Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 2.3 - Into the Light
Read Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 2.3 - Into the Light Online
Authors: Kate Sherwood
CHAPTER ONE
It was a typical Saturday night—Jeff and Evan and Danny and me, at the Fireside, having a few drinks. I took a trip to the bathroom, made a stop at the bar, and came back to a table full of tension and weird looks. Unfortunately, that was still pretty typical. I sometimes wondered how they managed to dress themselves in the morning, without me there to sort out all their damn misunderstandings. It was usually Danny’s fault, but not always. Lord knew Evan was always ready to jump to conclusions without worrying too much about the logic of the situation. Jeff was pretty calm, but he could only do so much when the other two decided they were going to scrap about something. Luckily, the fights were generally more of a hobby for them than an actual crisis. And, luckily, it wasn’t actually my
job
to clear the problems up. I just always seemed to end up getting dragged into things.
In this case, it seemed pretty clear that the problem was being caused by the new guy at the table. He was blond and sun-bronzed, and looked a bit like a cliché surfer, but with less damaged hair. And
he
seemed totally relaxed. Actually, so did Jeff. It was Evan who was looking tense, and Danny who seemed to somehow be in the middle of things. As usual.
I leaned over Dan’s shoulder and put the full pitcher of beer on the table. Possibly I elbowed Danny in the head, a little, on the way by. Not too hard, just enough to be a friendly greeting.
The blond rose smoothly to his feet. “Sorry, man, I stole your chair.” He looked at the guys, but seemed to be focusing on Dan. “And I guess I should be going, anyway. It was good to see you, though. Give me a call if you want to hang out sometime—seems like I’m back in town for a while.” He nodded at the other two. “Good to see you guys again.” He
smiled at me, friendly and innocent, and then headed across the room.
I sat down to a quiet table. I poured myself a glass of beer, and refilled the other glasses, and still no one spoke. I decided to dive in. “So—new friend?”
Evan snorted, but was somewhat subdued by Dan’s dirty look. Jeff reached out and gripped the back of Evan’s neck with his magical grip; tonight, Evan was so tense that Jeff had to gently shake him, but that was enough to get him calmed to a manageable level. Dan waited until he was sure that Evan wasn’t going to fuss, then turned to me. “That was Ryan. I spent some time with him when I first moved out here.”
I tried not to look at Evan. “Oh, yeah. I think I heard about him.” Truth was, I’d heard plenty, first from Danny as he was trying to figure out whether he was ready to get involved with somebody new, and then later from Evan, once I moved out here. Evan’s contributions were mostly creative imaginings about how far up Ryan’s ass Evan would be able to shove his damn guitar, and variations on the theme. I’d never seen Evan be anything but civilized, but he definitely had a possessive streak. Last I’d heard, Ryan’s band had been on tour, with the bills being paid by one of Evan’s many companies. Apparently it hadn’t been a set-up, exactly, but I know Evan wasn’t sorry to see the guy go. I wanted to ask questions, figure out the details, and if it had been Dan who was upset, I would have. I had a long history of harassing Dan out of his pissy moods. But Evan and I didn’t really work that way, so I decided I’d better not push. Besides, Evan would tell me about it all, eventually. “So, did you guys decide? Nachos, or wings?”
Evan reached both arms out and draped them possessively over Jeff and Dan’s shoulders. “I think both. Sometimes it takes two good things to satisfy my immense appetite.”
Dan squirmed away and slapped Evan in the belly. “Keep eating,
man—could be the only satisfaction you get for a while, if you can’t be nice to my friends.” But he didn’t sound really upset, so I figured I’d let the boys figure that one out on their own.
I didn’t see the guys at all the next day. I spent most Sundays hanging out with them, but Dan wanted to ride, and I didn’t think it was quite time for me to be going to the barn, yet. Which was probably why Dan insisted on going there; he hadn’t been impressed when Robyn and I broke up, and it was absolutely like him to want to punish me. No matter how many times I told him that Robyn had dumped
me,
not the other way around, Dan would believe his own version of things. “She dumped you because you wanted her to, Chris—you don’t get to pretend to be a good guy, just because she was enough of a sucker to do your dirty work for you.”
I had to admit that Dan wasn’t totally wrong. The thing with Robyn had been good, but it hadn’t been great. It hadn’t felt perfect. I didn’t know if I was being unrealistically romantic, expecting more than anyone ever really got, but I didn’t think so. If I could find something as good as Dan and Justin had been, I’d stick with that for life. Or even as good as Dan and Evan and Jeff were making things. Their relationship wasn’t exactly conventional, but they all seemed to be wired into each other in a way that I’d just never found.
Well, honestly, I think maybe Dan I were connected that way. Justin was my best friend, from when we were babies right up until he died, but even before Justin was gone, there was always something between Dan and me. Justin and Danny were the couple, but Danny and me were—something. It wasn’t sex, and it never would be. I might have had a few confusing, disturbing flashes of attraction to the guy, but that
wasn’t what the two of us were about. Still, if I could be that close to Dan, then it showed that I wasn’t incapable of that sort of relationship. I just had to keep looking for the right person, the one for emotions
and
hot sex.
So, yeah, I
had
wanted to end things with Robyn, but I’d liked her too much to want to hurt her. I liked her even more for seeing what I was up to and calling me on it. She hadn’t been cruel, but she hadn’t pulled any punches, either, and it was good that she’d cleared the air. I was pretty sure we’d get back to the ‘friends’ stage eventually, but until then—Dan and the guys were riding, and it wasn’t a good idea for me to go to the barn where she worked, which was right under the apartment where she lived. It was a bit awkward that I had my own horse boarded at the barn, but it’s not like I had all that much time for riding anyway, usually.
Still, I didn’t have anything too pressing on that day, and I was kind of at loose ends. I got dressed and took a stroll downtown, but it only took about half an hour to go from one end of the main street to the other, and then turn and come back along the other side. And that was
with
a stop for coffee and another to chat with Kirsti at the bakery. I guessed I could drive into the city, but that seemed like a waste of time—I was in there five or six days a week for work, so why would I go in on my day off?
I swerved into Trinkets and Treasures, the antique store, on a whim. The middle-aged man behind the counter gave me a perfunctory nod but didn’t come any closer or seem to even care what I was doing. That suited me fine. If the guy had wanted to help, I wouldn’t really know what to ask for—did the store sell ways to spend your time when your best friends were punishing you for trying to be true to yourself? Did they have a stock of solutions to vaguely-existential, pre-mid-life mini-crises? Or maybe some stop-being-so-melodramatic-you-jackass pills.
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
looking for, exactly, but now that I’d found it, I was intrigued.
“We had to reupholster it—the original leather was damaged beyond repair.” The voice came from right behind me. I turned to find the man from the counter, somehow out and across the floor without any sound. “If you’re a purist, that’s a problem. But if you’re just looking for a well-built piece of furniture with some character and history—you wouldn’t have to be as careful with this one as you would with a totally original chair, and the price is lower than it would have been otherwise.”
I lifted the laminated sheet from the seat of the chair and had a look at the price. I hated to think what the damn thing would have cost if it
hadn’t
been damaged. Still, I made good money, and never spent all of it. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but this antique-buying thing was kind of fun. I turned to look at the man. “It’s okay if I sit in it?”
“Damn.” I let my hands fall onto the armrests. The chair fit my body perfectly. It wasn’t too hard or too soft, and the wings wrapped around enough to give me a sense of comfortable enclosure without making me feel claustrophobic. I could already picture where it would sit. I was renting the ground floor of a Victorian house, and there was a bay window in the office. The chair would be perfect there.
I wasn’t exactly sure how much haggling you were supposed to do at antique stores, and I’d never been much good at that, anyway. My mom would bargain people down at the damn grocery store—the big chains, not the mom-and-pop types. She’d find some bruised apples or something, and ask to see the produce manager and offer to take all the bruised ones for half-price. They almost always went along with her, but it was probably just to get the crazy lady out of the store. It was weird, because Dad had a good job and they were living on Mom’s family farm mortgage-free, so it wasn’t like they were ever really short of money. I think she just did it for
fun.
But I’d never picked up the habit, so I just said, “If I buy it right now, can I get free delivery?” I was a hard-ass when I had to be, working as the liaison between Evan and his vast network of lawyers, but I was pretty much a pushover in my personal life.
The guy nodded happily. “Absolutely.” Then his face got sad. Too sad, making it clear that he was putting it on. “”But we won’t be able to have anything delivered until next Wednesday. Our delivery man is on vacation.”
“Next Wednesday, like three days, or like ten days?” “Ten, I’m afraid.”
That was annoying. Now that I knew the chair existed, I wanted it in my house. “How much would delivery cost, if I weren’t getting it for free? I’m in town, just a few blocks down and over.”
I took an experimental lift of the corner, and he was right, it was damn heavy. But I’d said I’d do it, and I didn’t want to back down. “It’ll be fine. I won’t need to go to the gym today.” I pulled out my wallet and nodded toward the counter. “You take credit cards?”
When we were done with the paperwork, I got him to hold the door open for me, and I hefted the chair up onto my back. I had it set up like I’d been sitting in it and then just stood up and took the chair with me. I was bent pretty much double in order to keep the seat from tripping me, and
the wings came down on either side of my head and eliminated any peripheral vision. And I couldn’t really look forward, because I couldn’t bend my head that far with the back of the chair braced on it. The sidewalks weren’t too crowded, thankfully, and anyone who was on them would surely notice the demented leather turtle staggering towards them and get out of the way. Or so I hoped.
So I set off. I almost lost it on the steps of the store, but I managed to shuffle down sort of sideways without too much trouble. The next problem came when I hit the first cross street. There was really no way to look both ways for oncoming traffic. I was already pretty tired, so if I set the chair down I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again. I had decided to just step out in the road blind, but then a pair of jean-clad legs appeared beside mine, and a hand gently tapped on the top of my burden.
“There’s no traffic, man, if you’re waiting to cross. But I can help you carry the thing, if you want.” It was a male voice, kind of familiar, although I couldn’t place it. It was friendly, with just a hint of amusement.
I decided that I could tolerate being someone else’s entertainment if it got me help with the damned chair. This whole operation would be
easy
, with two people. “Help would be great, if you don’t mind.” I started to swing the chair sideways off my back, and he caught it and helped to ease it to the ground.
I straightened a bit slowly, giving my back a chance to adjust. And of course, once I looked at the guy, I realized why his voice was familiar. “Ryan, right? From last night.”