Page 104 of Coiled Tight
“Whatever.”
I should’ve grabbed the truck. Dwight would’ve still stopped me—he had no qualms about running and knocking on my window or simply throwing himself in front of the death machine, and I was supposed to believe he was the functioning adult out of the two of us. But, usually, when I was driving, he bothered to get to the point faster.
The distance from the main house to the horses’ habitat wasn’t that big, though. Well, it was, and there was no way I would’ve walked it back when I first joined the sanctuary, but… Doing it now served as a reminder that I’d been changed by it, that it was now part of my DNA and not just a convenient place to hide.
I liked that Daddy didn’t tease me for taking the truck everywhere when I didn’t, too.
Besides, we had two new horses, and they were still in their spooked by absolutely everything era. Engines didn’t seem to be a particular trigger, but it was a loud noise that set them on alert.
If we weren’t in the middle of nowhere with no actual way to power them, I’d suggest that Daddy look into electric vehicles.
I wouldn’t live it down as it was, though. I’d never thought of myself as a city person, but that didn’t matter much to Daddy—or the rest of the staff, actually.
Huh.
Was it possible they had a point?
Nah.
“One of the newbies lost a bet in front of him,” Dwight said. There was a chance he’d talked some more while I was inmy head. It happened. It was partly my fault, but partly his, too. Like Daddy always said I didn’t have a poker face, and everyone could tell when my head was in the clouds. Surely, that would’ve included Dwight. “She said Saúl didn’t let you ride with them because God forbid his boy gets a bruise.”
I groaned. That boy didn’t have the connotation that it had had, or that I believed it had had, back when Daddy and I were starting out, and I hadn’t set boundaries with Dwight. So that wasn’t the thing that bothered me.
No, it was the reminder of why I hadn’t gone to ride with them the day before. Yeah, fear of me getting a bruise had definitely not been it. If anything, it had been more of a case of him knowing that I’d stubbornly do it even when my backside was an almost even deep purple, end up crying in the middle of the trail, and just die of mortification having to explain why.
“Uh-huh.”
Of course, Dwight wasn’t done. He even added some eyebrow waggling to it for some kind of… effect. It just made it hard not to giggle and slip into Little mode when I was already almost there with the thought of my date with Daddy.
“Now we both know that’s not true.”
Yeah. Daddy complained about my poker face, but I should complain more about his mouth.
Sure, it had been years ago, before he’d even known of my existence.
It didn’t matter.
I swallowed before I could turn to face Dwight. “Jealous?”
The look on his face made the effort to not implode totally worth it.
Daddy was going to be so proud of me when I told him, too. He’d been the one to give me the idea to say that.
Maybe I didn’t mind his mouth so much after all.
“Daddy!”
Long were the days when I was too shy to be properly Little around him. Or when I froze with fear that he’d change his mind or I’d become too much. Or even that someone would hear.
Obviously, I didn’t want them to hear—they wouldn’t have consented to it—but it wasn’t born of shame for who I was and what I wanted, and that made a difference. A bigger one than I’d thought, actually.
Anyway, now I only had thoughts for the man feeding his mare—he seriously was going to end up giving her a cavity or worse with all the apple pieces he gave her. And I was certain he overfed her even more than he told us. It was the same man who turned his whole body my way and crashed his mouth into mine, apple be damned, so I supposed I could forgive him.
Sofía could he in charge of reaping him a new one if she wanted.
“Good day?” he asked.
He always asked after a therapy appointment. It was cute. He knew therapy was between Dr Blaire and I, and it wasn’t like he fished for details or demanded anything. He didn’t even ask about therapy outright, but he always fretted more after.
