Riley tipped back his coffee and chugged it while I continued mucking out the first stall. The horses tracked their shit all over the stall when they paced. It’s important that it’s all clean to leave a good impression with William’s clients.
I handed Riley the spare shovel. “Here, go clean that stall,” I said, motioning to the one directly across the hall.
He again rolled his eyes, but he took the shovel from my hands and moved to the dirty stall. I moved over to my next stall, and five minutes later, he told me he was done his. I looked it over and tried not to laugh. There were still little bits of waste mixed here and there in the sawdust.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He raised his head and made eye contact with me, his silent answer that he was listening.
He looked so good. The morning sun caught his face, and the light reflected the colors in his trimmed facial hair. It was just long enough to be considered five o’clock shadow.
“Imagine you are one of your father’s stuffy clients. You walk into the stable for a tour. You look in an empty stall, and you see that there are still bits of shit scattered throughout the stall. What is your first thought?”
In true Riley fashion, he answered, “I’d tell them they need better help.”
He looked back down at his work, and without a word, he started shifting through the sawdust more, looking for bits he missed. When he was satisfied, he moved to the next stall on his side of the aisle.
After an hour, the stalls were done, and Riley was bitching. I had high hopes for him this morning, but his constant complaining dashed those hopes, and quickly. I wasn’t sure why I expected anything more. I always got hurt by the expectations I set for others. That’s one of the many reasons why it’s so easy for me to keep to myself. They couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t interact and didn’t care.
“Go home,” I told him, tired of his shit already. He happily obliged me and marched his spoiled ass back up to the house.
This arrangement wouldn’t last long. If he failed, he’d still better pay for my vet school, just for trying.
“Come back when you aren’t afraid to do some work!” I called out to him.
He didn’t bother to turn around to give me his middle finger salute. He raised his arm above his head and pointed that middle finger up high before walking into the house. I laughed.
As big of a prick as he was, I knew what this farm meant to him. Before things went bad between us as kids, he had told me as much. It would be a shame for him to lose this place because he couldn’t behave.
I didn’t see Riley again until the next day. He came back looking a little more alert than he did yesterday, and he didn’t have a coffee cup. His hair was brushed and not scruffy like yesterday. He had on proper equine clothes, jeans and a flannel. He wore his reflective glasses so I couldn’t see him eyeing me as we worked.
I handed him a shovel, and we repeated yesterday. Except today, there was no bitching. There wasn’t a word mumbled by him, and we worked in silence.
When the stalls were cleaned with new sawdust added, it was past eight in the morning.
“You made it to music time. I’m impressed.”
“Music time?” he asked.
He had pushed his sunglasses off his nose and into his hair to look at me. I saw a spark there. Something I said had excited him. Did Riley have a thing for music?
“Yes, either Rodrigo or I take over the stable’s Bluetooth speaker, and we play music while doing the rest of the chores and switching out the horses. Some horses can’t handle the heat, so we bring them back inside after cleaning. If the music is at a reasonable level, the horses seem to like it.”
“Oh, I have to see this,” Riley said with a smirk on his face. That spark grew, and I felt my stomach respond. I liked the look he was giving me.
I would give him something to smile about.
I connected my phone to my Buckcherry playlist, and “Crazy Bitch”began to play through the speakers. We walked out to the closest pasture where we kept the horses that would need to be brought inside. The horses in this pasture could hear the music.
“Lola, you crazy bitch, come here!” I called.
The mare trotted straight to me. I hooked the lead rope to her halter and led her out of the gate. We were crossing the lawn, and I was dancing at the same time. I swung my hips to the beat, taking steps forward and backward. Lola followed my lead, leaning forward and backward when I did. Her head swung up and down with each movement of my hips.
I could feel Riley’s eyes watching my every move. They didn’t leave my body for one second as I danced with Lola. They had been glued to my ass. I could just tell. I shivered in response.
For some reason, I didn’t mind it like I should; I almost got a thrill from the thought. I felt less repulsive with Riley’s approval of my dancing. Not that I should have cared what he thought. I knew better to put any value in his approval, not when he spent all of middle and high school tearing me down. But as a recluse, the only opinions I heard were my own. I wasn’t sure who was my own worst critic, me or Riley.
I got Lola into the stall and repeated the process with Skully, a cranky older thoroughbred. He was that way with everyone, except me. He moved to the music, although a bit slower than Lola, who was ten years younger than him. Again, Riley’s eyes were glued to my body. Just to torture him, I danced a little more seductively, like I had practiced in the mirror after watching a steamy dance movie. I wasn’t confident that I did it right and was embarrassed that I even tried. This was Riley, after all.
