By Heart Page 3

  The first show was fairly close—only a six-hour drive from Anderson Stables. Vince had expected to be traveling all over the country, but it appeared the competitions he needed to do well in were all on the East Coast. He wasn’t sure if others from other parts of the country had to travel that far, or if they were all told to enter competitions close to their home barns.

  The show wasn’t one that had been set up specifically for testing the Olympic short list riders, which was something Vince was told from the start. It was just a typical Grand Prix show with horse and rider pairs from all over the country, and some from outside the country too. No one introduced themselves to him as Olympic team selectors—not that he knew how they even observed the competitions. Maybe whoever chose the team watched from home, for all he knew.

  So Vince went about the show like he did any other. They arrived Thursday night and slept in the trailer’s living compartment after making Xander comfortable in the temporary barn. Vince then spent Friday working with Xander in the schooling arena. He had plenty of people watching him, but he had gotten used to that since he learned he had fans. And because his mom raised him to always appreciate what he had, he made sure to acknowledge the people who wanted to see him. He wasn’t going to be known as the rude guy or a show snob. He wanted to encourage those fans who were also riders to keep working to get as far as they wanted to go in the sport.

  On Saturday Vince had Xander ready to compete. Xander seemed to know it was a show day, because he was extra alert and eager in the warm-up ring. Vince had learned years ago that Xander loved to compete, and he realized it because of this behavior from Xander when it came time to do so.

  Vince did see a few people he recognized from previous shows, including one of the other riders he had been on a team with during two Winter Equestrian Festivals.

  “I was very happy to see your name on the short list,” Mary Renolds told him with a genuine smile. “You deserve it.”

  Vince returned her smile. “I saw your name on it too, and I say you also deserve it.”

  Mary waved him off. “Well, I’ve been there. I love the Olympics. Or I loved London, at least. That is all I’ve made. I’m not sure how I feel about South America yet. They have weird insects down there.”

  Vince snorted. “So does Florida.”

  Mary laughed. “That’s for damn sure. Anyway, good luck.”

  “You too.”

  Vince loved competing. He loved the atmosphere of shows, the bustle of riders, horses, grooms, and parents there to support their children who were competing. He loved the crackle of speakers as announcers welcomed riders into the arena and declared scores. He even loved the smell of horses, leather, hay, and the mingling aromas of food when the wind blew just right from the area of the vendors. And the hum of conversation sprinkled with bits of laughter and broken by periodic barks from dogs and calls of horses.

  When he rode, he loved the feel of the powerful animal beneath him, feeding off their surroundings to jump with seemingly little effort and much grace. He loved the rise and fall of Xander’s ground-eating gallop that carried them from jump to jump, where they soared with invisible wings over each obstacle. They moved, thought, and acted as one—not as rider and horse, but as an effortless unit brought together through years of trust and training. They were partners, but they were each a piece of a single being, two hearts but one soul.

  Their victory was almost easy.

  “SO I’VE been meaning to give you my update for the last few days,” Dustin commented that night while they were getting settled into bed, with Tally at their feet.

  “What’s up?” Vince asked, concerned. They didn’t usually keep important things from each other.

  Dustin took a deep breath and reached for Vince’s hand. Vince immediately responded and held on firmly, hoping to give Dustin the courage to talk about whatever was clearly bothering him. He tried to remind Dustin without words that they could be open with each other, that whatever Dustin needed to talk about would be okay.

  “Apparently Eve got Mom away from Dad,” Dustin explained in a rush, almost as if he wanted the words out and done with. “I told you how he found a new Baptist church more in line with his strict beliefs after the Catholic church I was raised with shut him out for putting me on the streets. Well, Mom refused to go with him to his new church gatherings. At first he knocked her around to try to force her, but when he asked the leader of the church—I don’t even know or care if they are priests or pastors or what—what he should do to bring her to the light, the guy told him to leave her, that she was clearly tainted by the devil. He should cast her out and take a new wife, who happens to be the leader’s eighteen-year-old daughter. So Eve brought Mom to stay with her and is planning to get her a divorce lawyer. They’re hoping he’ll just sign the papers without an issue and get remarried. Mom isn’t going to ask for anything at all, Eve said, to make it easier.”

  “That’s insane,” Vince declared. He’d always known Dustin’s dad was abusive and threw Dustin out of the house at only seventeen for being gay. The bastard used God and Jesus as an excuse to be a shitty father. It was only recently, when Dustin reconnected with his sister and was given a letter from his mother, that the reality was made more clear. Dustin’s mom was also a victim, especially after doing her best to protect her children. Eve had been trying to get her out of the situation, but she had little luck despite their mother wanting to leave after finding out her son was alive and well. Her abusive husband had not loosened his hold on her until now.

  “Yeah,” Dustin agreed. “I hope Eve can help her get back on her feet.”

  “Are you planning on seeing her?” Vince asked gently.

  Dustin shrugged. “Eve hasn’t mentioned her asking yet. She asks about me all the time, but she hasn’t asked to see me. And I don’t know how I would feel if she did. I’m still afraid she might not approve of me being gay, even if she didn’t approve of how he treated me when they found out.”

  Vince nodded. “I understand. We’ll have to wait and see. And I support you, no matter what happens and what you decide.”

  Dustin smiled weakly at him. “Thank you.”

  Vince pulled him into a close embrace and kissed him lightly. “Anything for you.”

  Chapter Five

  THE NEXT show two weeks later went pretty well too. Vince once again ran into Mary Renolds, but that was ruined by his encounter with a man named Harold Becket. The guy was a trainer who officially held a grudge against Vince since finding out about Vince giving lessons to two of his students over a year ago. Once Vince left Florida after his first year at the Winter Equestrian Festival, the two girls went back to Harold for training because there wasn’t anyone else their parents would pay for them to ride with. As much as that bothered Vince, he understood. They wanted to be successful, and not just any trainer could get them there. They needed someone with more experience.

  “Looks like the faggot got in Greg Dugan’s pants.”

  Vince was walking from the officials’ tent after checking in at the show. He spared a glance at the group standing by the practice arena. Harold Becket was standing with a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy. The boy looked away from Vince, but the adults were watching him with less-than-friendly expressions.

  “Don’t let him anywhere near your son,” Harold went on to the parents, never taking his eyes from Vince. “He would give him riding lessons of a different sort. That’s how he got himself on the Olympic short list. He sure didn’t do it honestly.”

  Vince felt his hands start to clench, but he stopped the reaction with effort. Instead of fighting, he merely rolled his eyes and kept walking. If Harold or the parents said anything, he tuned it out. It wasn’t worth it. Harold was clearly trying to get a reaction out of him, and Vince wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

  So Vince focused his attention on planning for the competition and on greeting the people who genuinely cared about him. That included Dustin, whom he found sitti
ng on a tack box outside Xander’s stall. He was busy doing something on his laptop, and Vince sat down quietly beside him.

  “Live blogging my show as usual?” Vince asked casually, recognizing Dustin’s account on the screen.

  “Of course,” Dustin replied. He turned and kissed Vince lightly, not bothering to see if anyone was watching.

  Vince was glad about that. He used to be worried about what might happen if someone realized they were together, but he had been officially out for over a year, and he wasn’t going to back down now. They had experienced minimal issues since his accidental coming out, but one of those issues was Harold Becket.

  “So guess who’s here this time,” he said after he watched Dustin click Post.

  Dustin closed his laptop. “Who?”

  “Harold Becket. I walked by him, and he started warning his student’s parents to keep their son away from me.”

  Dustin snorted. “You’re only dangerous to Harold because you’re going to be twice the coach he is.”

  “I can only hope so,” Vince replied. “We’ll see when I finally start taking students on.”

  “You have a waiting list,” Dustin reminded him. “That means people think you’re qualified.”

  “True,” Vince relented. “I still hope to prove him wrong.”

  Dustin bumped his shoulder. “You will.”

  Vince smiled at him. “This is why I love you.”

  Dustin laughed. “And here I thought it was my pretty green eyes.”

  Vince chuckled and patted Dustin’s thigh. “That too.”

  WHEN IT came time to warm up for the competition, Vince was pleased with how Xander felt below him. He was his usual energetic but responsive self, and Vince had a good feeling about their class. The list of riders wasn’t as long as for the previous show, but there were still some major contenders who could make it difficult for Vince and Xander to win. Most of the major international competitors were missing, likely because they were busy in their own countries working on making their teams, and there were only two other short list competitors in the show, including Mary Renolds. The rest were people Vince had competed against before, with a few new names mixed in. He knew they were all good, even if they weren’t fighting for a spot on the team.

  Vince and Xander didn’t have their round until the end of the class, along with Mary and her horse, Texas Love, who she had introduced to Vince as Tex. Several other pairs put in clears, so Vince knew there would be a jump-off even before he entered the arena. They needed to make that to have a chance.

  Xander was as dependable as usual. He was fast but controlled and took each jump effortlessly. They made it to the jump-off, where anything could happen due to faster speeds and trickier jump combinations.

  Mary and Tex had their round after Vince and Xander, and then the other pair from the short list had their chance. Only Mary and Tex joined the jump-off with Vince.

  Vince spent the time between his round and the jump-off keeping Xander loose in the warm-up ring. Dustin watched each pair. Vince could hear the announcer dictating how many faults each pair ahead of him had, but Dustin reported back to him before he entered the arena for his ride.

  “The only clear round so far had a single time fault. Most people have had one or two down. It’s tight out there.”

  Vince nodded. “I had a feeling it was going to be. Xane’s got this.”

  The round started off just fine, but then Xander lost his footing coming out of a tight turn to the final fence. They knocked the rail and it clattered to the sand. Vince had been holding Xander back a bit, hoping to carefully keep all the jump up and finish just barely under the time, so he left himself no way to recover from such a late mishap. He still urged Xander over the finish marker as fast as possible, but when he looked up at the scoreboard, he saw the number two flash up next to their names. Second place wasn’t so bad.

  Unless Mary and Tex managed a clear round under the time and knocked him to third. Normally he would be fine with placing at all, but he wasn’t sure what the selectors were looking for.

  He ended up not having to worry. Mary and Tex also took a late rail and couldn’t pick up the speed again. They finished a fraction of a second below Vince’s four-fault score. That meant the pair who had gotten the single time fault would win, and he and Xander would keep second place.

  He wasn’t going to complain.

  AS THEY were driving home the next morning, Vince had a sudden thought.

  “Jason had his own selection event this weekend, didn’t he?”

  Dustin nodded and pulled out his phone. “Let me check to see if the results are in.”

  “I can’t believe he claimed he only competed casually with Danny,” Vince said as he stopped at a traffic light. “When he said he was leaving the major building of our project to his partner, I thought it was because he needed to be working in Florida. Then I see him and Danny on the eventing short list too.”

  “Well, he did just win in Kentucky while we were at Jane’s wedding,” Dustin pointed out.

  “True. Had I known he was even riding there, I would have checked in on the standings a few times.” The light changed and they drove on.

  Dustin shrugged. “You just have to follow his Facebook page. Then you would know these things.”

  “I didn’t know he had a Facebook page because I didn’t know he seriously competed,” Vince argued. “Wait, do you follow his Facebook page?”

  “Now I do,” Dustin replied. “After I saw him on the short list. That was when I searched for him.”

  “So what is he up to now?”

  “They’re still on the jumping round, so no official winner yet,” Dustin explained. “But he was in the top ten at the end of cross-country. He hasn’t jumped yet.”

  “And even then, we wouldn’t know until most of the pairs have gone.”

  “Also true,” Dustin agreed. He pushed his phone back into his pocket. “I’m amazed that anyone can compete in eventing. It’s so crazy.”

  Vince nodded. “It is. It’s definitely rough on horse and rider.”

  “I wonder how they invented that sport,” Dustin commented. “Who would think to do a day of dressage, followed by a day of galloping over outdoor obstacle courses, then a day of show jumping, and total the score.”

  “I think it has military origins,” Vince replied. “It shows that military horses could be quiet and go through their paces on the flat in a well-behaved manner. Not sure about the show jumping, but cross-country likely comes from proving that horses are agile on the battlefield. I’m sure you never knew what you would encounter while fighting in the cavalry.”

  “That makes sense,” Dustin said with a nod. “I would think show jumping would come from military testing too. Maybe a more controlled form of cross-country.”

  Vince had to chuckle. “You know, you’re not driving. I am pretty sure the internet has these answers. Or we can keep coming up with theories.”

  Dustin laughed and pulled out his phone again. He hummed along to the radio while he searched, and Vince wondered if he even realized he was doing it. The song was one of those annoyingly catchy tracks that would play ten times a day on every radio station, so like it or not, the tune was stuck with them. “Looks like we were right. It’s about obedience, endurance, and agility, and the jumping day is to more precisely display fitness.”

  “Makes sense,” Vince replied. “Which is why we could guess it.”

  “Or we’re just smart.”

  Vince laughed. “That too.”

  VINCE WAS relieved that life seemed to be calm outside of his competitions. In the two weeks between his second and third selection shows, he worked with the other horses at Anderson Stables and spent some quality time with Hunter, Jane, and Scott. They had just gotten back from their honeymoon and were constantly showing Vince and Dustin pictures from their cruise.

  “You guys should go for your honeymoon,” Jane told them one evening while they stood in the kitchen of the hous
e she now lived in with Scott and Hunter. “It was so much fun and really not that expensive.”

  Vince glanced at Dustin, who raised an eyebrow at him. Vince glanced back at Jane and cleared his throat.

  “We might not go on a honeymoon,” he admitted. “Especially if we go to Rio. It would just be something else to plan around. The rest of the year is busy enough.”

  She gave him a look that made him feel foolish for reasons he didn’t understand. “You’re getting married at the beginning of October. You said you wouldn’t be taking students until the end of December, when you take on three students to go to Wellington with you. That leaves all of November and almost all of October.”

  “Not quite,” Vince replied. “There’s still Thanksgiving.”

  Now she was glaring at him. “I don’t want you to regret not going somewhere together.”

  “What if the cruise ship sinks?” Vince asked. “Won’t you feel guilty?”

  “Okay, I know sometimes cruises have issues, but they are just as safe—maybe even safer than—flying. And you’re going to fly Xander to Rio.”

  “If I make the team.”

  She made an obviously exasperated noise. “If you make the team.”

  “And what if the cruise people don’t like the gays?” Vince questioned. “Or the other people on the cruise don’t?”

  She threw her hands up. “Fine. Never mind. I am going to buy you guys one-way tickets to the middle of Alaska, where they’ll have to give you dogsleds to find your way home.”

  “That’s cruel,” Dustin said with a chuckle.

  “What he said,” Vince added. “I thought you liked us.”

  “When you’re not being idiots,” she replied. “Now, sit down. Dinner should be done in a minute.”

  “You don’t want any help?” Vince offered.