Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 02 - Out of the Darkness (37 page)

Dan nods. “Yeah, sounds good. I’ll be waiting by the phone.”

“That used to mean a lot more in the days before cell phones.” Jeff grins and heads out to the car, and Dan turns back to the hay. He’s halfway to the barn with a full cart when his phone rings, and he pulls it out, happily anticipating a call from Jeff or Evan. Instead, it’s Taylor’s number, and Dan has a flash of worry. Things are going so well with Evan, and he doesn’t want to mess that up, but he also doesn’t want to give in, doesn’t want Evan to think that all he has to do is have a temper tantrum and Dan will do whatever he says….

He answers the phone cautiously. “Hi, Taylor?”

 

Taylor’s voice is anything but careful. “Dan. This is bullshit, man, did you know about this?”

 

“What?” Dan’s lost. “Calm down, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Yeah? You don’t know that I just lost my job? That your boyfriend just got me fired?”

Dan feels a familiar lurch in his stomach as all the warmth and satisfaction of the last day drops away. He should have known things were going too smoothly.

Chapter 22

D
AN
tries to keep his head from spinning. He presses the phone too tightly against his ear until the submerged thud of his own pulse drowns out any sounds Taylor might be making at the other end. He pulls it away a little and struggles to understand. “What do you mean? How did… he got you fired? How?”

“How do you think, Dan?” Taylor voice is angry, but also maybe a little resigned. “He’s got more money than God—if he tells the Board that he won’t give them any cash as long as I work there, then I don’t work there anymore, you know?”

“Wait… did they
tell
you that? What did they say, exactly?” Dan is fighting to control his voice, but he knows he sounds a bit shaky.

There’s a pause, and then Taylor’s voice is a little softer. “Fuck, Dan, this… are you guys… you know, are you pretty into him? I mean… I was gonna lose my job either way, I guess—without a serious cash infusion, the place was for sure gonna go under….”

“No, but… fuck, Taylor, what did they tell you? They said you were fired? Like, those exact words?”

“Yeah, pretty close.” There’s a pause. “Look, man, I’m near your place—I kinda… when they first told me, I was pretty mad. I was gonna go down to his place, and, I don’t know….” Taylor huffs out a bitter laugh. “But then I figured he must have a lot of security, and I probably wouldn’t get near him, just end up getting arrested or something. But, anyway, I’m not far from you. Can I come by? It’s… there’s a bit of a story, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Dan doesn’t know what to think, but he knows he needs to hear more. “I’m still at work, but I can leave now, meet you at my apartment. Is that cool?”

Taylor agrees, and Dan gives him directions, one half of his brain focused on the menial details of that task while the other half is scrambling, darting from idea to idea without landing anywhere or understanding anything. Evan wouldn’t do something like that, would he? But he’d been really angry, and he’d used his power to get rid of Ryan, sort of, and Dan had let him get away with that… but Evan hadn’t said anything, that morning, when things were going well….

Dan doesn’t know what to think, and suddenly he’s so tired he feels like just sitting down in the dirt and giving up. Maybe he’s just not strong enough for this kind of relationship, for all the drama and doubt. Justin was solid, and he made Dan feel strong, made him feel safe. Evan, and even Jeff… they make Dan feel weak. They distract him from what’s really important—Justin’s horses—and drag him into their crazy lives. Maybe
they
like living in a soap opera, with millionaires and threesomes and glamour, but….

Dan shakes the ideas off and heads for the truck. He’s a grown man; he’s not going to fall down in the dirt. He just wishes things could be easy for a change. For a little while, at least.

He gets to the truck and pulls his phone out of his pocket before sitting down on the bench seat. He leaves the door open, with his feet braced on the ground outside, and he hits the number for Evan’s speed dial. He’s not sure how to start, what to say. He’s confused, but he’s also angry, or he thinks he is.

The problem is solved when the call goes to voice mail, Evan’s voice calm and friendly. Dan pauses longer than he should before blurting out, “Evan, give me a call. I… it’s kinda… it’s important, okay? I’ll… yeah, okay, just call me, all right?”

He tries not to think about anything on the ride home, and when he arrives Taylor is already there waiting for him, leaning against the hood of a Corolla that has seen better years. Taylor’s got a cigarette in one hand and a bottle in the other, and all the soft contentedness he’d shown the other night is gone, and he looks like the guy Dan used to know, desperate and hungry and dangerously hot. Dan shoves that reaction down deep; he
really
doesn’t need the complication. A small part of his brain tells him that being with Taylor wouldn’t be a complication, it would actually be a hell of a lot simpler than being with Jeff and Evan, but he tries to ignore the idea. He’s got lots of reasons to be faithful, but the most obvious is that he’ll be damned if he proves Evan right about being jealous.

Taylor pushes off the hood of the car when Dan pulls in to the driveway and stands, waiting. Dan takes a deep breath before opening his door and climbing out. He walks toward Taylor and pauses, unsure of what to say, how to address whatever it is that’s happened. He settles for nodding and then continuing on, with Taylor grinding out his cigarette in the gravel of the driveway and then falling in behind Dan as he heads inside the garage and up the stairs to the apartment.

There’s another awkward moment when they get inside until some version of hospitality hits Dan, and he nods toward the bottle of tequila in Taylor’s hand. “You want a glass?”

Taylor shrugs, and then nods. “Yeah, okay. Do you?”

Dan thinks about it as he’s heading for the cupboard. He knows he should keep his head clear, and he knows he’s got liquor of his own in the apartment, so there’s no need to dip into Taylor’s bottle. He gets two glasses anyway, and nods Taylor toward the couch.

The bottle is still almost full, so Taylor can’t be too far gone. Dan’s relieved to be able to assume that Taylor hadn’t been swigging from it while he was driving down the highway. Things aren’t quite
that
messed up yet. There’s a good dent in the bottle when Taylor’s poured them both two glasses, though, so it’s pretty clear that sorrowdrowning is on at least one of their agendas for the afternoon.

Dan takes a deep swallow from his glass, the tequila burning harsher than the bourbon he’s gotten used to. He gets up and grabs two bottles of beer from the fridge; there was a time when he drank tequila without a chaser, but apparently that time is gone. When he turns around, he feels Taylor’s eyes on him, burning the way they used to when they were just figuring each other out, when Taylor was still trying to be straight but having a harder and harder time lying to himself. Dan tries to ignore the look, passing the beer over and sitting in the arm chair next to the couch.

“So,” he starts but then isn’t sure how to continue. He isn’t sure whether he wants to hear the rest of Taylor’s story.

But Taylor has taken the prompt. “Yeah. So… the thing is, uh… you know, for a while after we left Florida—until I had Owen, really— I was, you know… having fun. Fucking around.” Taylor looks defensive, but Dan just shrugs. It’s not like he’s unfamiliar with the concept of fucking around. Taylor seems to remember that, too, and he’s a bit more relaxed when he continues. “Anyway, there was a guy in a bar down near Malibu. I should have known better, should have left the rich folks alone in their playground, but I was working there, and….” He shrugs. He and Dan both know he should have known better, so there’s no point in carrying on. “Anyway, this guy was hot, and, you know, we were in a
bar
, for fuck’s sake… so we went back to his place, and it was great, right on the beach. I didn’t get around to asking where the money came from, but… it was a bit weird, looking back, because he
really
didn’t want me to leave that night, and I should have figured something was up, but I was drunk, and it was a really nice bed.”

Dan isn’t sure where this is going or how it ties in to Taylor’s current job problems. He’s not sure he wants to know. They both take another deep gulp of tequila, followed by swallows of beer, and then Taylor continues. “So, the next morning, the bedroom door opens, and it’s the guy’s old man. The kid was seventeen, I was twenty-two.” And there’s the point of the story, Dan figures. “So, yeah, I guess that was the kid’s way of coming out, the little bastard. Didn’t bother worrying what it was gonna do to me, and didn’t bother explaining what the hell he was doing drinking in a bar, and, you know, what the fuck, have you ever asked a guy for ID before fucking him?” Taylor sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

“So what did they do to you?” Dan figures he knows where this is going, but he needs to hear the details.

“Misdemeanor statutory rape.” Taylor sighs again, and sits back in his chair now that the hard part of the story is over. “Could have been felony; that’s what the dad was pushing for. But the prosecutor wasn’t a
total
bastard, at least. The dad was rich; they couldn’t brush him off entirely, but they held him off a little, at least.”

Dan thinks back to his own experience with Evan’s investigators. “So… I don’t mean to be an asshole, man, but how’d you get the job in the first place? Working with kids, I mean?” Taylor shoots him a betrayed look, and Dan holds his hands up in surrender. “No, I’m not saying I think you’d be a risk to them, I just…. People are pretty paranoid.”

Taylor’s face relaxes a little. “Yeah. When I started working there, I was just working in the barn, not with the kids, and, you know. I knew the woman who was in charge of the Board of Directors….”

Dan lets that sink in for a second. “Wait… are you saying you
knew
her?” Taylor’s sheepish face is all the answer Dan needs. “Jesus, man, you fucked your way into the place, and you fucked your way out of it….”

Taylor looks outraged. “Screw you, man, I was good at the
job
! I got promoted twice, even after she quit the Board! And I wouldn’t have had any trouble getting the job in the first place if some rich brat hadn’t decided that his old man needed a shake up.”

Dan nods slowly. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s….” It’s complicated, is what it is. Evan had told Dan that if they hadn’t already known each other, Evan wouldn’t have offered Dan his own position, based on his past indiscretions, so Dan isn’t too surprised that Evan objected to Taylor’s. But why hadn’t Evan told him? “So… do you know… was it Evan himself that called the Board?” That doesn’t make sense. It wouldn’t have been. Dan can feel the relief wash over him as he realizes that Evan probably hadn’t had anything to do with this at all. His company had started the vetting process, like Evan had said they would, and then they’d contacted the Board with their concerns.

Taylor has said something, but Dan’s been too caught up in his own thoughts to hear it. “Sorry, man, what?”

 

“I said, it’s his company. Doesn’t he know what they’re doing?”

Dan shakes his head emphatically. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s a pretty big company. I think they just… well, shit, I don’t really know how it works, but, you know, he’s got… people.”

Taylor nods grudgingly and refills his glass. Dan’s isn’t quite empty yet, but Taylor sloshes some more into it while he’s at it. Then he leans back and takes a deep swallow. “Well, either way, I’m out of a fucking job.”

Dan can’t argue with that. He thinks of Taylor’s son and how much it must cost to have a kid. And the way Taylor’s tied to the area now; he can’t just pack up and move somewhere else to find work, not with a toddler to look after. “I can talk to Evan. See if, you know… see if he’ll override the decision.”

Taylor doesn’t look too hopeful. “Yeah. I… I got the impression that the Board…. You know, I guess they didn’t know about it themselves. They never asked, I never told. But I think now that the cat’s out of the bag… I doubt they’ll want me back.”

Dan nods. “But, you know, you said it yourself. Evan’s got the money. If they want it, they’ll do what he says.”

Taylor looks almost hopeful. Dan thinks about Evan’s attitude toward Taylor and takes a deep swallow of tequila. He somehow doubts it’s going to be easy to get Evan to help, and their relationship isn’t really secure enough for Dan to pressure the guy. But Dan’s been in Taylor’s shoes, been the poor drifter getting pushed around by the rich and by the law, just because he’s got no one to stand up for him. “If you’d been from Malibu, if you’d been rich… that kid never would have picked you. Or if he did, his daddy and your daddy would have talked it out on the golf course or something.” Dan thinks of Blaine and wonders how many underaged partners he’s had. He wonders about himself, because Taylor was right; it’s not like he’s ever asked for ID. He grins a little as the solution comes to him. “And if that doesn’t work, my barn is hiring.” Taylor’s eyes cut to him fast, and Dan hurries to continue. “It might not be as much money, and, you know, you’d have to start as pretty junior—I couldn’t bump you up past other people just ’cause we’re friends. But, you know… it’d keep Owen in spaghetti.”

Taylor looks a little doubtful. “And Evan would be okay with that?”

That’s the sticky part, Dan has to admit. “Well, no, probably not, but it’s not his call. My contract says I have sole authority over hiring and firing.” Dan needs to think about this at some time when his head isn’t swimming with tequila, but he’s pretty sure he’s not picking a fight with Evan, pretty sure he’s just trying to do the right thing. Rich people might be able to write a check and soothe their consciences, but Dan isn’t rich, so his morality is a bit messier.

“I don’t know, man, I don’t want to mess things up with you guys.”

 

Dan shakes his head. “No, it’s… if he can’t deal with this stuff, then it’s better to find it out now, probably. You know?”