Page 31 of Mating Theory
“How will she even know if I trust her? Will we do trust exercises?”
“Yes.” He produces a shiny red apple from his pocket and hands it to me. “Hold this on your palm with your hand flat. Don’t curl your fingers.”
“She’s going to bite me,” I warn, but I put out the apple anyway. The mare snuffles at my hand without taking the treat. She dips her head to considers the apple from the side. For a second it feels like she’s going to refuse the offer, and disappointment sinks in my stomach.
Then finally she takes it with a heavy bottom lip.
She crunches the fruit in a few slow chews, and the majesty of her clenches my throat.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“She’s a beauty,” he agrees, not taking his eyes off me.
“Why wouldn’t she trust me? Has she been mistreated?”
“It’s too fucking common. A handler can be gentle or rough, respect a horse or run her into the ground. A horse will keep going until she falls over dead if you don’t stop her.” She watches me from her dark eye, as if saying, that’s right. I would do that.
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s a big responsibility, having a horse.”
“How many do you have?”
“Right now? Ten.”
Ten animals who would run themselves into the ground for him. Ten who would fall over dead if he doesn’t stop them. “So you like responsibility.”
He laughs. “I like horses. The responsibility is the price you pay.”
The price he pays, like the money he pays me. It seems all of the things he enjoys cost him something. That’s a small consolation, because the things he enjoys cost me everything. “Can I ride her?”
He leans down and laces his hands together. “Step up this way. Grab the horn on the saddle and swing your leg over.”
I swing hard enough that I almost fall over the other side but I right myself. She feels a lot taller when I’m on top of her than when I was on the ground.
When I’m seated, he says, “Don’t worry about telling her anything. She knows how to walk and where to go. Remember. You’ve got to trust her.”
Haven takes a step forward, and I jolt in the saddle. Another, and I almost fall out. On the third step I move my hips at the right moment. Only then do I understand what he means by trust. I have to move with her. This isn’t about being carried around. I’m not a passenger. This is an active form of trust, one that requires me to become part of her.
She moves into an easy gait, and I laugh in exhilaration.
Sutton makes a whistling sound, and the bay moves toward him. Haven stops in front of him, and he walks to the side of her. He reaches his hands up, circling my hips and helping me down. The ground feels unsteady after being on the horse for only a few minutes.
He’d been smiling before, but now he looks serious. “What happened to you?”
He means before I ended up on the street. My throat tightens. “My secrets are my own.”
“Ashleigh—”
“My little horse must think it queer,” I say. It’s a cheap shot, a feint so that he’ll stop asking what I’m not going to answer. “To stop without a farmhouse near.”
He’s everything stern and hard and frustrated, but he still completes the verse of the Robert Frost poem. “Between the woods and the frozen lake. The darkest evening of the year.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ashleigh
The afternoon gives way to dusk. I wake up with a contentment written on my bones. I want to lie in this bed forever—and that terrifies me. This isn’t my bed or my house. I belong on the streets. Being comfortable here will only make it harder there.
Sutton slumbers next to me, a heavy mass of muscle and heartbreak. He doesn’t stir even when I slip from the bed. He reached for me so many times, had sex with me in so many different positions. Somehow I liked every single one of them. He made me come so hard I saw lights behind my eyes. I didn’t know that would be possible. Not for any woman; definitely not for me.
I look at the bristles on his cheek and the curve of his ear. He’s not mine.
I’m a substitute for the bodies he’d rather be fucking.
In the living room I find his phone, which isn’t locked. I order an Uber that’s fifteen minutes away. And I dig into his wallet for the money he promised.
Thirty minutes.
That’s how long it takes from my last glimpse of Sutton to the first sight of the sugar factory.
“Ky?” The word echoes back to me. He doesn’t usually go out so early.
Sugar gives me an imperious meow that shames me for how long I’ve been gone. There are three different rat carcasses, each torn open and buzzing with flies. My stomach turns over. What a way to come home. This isn’t home. No. Sutton’s house is a home. This is a sad parody.
