ONCE DESTIN had dusted off his horse-owner skills and produced a contract for Tonio to sign, Tonio spent the rest of the day moving into the apartment over the stud barn. That hadn’t exactly been part of the plan, but sending Tonio trekking miles away to a motel when there was so much empty living space right there on the farm seemed ridiculous.
Tonio popped in every now and then to discuss terms, or confer on the speakerphone with a fellow named Dex who seemed to serve as Tonio’s de facto legal counsel, but mostly he bustled by the office doorway and up and down the stairs with things in his hands. Sometimes Destin heard Tonio walking across the apartment floor overhead and realized with an odd pang that, when he looked out his bedroom window at the dormer poking out of the stud barn roof, there would now be someone looking back at him. Whether this gave Destin a qualm or a thrill, he couldn’t quite decide.
Maybe living in Boston had spoiled him, but Destin hadn’t seen any openly gay men since he’d arrived at Bellmeade. There wasn’t time to think through things like life choices when he returned to the family home. His father had died too suddenly, and Destin had too much responsibility thrust on him too quickly.
It would be nice to have a boyfriend again.
There had been a boyfriend in Boston. A fellow assistant professor, a sweet, spaniel-eyed man named Tom. Tom liked trendy fusion restaurants, jogging in the park, and reading the weighty, dense literary novel of the moment. Tom had no interest in moving to the wilds of Virginia, and his only contact with horses had been a pony ride at a friend’s birthday party twenty years ago. He accepted the breakup philosophically, and so did Destin. Looking back, Destin now wondered how he was so content with so little for so long. Even then, being away from horses and the people who loved them was a constant ache—the ache of a socket after a tooth was pulled.
Tonio knew horses and loved them. Destin could easily imagine them talking together over the kitchen table, taking the saddle horses out on the local trails, celebrating show victories at fine restaurants. He wondered what Tonio would feel like in his arms, how he would be in bed.
One more time—wrong time and wrong person.
It would never happen. Tonio didn’t give a flying flip about Destin, and beyond his puckishly handsome face and tight physique, Destin had little interest in Tonio. Better to snuff out that wistful voice that kept whispering what if and keep things strictly professional.
“All right, that’s everything.”
Tonio’s voice dragged Destin out of the depths of an insurance form—and another uninvited vision of couplehood.
“Oh, good.” Destin glanced at the mantel clock. “That didn’t take too long.”
Tonio shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I didn’t bring much. Got anything else for me to sign?”
“No, we’re done with the paperwork.”
“So we’re all partnered up.”
The word “partnered” gave Destin a funny lurch in the pit of his stomach. “For one month, yes.”
Tonio stepped into the office and looked around. “What time is it? I’m getting hungry.”
“It’s about five thirty.”
“Yeah, I forgot lunch.” Tonio paused to examine the trophies in the display case. “We should celebrate the deal. What’cha got in your fridge? I can make us some dinner.”
Destin squinted, trying to recall the contents of his refrigerator. A withered avocado, a tub of ancient margarine, and a couple of plastic containers of stuff he’d eaten when he first arrived and was now afraid to open for fear of unleashing some unholy plague of mold spores. “Uh, let’s go out to eat somewhere,” he said.
“The Hunter’s Head is close to here, isn’t it?” Tonio asked.
Destin started to agree, then hesitated. There was the Hunter’s Head, a perfectly good choice, but the Build A Burger menu just didn’t seem an auspicious enough launch for such a crucial venture. A welcome to Bellmeade deserved suits and ties and meals served in courses. If nothing else it might mitigate the embarrassing impression the dirty barn and fractious horse had most likely made on Tonio. Not that Destin felt any need to impress his new hire, of course. It just seemed like a nice gesture.
“There’s a really nice place called the Ashby Inn right up the road in Paris,” Destin said. “Great seasonal menu. It’s a pretty off day today. I’ll give them a call and see if they have any tables open.”
“Okay, sounds good. They got a dress code?”
“Not really, but if you brought any kind of dress clothes, it wouldn’t hurt to wear them.”
“I’m on it. Gimme twenty minutes to shower and get dressed, and I’ll be ready to go.” Tonio strolled out of the room, hands still in his pockets.
He would look killer in a suit. Which was neither here nor there.
Destin called the Ashby, got his table, and went into the house to make his own preparations. He came back down to an empty living room. The dormer window of the barn apartment glowed, and after wasting a few minutes shuffling through his email on his phone, Destin walked to the barn and looked up the apartment stairs. “Tonio?” he called.
Footsteps thumped across the ceiling, and a wedge of light appeared at the top of the stairs. “Yeah?” Tonio asked.
“Our reservations are for seven o’clock. I’m not trying to hurry you….”
“Yeah, you are.” Bare feet padded down the stairs. Tonio had evidently just gotten out of the shower, because he had a bath towel in his hands and was wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans, so hastily fastened that they barely clung to his narrow hips. The lean, corded muscles Destin had noticed in Tonio’s arms continued into his shoulders and slid under the tanned, smooth skin of his chest as he rubbed the towel over his damp hair. The stair railing hid most of Tonio’s stomach, but what Destin could see of it revealed a flat, subtle but definite six-pack in the shadow of Tonio’s concave abdomen.
Every shred of irritation flew out of Destin’s brain, and he stood there gawking. Somehow he’d thought Tonio was skinnier than he was, more boyish and unformed. What he saw before him belonged on a calendar, the kind with a title like Hot Firemen or Studs on Studs. It didn’t belong on a smallish, troubled farm in the rolling foothills of Virginia. It certainly didn’t belong in Destin’s reality.
Vaguely starstruck, doing his best to ignore the sudden feeling of pressure behind the fly of his slacks, Destin cleared his throat and made another try at being professional and coherent. “I’ll, uh, wait in the office. Drop in when you’re ready.”
Tonio flashed Destin a grin that practically glowed in the dim light of the stairway. “Five minutes,” he said, disappearing back into the apartment.
Tonio showed up again, as promised, exactly five minutes later. Destin had gone with a tasteful glen plaid jacket and gray slacks. Tonio still wore the black jeans and had added a blue shirt that exactly matched his striking eyes, topped by a black sport coat with a peculiar sheen. After several puzzled seconds, Destin realized it was made of leather. He had never seen such a thing, but its drama suited Tonio well. He looked as though he’d just stepped off the red carpet of some cool awards ceremony.
“You’d better drive,” Tonio said. “I don’t know where the hell this place is.”
“I was going to, but it’s pretty hard to miss. The only highway out here is 50. If you get on it and drive through Upperville out to Paris, you’re going to see everything there is to see.”
Destin unlocked the garage and raised the door. Tonio’s eyes went immediately to the Maserati.
“That was my dad’s.” Destin pointed the fob at his own car, a Range Rover Evoque, and unlocked it with a flash and a blip of the horn. Tonio glanced at the Rover, but then his eyeballs were back to crawling all over the Maserati.
“You don’t drive it?”
“No,” Destin replied, a little nettled at Tonio’s dismissal of his car. “I can’t get its fob to work, and I don’t have time to mess with it. I’m not keeping it anyway. It’s not that comfortable. I like my Rover better.”
And I’m being childish about it, but I don’t care.
Tonio cupped his hands against the window and peered inside. “Is that a burl mahogany steering wheel?”
“Probably,” Destin snapped. “Dad always liked to pimp his rides. Come on. We need to get moving.”
Tonio tore himself away from the insanely expensive sports car and slid into the seat of the Rover. He glanced around, taking in the leather upholstery and dashboard full of lights, gauges, and screens. Destin held his breath, waiting for Tonio’s words of admiration.
“Wow. It’s like a fucking airplane cockpit.” That was it. Tonio buckled his seat belt, and Destin’s spiel about how he’d comparison shopped for weeks and why he’d decided on this sleek, luxurious workhorse wilted on his lips.
“Yeah. It has a lot of instruments.” Tight-lipped, he put it into reverse and backed out of the garage.
“So what’ve you got against the Maserati?” Tonio asked as the Rover crunched its way around the drive.
“I told you, the fob doesn’t work.”
Tonio closed his eyes and opened them again. “I mean, what’ve you got against the Maserati that a new battery wouldn’t fix?”
Destin chewed the inside of his cheek, unsure whether Tonio’s persistent nosiness was unwelcome or a relief. A lot of things needed saying, things nobody outside the Upperville social circle was likely to understand. But somehow telling those things to a stranger felt easier.
“Dad sold three good broodmares to buy that car,” Destin said. “If you wondered why the pastures are so empty, the Maserati is part of the answer.”
“So, if you sell it, you’ve got the price of at least two supergood mares.” Tonio worked his way around in the seat to face Destin, his leather jacket squeaking against the leather upholstery. “Pick a couple that’re a good match with Sam’s bloodlines. Then you’ll be ready to build up the bloodstock when Sam hits the ribbons. I’m kinda surprised you haven’t done that already.”
“I’ll get to it. I’m just… working through stuff.” Like a whole historic farm that fell on my head like a ton of granite. “Where am I supposed to find mares like that, anyway? I don’t have time to look at breeding stock right now.”
“Hey, I know some people,” Tonio said with a vague gesture toward the dark sweetgum trees flicking past the windows. “You want me to call them?”
“What kind of people?” Destin stopped at the end of the drive and lowered the window.
Tonio gave him a funny sidelong look. “International high-tech horse thieves,” he said, his voice dropping into a sinister croak. “They’ll get you anything you want. Change the lip tattoos, fake up some new pedigrees, badda bing!” Tonio paused and cocked his head. “Is that what you expected me to say?”
Destin, who had frozen with his hand over the gate keypad, goggled at Tonio. Tonio stared back at him, stone-faced. Then he smiled. The smile widened into a grin, and the grin became laughter.
“Oh my God. You thought I was serious. If I had a picture of your face…!” Tonio haw-hawed a few seconds longer and then got control of himself. “I meant I know legit bloodstock agents. I’ll call ’em if you like. Man, we have got to work on your sense of humor.” Tonio settled back, letting out a few more guffaws.
Destin typed in the gate code and rolled the window back up, his face and ears burning so fiercely he could almost see the glow reflected on the dashboard as he pulled onto Greengarden Road.