
nbsp; Vince turned his back on Harold but shook his head. “I’m not going to. Those boys weigh more than those two girls, I guarantee it. Hell, I weigh more than they do. The fuck does weight have to do with it?”

  Mary shook her head. “He’s Harold Becket. Everyone wants to make him happy. I’ve always thought he does lessons even though he hates kids because he wants to eye the girls, but I have no proof. He always makes comments like that about weight and appearances. He never cares about the guys. I’m sure if a guy rode into one of his sessions in Elmo pajamas he wouldn’t care. But a girl without a flawless, tight outfit and perfect hair? She’d better think twice.”

  Vince glanced back at the arena, but Harold was already leaving, not giving Vince another moment of his attention. When he turned back around, Vince found Bethany’s parents standing in front of him.

  “We overheard your comments,” the mother explained. “Are you taking on students?”

  It took a moment for Vince to process the question. “Not really at the moment, but I’m seriously considering it when I head home at the end of this series. I’m based in upstate New York.”

  The mother’s face fell. “We wouldn’t be able to afford to send her that far from home. We live close to here.”

  Vince once again found himself really wanting to help. “Is she boarding at the trainer’s barn?”

  The father shook his head. “He comes to work with her every month. That’s all we can afford. Her main trainer at the show barn watches those lessons and tries to keep her on the path he set for her.”

  “I can try to help when I’m here, for the next few weeks, if that’s okay with you.”

  The mother smiled. “That would be great. Anything to get her away from that vile bastard. I don’t like what he’s done to her one bit.”

  “What did he do?”

  The mother shook her head and looked away, but the father spoke quietly. “For the last year she’s hardly been eating. Only fruits and vegetables, and she only drinks water. And she spends a lot of extra time in the bathroom. Sometimes it’s obvious that she’s making herself throw up, especially if she eats anything different from her usual diet. He’s so obsessed with the girls being a certain size, and she takes him seriously.”

  “Can I talk to her?” Vince didn’t know what he could do, but he wanted to try.

  They nodded and motioned for Vince to walk with them. Vince sent Dustin a quick text as he walked so he knew where Vince was when he didn’t come right back from the training arena.

  When they reached the barn they found Bethany and Taylor talking in front of one of the stalls.

  “Beth,” her mother began, “I have someone who wants to talk to you.”

  Bethany looked a little flustered when she realized who her mother was talking about. Taylor started to move away, but Vince stopped her.

  “You might need to hear what I say too.” When she moved back to Bethany’s side, he went on, “I wanted you to know that you shouldn’t listen to everything Harold tells you. About riding, yes, he’s basically an expert and you should respect his comments. But not about anything else, especially not about your health. He’s not a doctor. He only wants to make sure everyone he trains meets some ridiculous standard of his.”

  Both girls were looking rather uncomfortable, so he decided to be more clear. “You need to eat and you need to drink. It’s too warm here not to stay hydrated. And it’s a career death sentence not to eat. I’m not a doctor either, but I know that if you don’t put the nutrients into your body that you need, it’s easier to get injured if you have a fall. Weight doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have the strength, flexibility, and endurance to ride well. If you don’t eat enough, you won’t have any of that either. You need to be fit, not skinny. And you can be skinny, as long as you’re fit. Looking at you, I’d say I definitely weigh more, and you know how well I usually do.”

  “But if he catches us, we can’t ride with him anymore,” Taylor reminded him.

  Vince shook his head. “Is training with one trainer worth possibly causing long-term, avoidable damage to your body? Where do you ride?”

  “I ride with Beth, just a little ways down the road.”

  “Well, I agreed to help Bethany, so I could help you if you’d like.” He saw both pairs of eyes widen and quickly added, “I’m not a professional coach and I won’t pretend to be. But I know how to ride and I can see what other riders are doing wrong when they are having issues. I can’t do anything long-term for you guys, unless you want to come up to New York, but I can help you once a week while I’m down here.”

  “I don’t know if my dad can afford to pay for more than one lesson a month,” Taylor replied, looking a little disappointed. “Not when he pays for all my shows too.”

  Vince smiled. “I’m not doing this for the money. I’m doing it to help. And because I couldn’t stand the way he treated you guys. I’ll charge a fraction of what he does, and I’ll work it out with your dad if that’s what you want.”

  Bethany and Taylor looked at each other, then broke into bright smiles.

  “Awesome!” Bethany nearly shrieked.

  Part of him hoped he wasn’t breaking some sort of trainer code about stealing students, but he really didn’t care. This was the right thing to do.

  IT WAS a pretty successful day, in Vince’s opinion. He’d given Bethany and Taylor his cell phone number and they had texted him to let him know they had managed to sneak some food in the one place Harold Becket couldn’t follow them: the women’s bathroom. Vince had told Dustin all about the conversation he’d had with them and about the training session he’d watched, and Dustin had convinced him to speak to the two guys too. But their parents declined the offer with barely concealed distaste. Even without them saying anything, he had a feeling they turned him down so their sons wouldn’t catch the terribly contagious and deadly disease called “being gay.”

  He also managed to buy a pony for Hunter. They had looked at several ponies before they found the one Vince considered perfect. It was a chestnut sport pony gelding named Cody. The owner agreed to take Cody back to her barn until the end of the show in a month—after Vince had written her a check for the full asking price—and gave him the address so they could pick the pony up on their way back home. Vince made sure he signed paperwork making him the legal owner before he handed over the check, just to be certain Cody didn’t get sold to someone else in the meantime to make the owner double the money. He had heard enough horse-buying horror stories to know to cover his ass. Especially when the price wasn’t cheap.

  And, to top everything off, Team USA won again that night with the junior riders. Vince and Dustin watched from the stands with Nick, Max, and Mary, and at the end of the night Vince and his teammates got wrangled into a photo session with the junior team. Luckily, they had all worn the team windbreakers they had been given.

  By the time Vince finally got back to the trailer with Dustin, it was almost midnight. They had to be up at six, which didn’t leave them much time to actually sleep after their usual nightly showers—thanks to the size of the trailer’s shower, trying to save time by showering together wouldn’t work.

  Despite this, Dustin pressed Vince into a rather intense kiss as soon as they were inside.

  “Two nights in a row?” Vince asked when he managed to pull away. Even when he repeatedly won, Dustin didn’t come on to him every night. Whether it was because he was respecting what Vince had finally told him about deciding he was asexual, or it was because he was still getting over trauma from life on the streets, Vince didn’t care to ask.

  Dustin took a step back. “If it’s not okay, that’s fine,” he said quickly. A bit of the desire in his green eyes faded.

  Vince pulled him back. “I’ve told you, I’ll never turn down the chance to be as close to you as possible. Almost never,” he amended, not wanting to make a promise he might not keep for certain.

  Dustin smiled before resuming the kiss. He used one hand to cup the bac
k of Vince’s head and the other to unzip Vince’s jacket.

  “It’s how you stepped in to help those girls,” Dustin finally explained, breathing against Vince’s neck. “You didn’t even know them and you had no reason to care, but you did.” He slipped his hand under Vince’s shirt and ran it down Vince’s side. “You’re a fucking incredible person and you’re basically famous now and you’re not a stuck-up prick. And you’re my boyfriend. How the fuck did I get this lucky?”

  Vince slipped his hands under Dustin’s shirt to caress his back. “How did I get so lucky? I fucking love you.”

  Dustin lifted his head and gave Vince a playful smile. “Oh yeah? I think I need some proof of that.”

  Vince laughed and kissed Dustin again. “I’ll gladly give it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  DUSTIN FELL asleep before Vince, and Vince stealthily did exactly what Dustin had done to him several times now and changed the alarm settings on Dustin’s phone. Vince made himself get up at six, moving slowly out of bed in an attempt to not wake Dustin.

  He was sitting on his tack box cleaning his saddle outside Xander’s stall almost three hours later when Dustin appeared with coffee. Vince accepted the offered thermos with a word of thanks and tried to ignore Dustin’s slightly annoyed expression.

  “Why did you let me sleep when you have to compete this afternoon?” Dustin questioned.

  Vince reached out and gently gripped Dustin’s hand. “Because you do a lot for me and I thought letting you sleep in for once would be a minor way to say thank you.”

  Dustin smiled sweetly. “You’re welcome.”

  VINCE DIDN’T expect the lack of sleep to really impact him at all, but it did. And at the worst time too.

  He had no problem remembering the order of the jumps for his class, but he wasn’t sure he had the jump-off course memorized by the time he finished the course walk. In the end he didn’t need to know it.