Suddenly feeling like a total perv and the worst friend imaginable, I shook my head, mentally shut my ears and turned my attention to the top of the sign up form so I could get my name on it and get out of earshot:
Equestrian Team -
Tryouts this Friday, 7:00 a.m. in the indoor arena.
Must be available for practice M-F 6:30 a.m – 8:00 a.m.
& Sundays 7:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Sign up - one (1) name per slot below:
I blinked and read it again. Seven a.m.: right in the middle of my Community Service assignment. The one that was non-negotiable and unchangeable.
“Seriously?”
I took a deep breath and read the form a third time, hoping it would change as I read it. Or maybe I’d read it wrong the first two times.
But no.
Everything hit me in that moment and I was suddenly desperately homesick. Even though I didn’t have anywhere that I really called home anymore, I missed my parents and my brother and the comfort of everything going the way I expected it to, even if it wasn’t the life I really wanted. At least it was comfortable and easy and I never got my hopes squashed by a dragon of a dean who I’d never met but who seemed to hate me anyway.
Yep, definitely a pity party, I thought.
I sniffled and wiped my eyes on the cuff of my hoodie.
“Pathetic,” I muttered.
“What’s pathetic?” I heard from behind me, startling me.
I spun around on Brady, pressing my palm to my chest to try to ease my racing heart. “Stop doing that!”
Wearing a navy and green flannel shirt and what appeared to be his signature jeans, he held up his hands in the universal symbol for ‘what did I do?’
“You scared me half to death,” I explained.
He gave me a wide-eyed look. “I could say the same of you. I come in here to lock up and here you are, lurking around. For the second time, I might add.”
“I’m not lurking,” I said, stuffing my hands into my hoodie pockets, reminded of the fruit I’d brought for the horses.
Brady’s eyes glanced down at my belly and he nodded at it. “Are those billiard balls in there or are you happy to see me?”
My face heated up instantly and I’m sure it burned a delightful crimson at his not-so-innocent joke. In answer, I pulled out an apple. “For the horses,” I choked out.
Smooth, Brooklyn.
He gave me a knowing grin and then the smile dissolved as he looked closer, stepping toward me. I began to fidget as it suddenly felt like he was looking right through me. “Hey. Are you okay?”
My first instinct was to nod and wave him off. But apparently he’d asked the perfect question to unlock my mouth, and then words just started falling out.
“No. I’m not okay.” I said, jerking my thumb toward the bulletin board. “I just went to sign up for the team and found out the practices are at the same time as my stupid community service assignment. I won’t be able to join after all. And of course, it’s the one thing at this school I was actually looking forward to.”
Then, because my display wasn’t pathetic enough, tears eked out of my eyes, rolling down my face and I could do nothing to stop them but swipe at them with my hoodie sleeve. Embarrassed, I dropped my head, staring at my shoes, unable to bring myself to look at Brady. I was probably doing him a favor, since he was probably calculating the path of least resistance to get away from me.
“Hey, hey,” he said, from right in front of me, making my head snap up toward him. His stunning amber eyes were intent on mine, concerned.
He reached out as though to touch my shoulder, but hesitated and dropped his arm, shoving his hand into his jeans pocket instead. “It’s okay. You can fix this.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. My friends said the dean never lets people change their assignments, no matter what.”
“No matter what?” he asked.
“That’s what they said.” I wasn’t about to tell him their exact words. Or that Emmie’d called her a dragon; she was Brady’s employer, after all.
“She can be a bit…rigid,” he admitted, the right corner of his mouth twitching up into a tiny smile.
“That’s diplomatic,” I said.
“Generous,” he replied, with a snort.
“I’ve heard she’s a dragon,” I blurted out. And then gasped. So much for not trashing his employer. “Sorry!”
Brady barked out a laugh. “No, don’t apologize. She definitely has dragon-like properties.”
I felt stupid, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Why don’t you sign up,” he said, pointing at the form.
I frowned. “I told you, my assignment…” I broke off because he was shaking his head. “What?”
“I’m sure there’s a way around it.”
I stared at him. If there was a way around it, it wasn’t coming to me, especially with his eyes so focused on mine. Unwavering. Making me blush again for no reason.
Swallowing, I turned away, looking at the paper on the wall. “Do you think Coach Fleming would talk to her?”
“He might.”
I looked back at him. “Really?”
He shrugged. “He’s always looking for good candidates for the team. Especially dressage. And,” he paused to look around, like he was about to tell me a grave secret. My heart stuttered as he leaned closer, filling my nose with his masculine smell: fifty percent boy, fifty percent tack, one-hundred percent amazing.
He was almost close enough to kiss me, and as if they were hoping it would happen, my eyes drifted down to his mouth. Involuntarily, I leaned forward.
He cleared his throat, snapping my attention back up to his eyes.
“I have it on good authority that the dean has a soft spot for dressage. We’ve had a sub-par team for years, but if we had someone with four blue…”
“Five,” I said, interrupting him. “I have five blue ribbons.” Which was true, but probably wasn’t a good indicator of my skill as much as the lack of skill in anyone else at my old stables.
He nodded, “Five. Like I said: impressive. Leave it with me; I’ll see what I can do.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, when I heard Emmie’s laugh, muffled, but loud enough that Brady would be able to hear it if he was paying attention. One glance at his face told me he hadn’t heard, but it was just a matter of time if we stuck around.
I cleared my throat loudly. “So I have all this fruit and carrots. Can I give it to the horses?”
He pointed at the form again. “Sign up.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat again while I scribbled my name on the form, cursing the pen that decided it didn’t want to write upright. I pretty much scratched my name through the page and quickly turned back to Brady.
“Okay, good to go.” I cleared my throat again to cover Emmie’s giggle. “Sorry. Something in my throat.”
He gave me a weird sideways look, but didn’t say anything more as he led me away from the office and down the hall towards the stalls.
“So, do you ride?” I asked him. It felt like a stupid question; asking the stable boy if he rode, but you never know. And anyway, it filled the weird silence that was stretching between us.
He gave me a look, his right eyebrow raised.
“What?” I asked. “Did I say something wrong?” I suddenly had a panic attack that he had fallen from a horse and had some sort of PTSD or something.
He shook his head and grinned. “No. Nothing’s wrong. Yes, I ride a little. Come on, let’s distribute your goodies and then I have to lock up. As much as I’d like to hang out here all night with you, I do have an early day tomorrow.”
My heart fluttered in my chest at his words. Was Brady flirting with me? No, he was staff here and that had to be against the rules, even if he did seem kind of young; he was probably older than he looked, anyway.
Probably he was just being nice to the new girl who’d cried on his shoulder over her childish problems.
Yes, th
at had to be it. But why didn’t my pounding heart believe it?
Love Rekindled
“I don’t know what I was nervous about, but you were right, Brooklyn: it was fine. No. It was better than fine, it was amazing! Dave is amazing.”
It was the sixth time Emmie’d used the word amazing since she’d returned from her stables rendezvous, kicked off her shoes and threw herself onto her bed, almost two and a half minutes before. It was tempting to point out that she was going to qualify for the ‘overused word drinking game’ if she wasn’t careful, but her excitement was infectious, so I just let her ride it out. Realizing I wasn’t going to get back to reading my textbook anytime soon, I wondered if I’d get any work done this year with Emmie as my roommate. I might have to figure out somewhere else to study for exams, but for now, before the workload got too heavy, I didn’t mind.
And I loved her energy; I hoped maybe some would wear off on me.
She bounced a little on her bed. “He looks even better than I remembered, since his hair’s grown out. I mean, you just can’t see it on Skype, you know? And it’s so soft and he smells exactly how I remembered; clean and masculine and kind of like leather and just pure goodness, you know?”
I nodded, getting the feeling if I opened my mouth, she’d just talk over me anyway.
“And the kissing,” she said, fluttering her lashes, her fingers rising to touch her lips. My face heated up as I guiltily remembered hearing them making out, but she didn’t seem to notice and went on. “He is such a good kisser. I think I may have missed that more than anything else. Although, the talking was nice. Not that we talked about much of anything.” She giggled sheepishly. “But hearing his voice first hand while he was touching me…” she trailed off, all swoony.
“So, you’re breaking up then?” I asked, joking.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I’m pretty much done with him; you can have him next.”
I laughed, but didn’t say anything. I mean, Dave sounded perfect; nice and good-smelling and of course, the good kisser part, but secretly, I was still thinking about Will.
“And, the best part? I’m going to get to work with him through my CSA—he’s doing school liaison, too. How lucky is that?”
I wasn’t sure luck had much to do with it, but I was happy for her and hoped that if I ever got a boyfriend, that she’d be happy for me if we got extra opportunities to be together.
“Oh no!” she said suddenly. “Wait! Your guy. I completely forgot to ask about him.” It was like she’d been reading my mind, or maybe I had a neon sign on my face or something.
But compared to her real relationship, my little flirtation with Will seemed stupid and insignificant now, at least out loud. I waved her off. “It’s no big deal. He was just a cute guy who helped me with my luggage, that’s all. I’m sure it was nothing.” Because it was going to amount to nothing, if my past history with guys was any sort of indicator. But he had smelled good, and his hair looked soft and I would have loved to have found out if he was a good kisser, too.
She gave me a look. “What? What’s going on with you?”
I avoided her eyes, smoothing out my bedspread over my legs and picking at the corner of the textbook I’d put down when she’d burst into the room. “Nothing.”
“What happened at the stables? You seem…I don’t know, different.”
I told her about the equestrian team conflict, but when I was done, she frowned at me.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s not it,” she said. “Something…you’re unsettled or something.”
Even though I’d been thinking about Will, Emmie made me think about Brady back at the stables and how he’d made me feel exactly that: unsettled. “It’s nothing.”
Emmie got up off her bed and sat down on mine, digging her legs under the covers and poking me with her toes. “It’s not nothing. I’m very intuitive and I’m never wrong.” She studied my face, making me blush under her scrutiny.
“Was there a boy there?”
My face got even hotter.
“Well that answers it,” she declared with a snort, nudging me with her foot again. Her eyes went suddenly wide. “Wait. It was him, wasn’t it? The trunk mover! What happened?”
I knew I wasn’t getting away from the interrogation, so I figured best to just tell her and get it over with.
“No. It wasn’t him. It was the stable guy. Brady.” I shrugged. “We’re friends, I guess. We met last night when I went out to hang out with the horses. But it’s nothing.” I thought about him standing so close to me and how it had almost felt like he’d been about to kiss me. But it had to have been just my imagination, and I wasn’t about to make myself look like an idiot by saying something about it to Emmie.
She stared at me and blinked three times. “Brady?”
“Yes, Brady.” Dread washed over me at her expression. She must have thought I was into him or something. “But of course he’s staff and obviously older; it’s not like that. We’re just friends. He said he was going to talk to the coach about getting me on the team and getting my community service assignment changed. And I just met him. Like I said, it’s not like that…” I clamped my mouth shut, realizing I was babbling like a crazy person who might be overcompensating for something that she wasn’t willing to admit to her roommate or herself.
Emmie closed her eyes and shook her head for several moments. Frowning, and with her eyes still closed, she said, “Wait, what? He was going to talk to what coach?”
All that kissing must have scrambled her brain, I thought, wondering if I wasn’t speaking clearly. “The equestrian coach: Fleming. Brady said he would talk to him about getting me on the team and seeing if the dean would change my community service assignment.”
She opened her eyes and looked straight into mine. “Brooklyn,” she said, looking at me as though I was daft. “First of all, the dean changes community service assignments for NO ONE. Ever. And secondly, and, I think, most importantly, so pay attention: Brady is Coach Fleming.”
My brain seemed to stall out for a moment, but when her words started to make sense, I did a double-take. “What? No. He’s older than us, but he’s too young to be a coach.”
Emmie put her hands on my cheeks and held my head in place, inches from hers, when she said, very slowly, “Brady Fleming is our equestrian coach. He attends Westwood as a student and works here part time in the stables and teaching equestrian. He’s going to the next Olympics.”
“Olympics?” I croaked.
She nodded, not letting go of my face. “Yes. The Olympics. You know, that sport event thing that happens, I don’t know, every four years or so. It’s kind of a big deal?”
“He’s going to the Olympics,” I repeated. “In what?”
“Dressage.”
Of course. That makes all the sense in the world. “If he’s going to the Olympics, why is he working here at Rosewood?”
She shrugged. “He goes to Westwood on an athletic scholarship. I imagine going to the Olympics isn’t free, neither is training or paying for a horse and vet bills and all that.”
It took a moment for this all to sink in. And then I remembered, “Oh. My. God!” I looked at her. “Emmie!”
“What?” she asked, but she was laughing. I could hardly blame her; if it wasn’t me who’d made a total fool of myself in front of our equestrian coach, I’d be laughing, too.
“I bragged about my stupid blue ribbons and even asked him if he rides at all. He must think I’m a total idiot. No wonder he gave me that look.”
She let go of my face to laugh and throw her arms around my shoulders and give me a squeeze. “You are so cute. What did he say?”
I smirked, in spite of myself. “He said he rides a little.”
She snorted. “Ha! That’s awesome. But more importantly,” she dropped her voice and gave me a pointed look. “Isn’t he delicious?”
“Emmie!”
Feigning shock, she suddenly let me go. “Oh com
e on. Tell me you didn’t notice. He’s beautiful and broody; what’s not to like?”
“Broody?”
“Yes. Broody and moody, snarling all the time. Tortured. So hot.”
I wasn’t sure we were talking about the same guy. “I didn’t get that from him.”
“Tall guy, black hair, honey brown eyes?”
I nodded. Definitely Brady.
“Was he wearing tight pants? His best assets are below the belt.”
“Emmie!” I exclaimed again, raising my palms to my hot cheeks.
She winked and got up out of my bed. “Relax, I meant his butt and thighs from all that horseback riding. You have such a dirty mind, Brooklyn Prescott.” She gave me a wave over her shoulder. “I don’t think you’re as innocent as you let on.”
Indeed I was, but her comment was rhetorical, so I didn’t respond. And anyway, by the time I would have thought of something to say, she had taken her pajamas into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
But as I sat there, still stunned from learning Brady was actually the equestrian instructor, something nagged at me. Why hadn’t he told me? He’d had several opportunities: when I first met him and then again tonight. And it couldn’t be an oversight—he’d said he would talk to Coach Fleming on my behalf. He could have come clean right then. So much for us being friends as I’d thought.
So much for me liking Coach Fleming as he’d said I would.
He had intentionally deceived me.
But why?
The Dean
The next day I was in French class, easily conjugating verbs about ten minutes before the bell was to ring, when I got called to the dean’s office. My heart pounded in my chest and the girls around me started whispering, but I couldn’t be in trouble already, could I? I was the good girl. And I’d just gotten to Rosewood.
Then I realized maybe it was about the equestrian team. Maybe, despite his little deception, Brady—Coach Fleming—had followed through on his promise to get me on the team.
Nervous, I packed up my things and left the classroom, pulling the dog-eared campus map from my backpack to find the dean’s office.
Once I got there, I realized it was exactly what I would have expected the office of the dean of students of a very exclusive girls’ school to be: all rich wood and ceiling-high shelves of books, many leather-bound. There was a large but utilitarian wood desk placed strategically in front of the ornately carved door with a plaque that read “Dean Haywood”. Sitting at the desk was a bespectacled secretary. As my eyes landed on her, I startled a little; she was staring at me over the top of her reading glasses.