Pomegranate
Pomegranate
by Syrinx
Rating: nc-17
Canon: Thoroughbred
Summary: She just wants to.
A/N: Sequel to Rice and Wheat. I have decided to make this a trilogy, mainly because I sort of stumbled into an ending with this fic that I didn't plan. The rest will come along soon. About the rating, I could write a freaking essay on this topic alone. Just to be safe, I'm saying it's NC-17. (It's a first for me! Somehow!) AU Pride's Last Race.
It is in no time at all that Ashleigh finds herself at Santa Anita, staring through the haze at the San Gabriel Mountains. The morning sun is beating down, browning her pale shoulders and glistening off of Pride’s red coat, making him look like a horse cast out of bronze. The Breeders’ Cup has upstaged Oak Tree for the second year in a row, turning dark days into intense preparation sessions as the track gets ready for the national stage.
Ashleigh is riding in seven of the fourteen races, and five of those horses are owned by Townsend Acres. Two races on Friday, and five on Saturday. Pride is the outrageous favorite of them all. She reaches forward to pat the patient colt’s warm neck, scratching his withers and murmuring pointless words. The colt tips his ears back, listening to her soothing voice, paying attention to nothing but pleasing her, so he stands still for a moment longer while Ashleigh watches the scene unfold in front of her.
Lord Ainsley is working on the far turn, coming around the bend. She watches this only because she must, because the lithe bay colt is Pride’s competition and she’d be a fool to ignore him. He is working well, speeding along the rail, and is probably recording fractions worth studying. Ashleigh tells herself to pay attention, even when the black shape of an achingly familiar gelding keeps trotting nearer.
“Ashleigh,” Jilly calls as she approaches with a smile on her face. Her crash helmet flashes white and blue. The gelding’s blue saddle cloth is embroidered with a white W done in elegant cursive. She doesn’t have to look to know this, since she picked out the script herself.
“Hi,” Ashleigh says, putting on a smile for Jilly’s benefit. Pride lifts his head and gives Blues King a curious once over, as if he can’t quite place the laid back animal. Blues King recognizes the colt instantly and pricks his ears at his former stable mate, nickering a good natured hello.
“Are you getting a good look at the competition?” Jilly teases, bringing Blues King to stand next to Pride.
“If I could make much sense of this chaos,” Ashleigh laughs, nodding to the track full of crisscrossing horses, all going at different speeds of go. Lord Ainsley gallops out, and Jilly watches the colt casually, chewing loudly on a piece of gum.
“He looks good,” Jilly comments, nodding to the bay. “I wish he didn’t, but he does.”
“You’re still set on Trompe?” Ashleigh asks her, knowing the answer.
“I am,” Jilly nods. “Not that I think he has much of a shot going against Pride and Lord Ainsley, but we’re going to give it our best.”
“I think his chances skyrocketed when he landed you as his rider,” Ashleigh says loyally, and isn’t surprised to see Jilly laugh out loud.
“Thank you for that bit of confidence,” Jilly says, patting the gelding’s neck, “but I think I’m sitting on a gold mine with this guy.”
“King will go all out for you,” Ashleigh tells her. “I’ll probably be chasing you around the track on Ben Dreaming.”
“You and Mike put some serious training into this guy,” Jilly says, fixing the gelding’s disorderly mane. Ashleigh tries to look laid back, but she must be failing miserably. “I…”
She glances up at Ashleigh and winces, “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Ashleigh jumps. “I’m proud of what I did with King, otherwise you might not be riding him.”
“Are you doing okay?” Jilly asks.
Ashleigh shrugs. “I can’t complain, can I?”
“I guess not,” Jilly says after a second of considering her answer. Then she notices something behind Ashleigh, somewhere Ashleigh has been refusing to look since she set foot on the track, and smiles apologetically. “That’s my cue. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Ashleigh says, watching them trot by, the little cursive W on King’s saddle cloth catching her eye. She still refuses to look down the rail, and figures that there’s no time like the present. This is her last work of the day, and it’s not like she can wait out Mike. He’ll stay by the rail like a rooted plant until Pride has breezed and come back, so why the hell not. She’ll give him a show.
They pick up a canter and merge seamlessly into a gallop without much thought. Pride knows his steps, and he knows what to do, so they fly through the breeze in an impressive show that comes close to being the quickest work of the day, but not quite. Just what Maddock ordered. Pride is nowhere near tired, and prances off the track after his gallop out like he expected more of a challenge. Ashleigh jumps off and lets Maddock do his thing, the tall man giving the colt a once over and slapping the chestnut happily on the shoulder. Pride dances his hindquarters back and forth, presses his nose against Maddock’s shoulder, and gives him an affectionate nibble.
“Did we pass muster?” Ashleigh asks, walking back up to the training barns with the colt between them.
“That work was perfect,” Maddock tells her. “I’d say you excelled, Ashleigh.”
She allows herself a small smile. She knows Maddock is thrilled beyond measure to have Pride, and she’s a little relieved to give up some responsibility. They make a good team, better than she ever thought, and Pride is blossoming under the care when she was worried he would do the opposite. Things are helped, of course, by Samantha’s work as his part-time groom. The colt responds to routine, and Samantha’s daily afternoon visits settled the colt far faster than Ashleigh could ever have anticipated. It didn’t take much to convince Brad to put the girl on his payroll.
They get to the stables and Samantha is arriving early from Mike’s barn, where Ian still trains. Her wild red curls are pulled back from her face, making her look so much younger, and she’s smiling brightly when she sees them.
“People are talking,” she says in a quick whisper as soon as they arrive. “Did he really go that well?”
“He did,” Ashleigh says, turning to untack the colt and let Samantha do her work. Pride is eagerly greeting her, smearing white froth all over the girl’s shirt as she takes off his bridle. “I don’t think we need to worry much about whether or not he’s prepared.”
“Let’s just hope it goes better than last time,” Samantha says, making a face. Ashleigh winces also, but it’s just one more reason to believe that this is Pride’s year. Wonder’s Pride will win the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The track is dark on Monday and Tuesday, but there is live racing on Wednesday and Thursday. She jumps on a few rides just to get a feel for the synthetic track, and winds up doing better than she had hoped. Her last race on Thursday is a Townsend horse, one of the small fleet the farm brought specifically to serve as Ashleigh’s guinea pig if, on the extreme off chance, she couldn’t land a ride. Because she’s Ashleigh Griffen, she lands rides, but the horse will race anyway.
When she comes out of the jockeys’ room, she feels at home in the green and gold silks. The race is a small one, just five horses, and the mare she’s riding is one she’s known for ages now, so she’s confident and ready to roll when she walks into the saddling paddock and sees Maddock and Brad conversing easily in the mare’s stall. She’s a little surprised to feel her stomach drop, because ever since that early morning escapade she hasn’t seen Brad. She hasn’t tried to avoid him, hasn’t even bothered to think on it as a mistake quite yet. She sees him now and he looks at her and she knows just by looking at him that yes, it was definitely a mistake.
“Look who finally dragged himself to Oak Tree,” she says, buckling her helmet and turning to the mare. He just takes a step back to let her pass. Maddock gives her a leg up, pats her booted foot that she lets hang past the stirrup for a moment while the mare does a quick jig underneath her.
“Let’s have a conversation after the winner’s circle,” he tells her, and she looks down at him in surprise. Not for his overreaching confidence that she’s taking this mare to the winner’s circle, but that he requests that they talk. She really doesn’t want to, just for the simple fact of the matter that there is nothing to say. Not really.
Instead she says, “Okay.” She’s peppy, with a shrug thrown in for good measure. It’s all an act, because she can’t begin to pretend she doesn’t remember and he’s not going to play like it never happened, and at the very best she can hope for indicating that she does what she wants and that was what she wanted to do. It’s not like she’s going to do it again.
She smiles to herself, and then they stride out into the California sunshine.
They win. She trots the mare into the winner’s circle and stands with Maddock and Brad. She dismounts after the photos are taken, tugging her saddle with her so she can weigh in. Maddock leaves with the mare, and Brad crosses the concrete to her.
“I imagine you’re staying in tonight,” he says to her. She holds the saddle between them and ignores the yells from the crowd that are directed at her back. People want her autograph, one of her goggles, some memento or keepsake. She’s given out plenty over the years. She’s posed with infants, given hugs to ecstatic teenage girls who proclaim her their idol. She manages to focus on him when she says, “You imagine correctly.”
She doesn’t go to parties before big races. It was always one of her rules. The Breeders’ Cup has invited everyone to a kickoff party before Friday’s races, but the only thing Ashleigh did with the glossy invitation was throw it in the trash. After she cleans up from this race, she is going to collect her rental car and head to Pasadena, where Clay Townsend has rooms booked at The Langham, a resort of a hotel that sat on a green lawn in front of the San Gabriel Mountains. She was going to order room service and totally ignore the fact that she knew the Whitebrook Farm crew, including Jilly and Craig, would be congregating at their favorite Los Angeles restaurant only a few miles from where she would sit. Alone.
Ashleigh was resolved to not let this bother her. Room service and a bath in an Italian marble tub was all she really needed. The look Brad was giving her did nothing to sway her opinion.
“Why do I not find that surprising?”
“Probably because that’s what I always did before?”
“That’s not what you always did before,” he says and she rolls her eyes.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just wanted to know where you’d be, just in case. Thanks for the win.”
“Just in case what?” she asks his back as he walks off, tries to ignore the fans for just a moment more. He turns around, keeps walking backward.
“Just in case you started living a little,” he says to her, and then she gets it. She wants to throw her handful of goggles at him, but instead she tosses them into the crowd.
After the race she does just as she planned. She goes back to her hotel, takes a bath, sits outside on her ground floor patio and waits for someone to arrive with food. Her long hair air dries in a multitude of waves, sun bleached another shade lighter. She tips her face up into the late afternoon sun and tries to think of the races tomorrow and Saturday, tries to think of Pride dancing along in his mother’s footsteps. She owes the colt a win, for so many reasons, and a shot at Horse of the Year. It will be one of the good things in a year so littered with steps she still can’t believe she took. It will be for Charlie.
A foolish part of her thinks that Pride’s win will make everything okay again. It won’t turn back time, but it will make herself feel like it wasn’t all for nothing. It wasn’t all for living life in an empty hotel room.
There is a knock at the door, and her stomach grumbles impatiently. She doesn’t bother to check the peep hole and just pulls the door open to reveal Brad, keys in his hands. He’s dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans, just like her. They are so many realms away from what they were at the track that for a second she does a double take.
“You know this is bordering on pathetic,” he informs her, like he doesn’t live a life similar to hers.
“I said I wasn’t going anywhere,” she says.
“And I obviously believed you,” he says with that easy grin that’s supposed to make her melt. She knows exactly what it’s for, and would like to say it doesn’t work on her. She’s said it so many times by now that it should be true, but it’s not. There’s a spot in her that does react like he wants, right along with the majority of her that’s just irritated. “Get your shoes,” he goes on. “I’m going to have to liberate you from yourself.”
“I have food coming up from the hotel…” she says, and he’s just rolling his eyes.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“Ashleigh, please don’t tell me you’ve spent the week in L.A. sleeping and riding horses.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve done,” Ashleigh starts to say, like she’s ridiculously proud of it, but he just shakes his head and stops her.
“Go get your shoes,” he says gently, knowing by now how to get his way with her. She just narrows her eyes and he laughs. “It’s not like I’m asking much here. I just want to feed my jockey and make sure she doesn’t die of boredom.”
“I wasn’t going to die of boredom,” she defends herself, finally letting him in and walking back out to the patio to slip on her flip-flops. He looks around the room, at the dark television and the absolute lack of anything that could have captured her attention.
“What were you doing? Meditating?” he asks sarcastically, and she pushes him back to the door.
“Are we going to go?” she asks, getting that look again, and he motions to the door.
“Ladies first,” he smirks, and she lets it slide, walking ahead of him.
They go to this hole in the wall diner by the beach, which is so far from what she expected of him that she’s a little speechless at first. She’s mesmerized by the ocean; by the way the sun sinks down like its enjoying a refreshing swim to end the day. When they leave she starts to head to the car, but stops when he starts walking across the street toward the water, leaving it up to her if she’s going to follow.
She does, and slips her flip-flops off her feet when she steps on the sand. Trudging out on the warm beach, she stands next to him and breathes the salty ocean air. Everything is gritty and bright, the waves are crashing on the golden sand, and people are still in the water, still surfing, still acting like they live life as she’s always seen in Hollywood movies with completely unrealistic plots.
Just how much is she missing? It’s a question she almost never asks herself. She’s happy with her life as it is, even if Brad wasn’t around to push her out of her box and into the open world. At least, she thinks that’s the case. She watches people play in the water and digs her toes into the sand, letting a breath out that she wasn’t aware she was holding.
“Do you ever relax?” he asks her, noticing her breathing. He notices everything, and she sometimes wonders how he does it, how he can be so perceptive. Maybe it’s because she never expects it, but she doesn’t want to go so far as to say she doesn’t know him at all. She thinks she should know him like the palm of her hand by now.
“I was when you showed up at my hotel room,” she says, sighing finally into the warm breeze. She wants to close her eyes and bask in the sunset, but she doesn’t want to miss the way the colors hit the water and set fire to the horizon.
“No you weren’t,” he says, calling out her lie. She shrugs.
“I am now. Is that good enough for you?”
“Is it for you?” he asks, and she looks up at him suddenly, wondering what right he has to ask her that. He’s looking down at her, the sunlight catching on his hair. It is almost black, almost glossy, and she almost wants to reach up and push her fingers into the short strands to test just how perfectly cared for it is. Her heartbeat is speeding up, and she’s thinking oh no. Not now. This is a completely unacceptable reaction to a question that’s pissing her off, and she doesn’t even have a good explanation.
“Yes,” she answers and it’s simpler than she thought it would be to speak the truth. Like a reflex. She should do it more often, she thinks. It was as if, after she halted her wedding, speaking truth and witnessing the effects, she was afraid to do it again. Now she’s not afraid. Not of him, not of the words she’ll say, not of his reaction. He can do nothing to her, not like Mike’s scathing, longing glances she can, in turn, do nothing about.
“So what the hell, Ashleigh?” he asks, turning full toward her now. He wants that explanation, she knows, and she doesn’t have one that he’ll necessarily believe. I just wanted to won’t fly, and she knows that, but it’s the truth as she sees it. I just wanted to.
This is the truth: “I wanted to kiss you.”
It is absurdly simple. So simple she almost starts to giggle at the relief it brings, but she swallows the impulse because he’s looking at her so hard, is so quiet. She wants to poke her finger into his stomach to see if he’ll flinch. Instead another impulse hits her, almost more absurd than her easy statement that has him studying her like a piece of particularly troubling art.
She slips her hand forward, presses her fingertips against the worn cotton of his shirt and feels his muscles tense underneath. He doesn’t move - won’t, she realizes - while she takes the two steps up to him and fists her fingers around his shirt, watching the material strain down to her hand. This should all be a mistake, is probably a mistake, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because she wants to, still, quite to her surprise.
“Hey,” she says under her breath, looking up at him, the smile still playing at her mouth. “Brad Townsend isn’t getting all soft and sentimental, is he?”
“Over a kiss?” he asks, taking her hand in his and loosening her fingers from his shirt. “Hardly.”
She smiles, all bright and unaffected. Her hand drops to her side and the sun blinks out on the horizon. When they get back to the hotel, the sand has rubbed her toes raw, but she’s not paying it much attention. She just has one word roving around her head. Hardly. It’s so like him.
He walks her to her door again and she wonders if this is going to be a repeat of last time before telling herself it will not be a repeat of last time. She is better than that, and he has more to offer than that, and what the hell is she thinking? She’s masquerading, making things difficult, coming face to face with something she wants and is too afraid to reach out to take it. Now she feels like a fool.
They arrive at her door far faster than she wants, but she works with what she has and says, “Do I get a kiss good night?”
He can’t even get a normal response out before she reaches and takes. Her fingertips feel singed, aching with rushing blood excited from nerves and plunder, and then from surprise when he practically picks her up and presses her back against her door. Her toes touch the carpet again, her back sliding down the door, but he’s right there and his hand is on her hip, and the other is on her throat and in her hair. He was ready for her, and she’s fighting down laughter when he pulls away, just far enough to ask, “Is this jumping me thing going to become routine?”
“That depends,” she says, putting her hands on his chest. She’s not pushing him away. If anything she’s grasping his shirt to make sure he stays anchored to her, as if he’s planning to break away. He is not planning anything of the sort, and she knows it. “If anything you’re just encouraging me.”
He grins, encourages her some more. She arches into him and he wraps an arm around her waist, hands supporting her back. After a second, she slips the key card out of her pocket and takes several attempts with the lock. It flashes a green light on the fourth try, and they slip into the cool dark of her room.
They’re clumsy in the dark, in their haste to cover as much ground as they can while they’re both unwilling to think of things like consequences and second thoughts. The door lock clicks into place and her back is against a wall again, his hands roving down to her thighs and lifting her up so she’s suddenly at eye level with him. She waits for something to kick at her, waits for her stomach to roll, send out some signal of warning, but it never comes. Her legs press steady around his hips, and he cradles her gently against the wall, kisses her swollen lips, which open against his to let him in.
They have to move away from the wall, because she’s starting to tug at his shirt and his hands have already gotten under hers. The wall is hindering their progress, so he lifts her away from it. She squeaks against his mouth, clamps her arms around his neck like she’s afraid he’ll drop her. The only place he drops her is the bed, and she smiles in relief because she’s not sure if she could have made this decision, even if she wants it. He tugs his t-shirt over his head, and she’s thankful for that, too.
Her sandals hit the carpet and she brings her legs up on the bed, lifts her arms over her head and stretches luxuriously. He puts a hand on her knee and joins her on the bed, hovers over her with arms straight down on either side of her to support his weight. Everything is slowing down, giving them plenty of time to think about this, but instead she sits up and pushes into him, kissing him while his warm hands have found their way under her shirt again, takes it with them on their journey up her spine. It’s all the way off and on the floor; she shakes her hair out of her eyes so she can go back to kissing him.
The jeans are harder, but they navigate through buttons and zippers the best that they can, hands tangling and knuckles bumping. He forgets about his shoes and nearly falls off the bed in his haste to get rid of them. She laughs loudly and hides her smile behind her hands, but then the humor slides away because they are there, right on the edge of tumbling into a place neither had ever anticipated they would go.
This is not her first time, and it is obviously far from his. When he gets rid of his shoes and socks, jeans finally there on the floor with hers, her smile is gone, but her want is still there, burning slow and warm in her chest. She feels hot everywhere, flushed, especially where his fingers trail along her skin. Underwear is unhooked, tugged away over her arms and down her legs. He kisses her everywhere, and her hands linger across him. They are both proudly comprised of flat muscle and sun kissed skin, beautiful despite being worked to the bone.
She shivers when his mouth grazes over the most sensitive places of her, stops and focuses and makes her so wound up she has to practically snarl her fingers in his hair and pull his head up to hers because she is so ready and now she is unwilling to wait.
“Now,” she’s whispering, like a chant, into his mouth and he smiles because she’s that impatient. He tells her.
“How impatient can you be?”
He’s delaying, and she’s about ready to show him just what she plans to do about this, but there’s a condom in his jeans, on the floor, and she starts to tell him this isn’t necessary before she realizes that it is. This is trust, a pact, and she’ll accept because it’s only seconds later. They move together, a tangle of limbs and curled toes, and she comes with a soft keening gasp, pulling him closer when he follows.
Afterward she stretches out on her side, her eyes closed. Their feet are touching. His arm is loosely draped over her, hand grazing against her back. Her arms are folded in front of her, pressed from wrist to elbow against his chest. The sweat on their bodies dries. He’s watching her, but she’s too lazy to check for herself. Instead the feeling of his lips on her forehead makes her smile, shift closer to his warmth, and just like that they are new people, in a new life, and this is how they start.
by Syrinx
Rating: nc-17
Canon: Thoroughbred
Summary: She just wants to.
A/N: Sequel to Rice and Wheat. I have decided to make this a trilogy, mainly because I sort of stumbled into an ending with this fic that I didn't plan. The rest will come along soon. About the rating, I could write a freaking essay on this topic alone. Just to be safe, I'm saying it's NC-17. (It's a first for me! Somehow!) AU Pride's Last Race.
It is in no time at all that Ashleigh finds herself at Santa Anita, staring through the haze at the San Gabriel Mountains. The morning sun is beating down, browning her pale shoulders and glistening off of Pride’s red coat, making him look like a horse cast out of bronze. The Breeders’ Cup has upstaged Oak Tree for the second year in a row, turning dark days into intense preparation sessions as the track gets ready for the national stage.
Ashleigh is riding in seven of the fourteen races, and five of those horses are owned by Townsend Acres. Two races on Friday, and five on Saturday. Pride is the outrageous favorite of them all. She reaches forward to pat the patient colt’s warm neck, scratching his withers and murmuring pointless words. The colt tips his ears back, listening to her soothing voice, paying attention to nothing but pleasing her, so he stands still for a moment longer while Ashleigh watches the scene unfold in front of her.
Lord Ainsley is working on the far turn, coming around the bend. She watches this only because she must, because the lithe bay colt is Pride’s competition and she’d be a fool to ignore him. He is working well, speeding along the rail, and is probably recording fractions worth studying. Ashleigh tells herself to pay attention, even when the black shape of an achingly familiar gelding keeps trotting nearer.
“Ashleigh,” Jilly calls as she approaches with a smile on her face. Her crash helmet flashes white and blue. The gelding’s blue saddle cloth is embroidered with a white W done in elegant cursive. She doesn’t have to look to know this, since she picked out the script herself.
“Hi,” Ashleigh says, putting on a smile for Jilly’s benefit. Pride lifts his head and gives Blues King a curious once over, as if he can’t quite place the laid back animal. Blues King recognizes the colt instantly and pricks his ears at his former stable mate, nickering a good natured hello.
“Are you getting a good look at the competition?” Jilly teases, bringing Blues King to stand next to Pride.
“If I could make much sense of this chaos,” Ashleigh laughs, nodding to the track full of crisscrossing horses, all going at different speeds of go. Lord Ainsley gallops out, and Jilly watches the colt casually, chewing loudly on a piece of gum.
“He looks good,” Jilly comments, nodding to the bay. “I wish he didn’t, but he does.”
“You’re still set on Trompe?” Ashleigh asks her, knowing the answer.
“I am,” Jilly nods. “Not that I think he has much of a shot going against Pride and Lord Ainsley, but we’re going to give it our best.”
“I think his chances skyrocketed when he landed you as his rider,” Ashleigh says loyally, and isn’t surprised to see Jilly laugh out loud.
“Thank you for that bit of confidence,” Jilly says, patting the gelding’s neck, “but I think I’m sitting on a gold mine with this guy.”
“King will go all out for you,” Ashleigh tells her. “I’ll probably be chasing you around the track on Ben Dreaming.”
“You and Mike put some serious training into this guy,” Jilly says, fixing the gelding’s disorderly mane. Ashleigh tries to look laid back, but she must be failing miserably. “I…”
She glances up at Ashleigh and winces, “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Ashleigh jumps. “I’m proud of what I did with King, otherwise you might not be riding him.”
“Are you doing okay?” Jilly asks.
Ashleigh shrugs. “I can’t complain, can I?”
“I guess not,” Jilly says after a second of considering her answer. Then she notices something behind Ashleigh, somewhere Ashleigh has been refusing to look since she set foot on the track, and smiles apologetically. “That’s my cue. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Ashleigh says, watching them trot by, the little cursive W on King’s saddle cloth catching her eye. She still refuses to look down the rail, and figures that there’s no time like the present. This is her last work of the day, and it’s not like she can wait out Mike. He’ll stay by the rail like a rooted plant until Pride has breezed and come back, so why the hell not. She’ll give him a show.
They pick up a canter and merge seamlessly into a gallop without much thought. Pride knows his steps, and he knows what to do, so they fly through the breeze in an impressive show that comes close to being the quickest work of the day, but not quite. Just what Maddock ordered. Pride is nowhere near tired, and prances off the track after his gallop out like he expected more of a challenge. Ashleigh jumps off and lets Maddock do his thing, the tall man giving the colt a once over and slapping the chestnut happily on the shoulder. Pride dances his hindquarters back and forth, presses his nose against Maddock’s shoulder, and gives him an affectionate nibble.
“Did we pass muster?” Ashleigh asks, walking back up to the training barns with the colt between them.
“That work was perfect,” Maddock tells her. “I’d say you excelled, Ashleigh.”
She allows herself a small smile. She knows Maddock is thrilled beyond measure to have Pride, and she’s a little relieved to give up some responsibility. They make a good team, better than she ever thought, and Pride is blossoming under the care when she was worried he would do the opposite. Things are helped, of course, by Samantha’s work as his part-time groom. The colt responds to routine, and Samantha’s daily afternoon visits settled the colt far faster than Ashleigh could ever have anticipated. It didn’t take much to convince Brad to put the girl on his payroll.
They get to the stables and Samantha is arriving early from Mike’s barn, where Ian still trains. Her wild red curls are pulled back from her face, making her look so much younger, and she’s smiling brightly when she sees them.
“People are talking,” she says in a quick whisper as soon as they arrive. “Did he really go that well?”
“He did,” Ashleigh says, turning to untack the colt and let Samantha do her work. Pride is eagerly greeting her, smearing white froth all over the girl’s shirt as she takes off his bridle. “I don’t think we need to worry much about whether or not he’s prepared.”
“Let’s just hope it goes better than last time,” Samantha says, making a face. Ashleigh winces also, but it’s just one more reason to believe that this is Pride’s year. Wonder’s Pride will win the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The track is dark on Monday and Tuesday, but there is live racing on Wednesday and Thursday. She jumps on a few rides just to get a feel for the synthetic track, and winds up doing better than she had hoped. Her last race on Thursday is a Townsend horse, one of the small fleet the farm brought specifically to serve as Ashleigh’s guinea pig if, on the extreme off chance, she couldn’t land a ride. Because she’s Ashleigh Griffen, she lands rides, but the horse will race anyway.
When she comes out of the jockeys’ room, she feels at home in the green and gold silks. The race is a small one, just five horses, and the mare she’s riding is one she’s known for ages now, so she’s confident and ready to roll when she walks into the saddling paddock and sees Maddock and Brad conversing easily in the mare’s stall. She’s a little surprised to feel her stomach drop, because ever since that early morning escapade she hasn’t seen Brad. She hasn’t tried to avoid him, hasn’t even bothered to think on it as a mistake quite yet. She sees him now and he looks at her and she knows just by looking at him that yes, it was definitely a mistake.
“Look who finally dragged himself to Oak Tree,” she says, buckling her helmet and turning to the mare. He just takes a step back to let her pass. Maddock gives her a leg up, pats her booted foot that she lets hang past the stirrup for a moment while the mare does a quick jig underneath her.
“Let’s have a conversation after the winner’s circle,” he tells her, and she looks down at him in surprise. Not for his overreaching confidence that she’s taking this mare to the winner’s circle, but that he requests that they talk. She really doesn’t want to, just for the simple fact of the matter that there is nothing to say. Not really.
Instead she says, “Okay.” She’s peppy, with a shrug thrown in for good measure. It’s all an act, because she can’t begin to pretend she doesn’t remember and he’s not going to play like it never happened, and at the very best she can hope for indicating that she does what she wants and that was what she wanted to do. It’s not like she’s going to do it again.
She smiles to herself, and then they stride out into the California sunshine.
They win. She trots the mare into the winner’s circle and stands with Maddock and Brad. She dismounts after the photos are taken, tugging her saddle with her so she can weigh in. Maddock leaves with the mare, and Brad crosses the concrete to her.
“I imagine you’re staying in tonight,” he says to her. She holds the saddle between them and ignores the yells from the crowd that are directed at her back. People want her autograph, one of her goggles, some memento or keepsake. She’s given out plenty over the years. She’s posed with infants, given hugs to ecstatic teenage girls who proclaim her their idol. She manages to focus on him when she says, “You imagine correctly.”
She doesn’t go to parties before big races. It was always one of her rules. The Breeders’ Cup has invited everyone to a kickoff party before Friday’s races, but the only thing Ashleigh did with the glossy invitation was throw it in the trash. After she cleans up from this race, she is going to collect her rental car and head to Pasadena, where Clay Townsend has rooms booked at The Langham, a resort of a hotel that sat on a green lawn in front of the San Gabriel Mountains. She was going to order room service and totally ignore the fact that she knew the Whitebrook Farm crew, including Jilly and Craig, would be congregating at their favorite Los Angeles restaurant only a few miles from where she would sit. Alone.
Ashleigh was resolved to not let this bother her. Room service and a bath in an Italian marble tub was all she really needed. The look Brad was giving her did nothing to sway her opinion.
“Why do I not find that surprising?”
“Probably because that’s what I always did before?”
“That’s not what you always did before,” he says and she rolls her eyes.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just wanted to know where you’d be, just in case. Thanks for the win.”
“Just in case what?” she asks his back as he walks off, tries to ignore the fans for just a moment more. He turns around, keeps walking backward.
“Just in case you started living a little,” he says to her, and then she gets it. She wants to throw her handful of goggles at him, but instead she tosses them into the crowd.
After the race she does just as she planned. She goes back to her hotel, takes a bath, sits outside on her ground floor patio and waits for someone to arrive with food. Her long hair air dries in a multitude of waves, sun bleached another shade lighter. She tips her face up into the late afternoon sun and tries to think of the races tomorrow and Saturday, tries to think of Pride dancing along in his mother’s footsteps. She owes the colt a win, for so many reasons, and a shot at Horse of the Year. It will be one of the good things in a year so littered with steps she still can’t believe she took. It will be for Charlie.
A foolish part of her thinks that Pride’s win will make everything okay again. It won’t turn back time, but it will make herself feel like it wasn’t all for nothing. It wasn’t all for living life in an empty hotel room.
There is a knock at the door, and her stomach grumbles impatiently. She doesn’t bother to check the peep hole and just pulls the door open to reveal Brad, keys in his hands. He’s dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans, just like her. They are so many realms away from what they were at the track that for a second she does a double take.
“You know this is bordering on pathetic,” he informs her, like he doesn’t live a life similar to hers.
“I said I wasn’t going anywhere,” she says.
“And I obviously believed you,” he says with that easy grin that’s supposed to make her melt. She knows exactly what it’s for, and would like to say it doesn’t work on her. She’s said it so many times by now that it should be true, but it’s not. There’s a spot in her that does react like he wants, right along with the majority of her that’s just irritated. “Get your shoes,” he goes on. “I’m going to have to liberate you from yourself.”
“I have food coming up from the hotel…” she says, and he’s just rolling his eyes.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“Ashleigh, please don’t tell me you’ve spent the week in L.A. sleeping and riding horses.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve done,” Ashleigh starts to say, like she’s ridiculously proud of it, but he just shakes his head and stops her.
“Go get your shoes,” he says gently, knowing by now how to get his way with her. She just narrows her eyes and he laughs. “It’s not like I’m asking much here. I just want to feed my jockey and make sure she doesn’t die of boredom.”
“I wasn’t going to die of boredom,” she defends herself, finally letting him in and walking back out to the patio to slip on her flip-flops. He looks around the room, at the dark television and the absolute lack of anything that could have captured her attention.
“What were you doing? Meditating?” he asks sarcastically, and she pushes him back to the door.
“Are we going to go?” she asks, getting that look again, and he motions to the door.
“Ladies first,” he smirks, and she lets it slide, walking ahead of him.
They go to this hole in the wall diner by the beach, which is so far from what she expected of him that she’s a little speechless at first. She’s mesmerized by the ocean; by the way the sun sinks down like its enjoying a refreshing swim to end the day. When they leave she starts to head to the car, but stops when he starts walking across the street toward the water, leaving it up to her if she’s going to follow.
She does, and slips her flip-flops off her feet when she steps on the sand. Trudging out on the warm beach, she stands next to him and breathes the salty ocean air. Everything is gritty and bright, the waves are crashing on the golden sand, and people are still in the water, still surfing, still acting like they live life as she’s always seen in Hollywood movies with completely unrealistic plots.
Just how much is she missing? It’s a question she almost never asks herself. She’s happy with her life as it is, even if Brad wasn’t around to push her out of her box and into the open world. At least, she thinks that’s the case. She watches people play in the water and digs her toes into the sand, letting a breath out that she wasn’t aware she was holding.
“Do you ever relax?” he asks her, noticing her breathing. He notices everything, and she sometimes wonders how he does it, how he can be so perceptive. Maybe it’s because she never expects it, but she doesn’t want to go so far as to say she doesn’t know him at all. She thinks she should know him like the palm of her hand by now.
“I was when you showed up at my hotel room,” she says, sighing finally into the warm breeze. She wants to close her eyes and bask in the sunset, but she doesn’t want to miss the way the colors hit the water and set fire to the horizon.
“No you weren’t,” he says, calling out her lie. She shrugs.
“I am now. Is that good enough for you?”
“Is it for you?” he asks, and she looks up at him suddenly, wondering what right he has to ask her that. He’s looking down at her, the sunlight catching on his hair. It is almost black, almost glossy, and she almost wants to reach up and push her fingers into the short strands to test just how perfectly cared for it is. Her heartbeat is speeding up, and she’s thinking oh no. Not now. This is a completely unacceptable reaction to a question that’s pissing her off, and she doesn’t even have a good explanation.
“Yes,” she answers and it’s simpler than she thought it would be to speak the truth. Like a reflex. She should do it more often, she thinks. It was as if, after she halted her wedding, speaking truth and witnessing the effects, she was afraid to do it again. Now she’s not afraid. Not of him, not of the words she’ll say, not of his reaction. He can do nothing to her, not like Mike’s scathing, longing glances she can, in turn, do nothing about.
“So what the hell, Ashleigh?” he asks, turning full toward her now. He wants that explanation, she knows, and she doesn’t have one that he’ll necessarily believe. I just wanted to won’t fly, and she knows that, but it’s the truth as she sees it. I just wanted to.
This is the truth: “I wanted to kiss you.”
It is absurdly simple. So simple she almost starts to giggle at the relief it brings, but she swallows the impulse because he’s looking at her so hard, is so quiet. She wants to poke her finger into his stomach to see if he’ll flinch. Instead another impulse hits her, almost more absurd than her easy statement that has him studying her like a piece of particularly troubling art.
She slips her hand forward, presses her fingertips against the worn cotton of his shirt and feels his muscles tense underneath. He doesn’t move - won’t, she realizes - while she takes the two steps up to him and fists her fingers around his shirt, watching the material strain down to her hand. This should all be a mistake, is probably a mistake, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because she wants to, still, quite to her surprise.
“Hey,” she says under her breath, looking up at him, the smile still playing at her mouth. “Brad Townsend isn’t getting all soft and sentimental, is he?”
“Over a kiss?” he asks, taking her hand in his and loosening her fingers from his shirt. “Hardly.”
She smiles, all bright and unaffected. Her hand drops to her side and the sun blinks out on the horizon. When they get back to the hotel, the sand has rubbed her toes raw, but she’s not paying it much attention. She just has one word roving around her head. Hardly. It’s so like him.
He walks her to her door again and she wonders if this is going to be a repeat of last time before telling herself it will not be a repeat of last time. She is better than that, and he has more to offer than that, and what the hell is she thinking? She’s masquerading, making things difficult, coming face to face with something she wants and is too afraid to reach out to take it. Now she feels like a fool.
They arrive at her door far faster than she wants, but she works with what she has and says, “Do I get a kiss good night?”
He can’t even get a normal response out before she reaches and takes. Her fingertips feel singed, aching with rushing blood excited from nerves and plunder, and then from surprise when he practically picks her up and presses her back against her door. Her toes touch the carpet again, her back sliding down the door, but he’s right there and his hand is on her hip, and the other is on her throat and in her hair. He was ready for her, and she’s fighting down laughter when he pulls away, just far enough to ask, “Is this jumping me thing going to become routine?”
“That depends,” she says, putting her hands on his chest. She’s not pushing him away. If anything she’s grasping his shirt to make sure he stays anchored to her, as if he’s planning to break away. He is not planning anything of the sort, and she knows it. “If anything you’re just encouraging me.”
He grins, encourages her some more. She arches into him and he wraps an arm around her waist, hands supporting her back. After a second, she slips the key card out of her pocket and takes several attempts with the lock. It flashes a green light on the fourth try, and they slip into the cool dark of her room.
They’re clumsy in the dark, in their haste to cover as much ground as they can while they’re both unwilling to think of things like consequences and second thoughts. The door lock clicks into place and her back is against a wall again, his hands roving down to her thighs and lifting her up so she’s suddenly at eye level with him. She waits for something to kick at her, waits for her stomach to roll, send out some signal of warning, but it never comes. Her legs press steady around his hips, and he cradles her gently against the wall, kisses her swollen lips, which open against his to let him in.
They have to move away from the wall, because she’s starting to tug at his shirt and his hands have already gotten under hers. The wall is hindering their progress, so he lifts her away from it. She squeaks against his mouth, clamps her arms around his neck like she’s afraid he’ll drop her. The only place he drops her is the bed, and she smiles in relief because she’s not sure if she could have made this decision, even if she wants it. He tugs his t-shirt over his head, and she’s thankful for that, too.
Her sandals hit the carpet and she brings her legs up on the bed, lifts her arms over her head and stretches luxuriously. He puts a hand on her knee and joins her on the bed, hovers over her with arms straight down on either side of her to support his weight. Everything is slowing down, giving them plenty of time to think about this, but instead she sits up and pushes into him, kissing him while his warm hands have found their way under her shirt again, takes it with them on their journey up her spine. It’s all the way off and on the floor; she shakes her hair out of her eyes so she can go back to kissing him.
The jeans are harder, but they navigate through buttons and zippers the best that they can, hands tangling and knuckles bumping. He forgets about his shoes and nearly falls off the bed in his haste to get rid of them. She laughs loudly and hides her smile behind her hands, but then the humor slides away because they are there, right on the edge of tumbling into a place neither had ever anticipated they would go.
This is not her first time, and it is obviously far from his. When he gets rid of his shoes and socks, jeans finally there on the floor with hers, her smile is gone, but her want is still there, burning slow and warm in her chest. She feels hot everywhere, flushed, especially where his fingers trail along her skin. Underwear is unhooked, tugged away over her arms and down her legs. He kisses her everywhere, and her hands linger across him. They are both proudly comprised of flat muscle and sun kissed skin, beautiful despite being worked to the bone.
She shivers when his mouth grazes over the most sensitive places of her, stops and focuses and makes her so wound up she has to practically snarl her fingers in his hair and pull his head up to hers because she is so ready and now she is unwilling to wait.
“Now,” she’s whispering, like a chant, into his mouth and he smiles because she’s that impatient. He tells her.
“How impatient can you be?”
He’s delaying, and she’s about ready to show him just what she plans to do about this, but there’s a condom in his jeans, on the floor, and she starts to tell him this isn’t necessary before she realizes that it is. This is trust, a pact, and she’ll accept because it’s only seconds later. They move together, a tangle of limbs and curled toes, and she comes with a soft keening gasp, pulling him closer when he follows.
Afterward she stretches out on her side, her eyes closed. Their feet are touching. His arm is loosely draped over her, hand grazing against her back. Her arms are folded in front of her, pressed from wrist to elbow against his chest. The sweat on their bodies dries. He’s watching her, but she’s too lazy to check for herself. Instead the feeling of his lips on her forehead makes her smile, shift closer to his warmth, and just like that they are new people, in a new life, and this is how they start.