Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 02 - Out of the Darkness (39 page)

 

“It’s not your fault, man. And it’s not a big deal—this place is just temporary anyhow.”

 

“And the rest of it? The stuff with Evan?”

Dan doesn’t know what to say to that. “It’s not your fault, either. That’s… that’s me and Evan. We’re… I don’t know what the hell we are.”

Taylor waits to see if there’s going to be more, and then shrugs. “Yeah, okay. So, anyway, thanks for putting me up. I’ll give you a call if I get anything figured out about the job. Is there any rush on getting the clothes back to you?”

“Whenever, man.”
“Cool, thanks.” And Taylor’s out the door.

Dan’s tired already, but he knows he won’t be able to sleep, and he knows he should get to work. It’ll be a lot easier to justify his hiring decisions at the barn if he’s clearly doing his own job with full energy and enthusiasm. He may not have a lot of either right now, but at least he can show up and put the time in.

He remembers to plug his phone in before he leaves, but that doesn’t do him much good for the day, since it’ll take awhile to charge. So when he’s driving to the barn and realizes that he should probably give Jeff a call and update him on the latest disaster with Evan, he can’t do it right away, and when he gets to the barn he’s immediately swamped, all of the riders apparently needing his guidance simultaneously. It makes him feel guilty for cutting out a bit early the day before, and he doesn’t even give himself a break at lunchtime, just eating apples as he goes.

Tat comes down to observe and to talk about some of the horses she and Dan had been thinking of buying. They watch some videos of the best prospects on the laptop in the office and discuss pros and cons, and Dan thinks maybe Tat’s being a little bit weird, but that could just be his imagination, or it could be his hangover skewing his judgment, so he doesn’t worry about it too much. From what he’s seen, Evan tries to hold Tat pretty far away from the vagaries of his love life, and Dan has no problem with keeping it that way. She reminds him that she’s going to be out of town for the rest of the week, off to visit a friend down in LA, and he settles in to get some decisions made before she leaves.

His hangover eases off after a while only to come back with a vengeance in the late afternoon. He fights through it, though, and doesn’t leave until everyone else has gone, although Devin has only trekked upstairs for a break before coming back down to put the barn to bed. Still, being the only one left in the barn is enough to salvage Dan’s pride, and he goes home feeling like he put in a good day’s work, even though he only rode one horse, and that only on the flat.

He’s too tired to worry about dinner when he gets home, and he knows he’s supposed to be taking better care of himself, but he can’t really be bothered. He has a quick shower and then collapses on his bed, letting the problems in his personal life back into his head. He reaches for the phone and dials Jeff’s number.

When Jeff answers, his voice is cooler than Dan’s ever heard it. Dan knows that Jeff has call display, must know it’s Dan on the line, but still he only answers with a quiet, “Hello.”

“Jeff, hey, it’s me.” Dan’s suddenly nervous. He’s sure Evan’s gotten to Jeff before him, but surely Jeff would see Dan’s side, at least a little? “Uh… I guess Evan probably called you today? Or maybe last night?”

Jeff sounds tired. “Yeah, Dan, he called me.” There’s nothing more.

“Okay. Uh….” Dan’s at a loss. He can’t remember it being this hard to talk to Jeff ever before. “Well, you know… it’s not great, and I think maybe I overreacted a bit, but, you know… I still don’t like it. I don’t think it’s fair for Taylor.”

Jeff cuts in. “I don’t really want to get involved in this, Dan.”

“What?” Dan takes a moment to think. “You mean, you want Evan and me to solve it ourselves. Yeah, that’s cool, it’s just… he’s not here, and I figured he must have called you.”

“He called me last night, after you left him in the car.” Jeff still sounds cold, and Dan’s getting a really, really bad feeling.

“Well, you know, I
got out
of the car… it’s not like I… you know, I just thought we needed some time to cool off. I needed some time. I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t
leave
him.”

“So you didn’t spend the night with Taylor?” There’s accusation now in Jeff’s voice.

 

“Spend the night….” Dan is more than a little tired of not being trusted. “I didn’t… what are you talking about?”

“I came by this morning, Dan. To talk things over, try to get you and Evan sorted out. And some guy was in your apartment, wearing your clothes, hair wet from the shower… I assume he was Taylor, unless you’ve got a whole different guy on the line.”

Oh. “He said it was the landlord that came by.”
“What? Jesus, Dan, what has that got to do with anything?”

“What has
any
of this got to do with anything? Yeah, that was Taylor, and, yeah, he stayed the night.” Dan’s too tired for this crap. “You’re not seriously pulling the jealousy shit now, too, are you? I’m allowed to have friends, and if a friend has a really shitty day and drinks too much to drive home, he’s allowed to stay over. That’s not… and, fuck, if somebody stays over, he’s allowed to shower, and I’m allowed to lend him some fucking clothes, Jeff!”

There’s a pause. “And you didn’t call me all day because….”

“Because I was at work, and my phone was dead? Because I didn’t know you came by this morning? Like I said, he thought you were the landlord. I don’t know why he thought that—did you say something that he could interpret that way?”

Jeff sighs. “Maybe. I said something about checking things out. He caught me off guard. But, fuck, Dan, you know how Evan feels about the guy—why do you have to keep rubbing it in our faces?”

“Rubbing
what
? Did Evan tell you about Taylor losing his job? I’m not rubbing anything in anyone’s face if I spend some time trying to help a friend figure things out.”

“Evan said you offered the guy a job.”

“Yeah, maybe. If he can’t find something better.” Dan’s surprised by how betrayed he’s feeling. He thought he’d come to terms with his place in the relationship, thought he’d accepted that Evan would always come first with Jeff, but somehow this is still a shock, to have Jeff so totally on Evan’s side. “Did Evan tell you the whole thing, about how Taylor was practically framed? And, you know, it’s not just a rich/poor thing—it’s also a gay thing, because do you think the dad would have flipped out so much if his son had brought home a twenty-two-year-old
woman
? It’s bullshit, man.”

“So, what, you’re just going to charge through the world righting wrongs, throwing Evan’s decisions back in his face, when all he’s trying to do is protect his company, and protect his family?”

Dan’s head hurts, and he’s feeling a bit dizzy again. He’s also feeling a bit defeated. “I’m just trying to do what I think is right. I’m not… I’m not trying to get in Evan’s way. But….” He lets a little bitterness come through in his laugh. “But what happened to you not wanting to get involved, Jeff? Sounds like you’re pretty involved, sounds like you’ve already decided that Evan’s right and I’m wrong.”

Jeff doesn’t say anything to that, and Dan lets him think about it for a little while. Finally, Jeff sighs. “So nothing happened between you and Taylor?”

Dan’s too tired. He doesn’t have the words to explain how it feels to have them both doubting him, to have them both siding against him, and he can’t find the energy to even try to express himself. Evan was one thing, but having Jeff feeling the same way—it’s just too much. “I’m done with this, Jeff.” He feels old, and worn down. “I’m not going to keep….” But the words still aren’t there. He tries to regroup. “Evan gets back in a couple days, right?”

Jeff’s voice is cautious now. “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“We should… we should probably get together then. I think….” Dan can’t really bring himself to say the words, but he’s pretty sure Jeff gets the message. Pretty sure Jeff must be thinking the same way, must be wondering if the whole thing isn’t just more trouble than it’s worth. It’ll hurt to call things off, but it’s beginning to feel like it might hurt more to keep fighting for something that’s just never going to work. “Well, we should talk then, I think.”

There’s silence on the line, and then Jeff’s voice, sounding just as tired as Dan feels. “I guess maybe we should.”

Dan’s irrationally disappointed, and he realizes that he was still expecting Jeff to somehow save the day. He waits a second, giving Jeff a chance to perform one last miracle, and then he says, “Okay, then. Can you give me a call when he gets back?”

Jeff agrees quietly, and they hang up. Dan lies back on his bed and closes his eyes. Now that he’s said the words, he kind of wishes he could take them back. He can’t really imagine his life without the other two men in it. But it doesn’t make sense to keep going on the way they have been, either, just little flashes of peace and happiness almost lost beneath all the conflict and struggle. And Dan still has some pride, enough that he’d rather not be caught clinging to something that the other two are just too nice to let go of. He thinks about calling Chris, but he doesn’t really know what to say; he tries to summon PuppetChris instead, but all Dan gets is a quick flash of his disapproving face. Apparently the puppet thinks as much of him as Jeff and Evan do.

Dan lets himself get lost in ineffective thought, and at some point he drifts off. He wakes up early the next morning and goes through his routine without paying attention to anything, just letting the habits take care of themselves. He makes it to work okay and saddles up Winston for some arena jumping. They warm up, and by the time they’re ready to start working, Robyn is out, riding Sunshine. Dan waves hello but doesn’t go over to talk to her; he remembers showing off with Evan, fooling around in front of her, and it makes him feel empty and a little foolish. He should have known better than to think he’d be able to make it last.

He’s not paying the attention he should to what he’s doing, and when someone slams a metal bin or something in the barn and Winston shies, it throws Dan off balance. It’s not a big deal, and he’s in the process of righting himself when another slam sounds, and Winston apparently decides he’s under attack, rearing and twisting to the side. Dan’s still on, mostly, but Winston has shifted them too close to one of the jumps, and when his front feet come down one of them lands on a trotting pole put at the base of a vertical, and it rolls a little, and Winston stumbles sideways and then rears and twists again, and Dan’s off, falling onto the jump.

He finds himself on the ground, and when he tries to brace his hand on the sand to get to his feet, an arrow of pain shoots up his arm and he falls back. Then Robyn’s there, and he has no idea how she moved so fast.

“Dan, sweetie, stay still.” She looks kind of worried, but that doesn’t make much sense.

 

“I’m okay,” he says, or tries to say, but the words come out a bit slurred, and for the first time, he’s a bit worried himself.

 

“Okay, but you took a bit of hit there.” She’s got her hand on his chest, trying to keep him from moving.

 

“Yeah, my wrist.” That sounds a bit better, more clear.

“Your head, Dan.” She reaches out as if to touch Dan’s face, but doesn’t, and Dan is aware for the first time of something warm and a bit itchy near his temple.

“Oh, shit. Am I bleeding?” His voice sounds a lot better now. “Don’t tell Justin, okay? You know how he gets.”

 

Robyn looks a little startled and then sad. “Okay, yeah, we’re going to get you to the doctor, sweetie.”

Dan looks around. Something isn’t right. He recognizes the jumps, the ring, the mountains in the background. “Don’t tell Evan or Jeff, either; they’re mad at me.” Dan’s head hurts, but he doesn’t want to stay still. He reaches down with the hand that doesn’t hurt and pushes himself to his feet, and Robyn gives up trying to stop him and shifts into a sort of support mode, hovering as if she thinks he’s going to fall. He realizes that she has a good reason to worry when a wave of dizziness hits him before he’s even totally vertical, but he manages to stay upright, leaning heavily on her shoulder and trying to avoid jars to his sore wrist.

He looks at the two horses standing near the jumps, and wants to ask if they’re okay, but he somehow can’t remember…. One of them is Sunshine, he thinks…. “Which one was I riding? Is the horse okay?”

“You were on Winston, and he’s fine. Are you okay to walk to the car?”

Dan starts to move forward, but Robyn catches his shirt hem. “The car’s the other way, sweetie. You’re heading off into the pastures.”

But the dizziness is worse now, making him nauseated, and he manages to get as far as the railing around the edge of the arena before leaning over and losing the contents of his stomach. He’s not sure if it’s good or bad that there wasn’t much in there but coffee.

“Okay, that’s gross, sweetie.” Robyn’s hand is soothing on his back, but then she’s yelling, and he really wishes she’d stop. “Devin! Devin!”

Apparently Devin has come out of the barn, but Dan really can’t make himself look. He doesn’t actually need to—he’s getting enough information from Robyn’s yelling. “Come get the horses, okay? And bring the first aid kit. Dan had a fall; I’m gonna take him in to get checked out.”

Robyn steers Dan toward the gate, and with every step he feels a little clearer, although the pain in his head increases. When Devin meets them at the gate with the first aid kit, Dan braces himself on the gate post while the other two squirt some saline on his temple and then put a swatch of gauze in his right hand, the one with the uninjured wrist. “Steady pressure, okay?” Robyn instructs, and then they’re on their way again. Dan has left his keys in the truck, as usual, and Robyn steers him toward that. “I love you, Dan, but you can bleed all over your own car.”

The trip to the parking lot is excruciating, but once Dan’s in the truck, things get a bit better. He’s able to brace the uninjured right side of his face against the window, and then reach across to hold the gauze against his temple. It’s not perfect, but the world is swimming a little less.

Robyn’s on her phone as she climbs into the driver’s side and pulls Dan’s keys down from the visor. “Yeah, we’ll be there in less than ten minutes, okay?” She seems to get the answer she wants, because she clicks the phone shut and starts driving. “We’re going to Dr. Sangha’s, Dan—I met her with Tat, and she was really nice, so don’t get started with your doctor-phobia crap, all right?” Her voice is more gentle than her words, and he has to admit that she knows him pretty well, because he had just been trying to think of ways to get her to drive him home instead of to the doctor’s office.