By Chance (14 page)

Was he being
lectured
? This was ridiculous. “What—”

Wes held up a hand. “This is not me criticizing you. This is me—us—telling you to stop selling yourself short.”

“What are you talking about?” Vince questioned.

“You remember how your mom always wanted you to compete more,” his father explained. “She dreamed of seeing you try for the Olympic team.”

“No,” Vince interrupted. “I can’t do that. I would never make it, and I’m not going to abandon this place to chase an empty dream. I can’t just come out of nowhere and make it in, what, three years? And I’m not going to keep competing just to try to make it on the team eight years from now. This place is more important.”

“We’ve all been talking about this all afternoon,” Wes countered. “Just listen. You need to do this, Vince. We all know you’ll regret it if you never try. Take these next few years and try. If you don’t make it, you don’t make it. But at least you gave it a chance. It’s not like you’ll never be here. When you are, you can focus on training Xander, but you can help out here, too. We’ll hire another hand to help out, too, since I’m assuming you’ll take Dustin as a groom. You and I need to take Mark’s horses down to Florida for the winter, so we’ll be taking on temporary help anyway.”

This was the first time Vince had learned that he was leaving for the winter. He wasn’t surprised, though. Wes was technically Mark’s assistant trainer, and they both spent parts of the winter training in Florida, and though Vince went with his dad from time to time, it was never for the whole winter. What he was surprised by, however, was Dustin apparently offering to be his groom. He glanced at the kid, but Dustin looked away.

Vince looked at Jane next. “But, Jane—”

She smiled at him. “Vince, if I tried to hold you back from this, I would be a terrible, terrible person. It’ll all be fine, trust me. We’ll work around your schedule when we need to.”

When he glanced at everyone else, none of them looked confused by what Jane had said. She must have told them her news during the discussion they had had about intervening in his life. She was starting to look pregnant, so he wasn’t surprised.

“Try it, Vince,” Anna commented, smiling. “We can handle things here. You need to at least
try
.”

“You won’t let Mom down if you don’t make it,” Mandy added gently. “Not trying at all because you think it won’t work out would be letting her down.”

He looked back at Dustin, who finally glanced up at him. “You should do it,” he said with a nod, though he looked sad for some reason. Hadn’t he offered to be Vince’s groom at some point before Vince had gotten there? Wasn’t that why Wes had mentioned it?

Vince rubbed his hands over his face.

“Just these next few years, that’s all it is,” Wes reminded him. “If you don’t make it this time, you don’t have to keep trying. If anything, do it for Xander. That horse has talent, and the world deserves to see him.”

Could he really do this? If Jane was fine with it, if his dad was encouraging him, if Anna felt they could handle things without him, and if Dustin was willing to be there with him through the years to come, maybe he could.

“Okay,” he finally agreed quietly. “I’ll try. Don’t get your hopes up because you’ll be disappointed, but I’ll try.”

Everyone in the room seemed completely happy to hear him agree to do it, and they all spent time telling him how they would be there for him and how they would handle things without him. But the one person he wanted to talk to disappeared as soon as the group conversation was over.

He
had
to find the time to talk to him.

D
USTIN
CLEARLY
avoided Vince the next day, and Vince never found a chance to get him away from what he was doing at any point. By the end of the day, he had given up. It was shortly after seven the next night and Vince was looking through an old photo album he had of his mother, just thinking about the dreams she had for him and wondering if he could ever make them come true for her, when his cell phone rang. He picked it up off the coffee table in front of him and was worried as soon as he saw his father’s name on the screen.

“Come down to my office for a minute” was all he said before hanging up.

“You could have texted me just as easily,” Vince told the dead line, wondering when his dad had started making cryptic one-line calls to people. This was the second one he’d gotten in two days. Was it just him, or did others get them too? With a sigh, he got up and took the short walk to his father’s office.

“Explain to me,” Wes pressed as soon as Vince entered the room, “why Dustin just signed Justin back over to me, because he sure as hell won’t tell me anything.”

Vince stared at him. “He what?” he asked, lost.

Wes held out a piece of paper, one that had been included in the sales contract Dustin had signed in the event that he ever needed to give Justin back to the farm. “He looked like he was resigned to giving up everything he’s ever loved. As far as I know, you’re the only real friend he has here. You need to find out what’s going on, and if he’s leaving, you’d better make him stay. Because he’s the best person in the world for that horse, and he’s the best damn stable hand we’ve had besides Anna, and I can tell you’ll be a mess without him around. Whatever the hell is wrong here, you find a way to fix it, or at least do everything you can to
try
. We leave tomorrow now—there’s no time to find a replacement for him.”

Vince swallowed. Dustin was leaving? He wasn’t even going to say anything to him before he just up and left? Where was he going to go? Vince hadn’t even gotten the chance to fix things and tell Dustin how he really felt.

“Vince?” Wes asked, grabbing his shoulder. His concern visibly shifted from his deserting employee to his only son.

Vince was pretty sure he looked like he was watching his mom die again, so he guessed the concern was understandable. He cleared his throat and assured him, “I’m fine. Let me go talk to him. I’ll see if I can do anything.”

Wes nodded. “Please.”

Vince turned and left the office. During his walk to Dustin’s cabin, he couldn’t decide if he was angry, heartbroken, or just damn desperate to make Dustin stay. He figured it was a little of all three.

He didn’t bother to knock when he got to the cabin, he just barged in. Dustin was walking out of his bedroom with his old battered backpack—something Vince hadn’t seen since the day Dustin had first come to the farm—and froze when he saw Vince standing in the doorway, the front door closing heavily behind him.

“It’s usually a common courtesy to give two weeks’ notice before quitting a job,” Vince told him, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice, but he figured his stance was enough to let Dustin know that he was pissed.

Dustin just stood there and looked at the floor.

“And it’s not really fair to Justin to just throw him away after he bonded to you that completely,” he went on. “Who knows if he’ll love another person like that anytime soon.”

“I gave him back to your dad,” Dustin grumbled, “because he can’t come with me.”

“And where are you going?” Vince demanded.

Dustin shrugged, still not looking at Vince. “Back to my woods maybe. I don’t really know yet.”

“So you’re just going to abandon all of us?” Vince countered. “All of us who have given you everything we could? Justin, my dad, Jane, Anna, Mia, Joe. Me. Without so much as a good-bye?”

Dustin finally looked up, but only to glare at him. “Don’t play the guilt trip game, okay? It’s not that I’m not grateful for everything, for having this place to call home as long as I did, but I just can’t do it anymore. Okay?”

Vince ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why? Did Chris do something else to you that you won’t tell me about? I can deal with him. Did anything else happen? We want you here, Dust, tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s not something you can do anything about,” Dustin snarled. “I’m leaving.”

“Stay,” Vince ordered. “We need you here. Maybe not Chris, but the rest of us want you here.
I
want you here.”

Dustin laughed, but it was clearly devoid of any humor. “Exactly. You want me
here
, but you don’t want
me
.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vince practically yelled, his frustration mounting. Then he realized what was happening. “Jesus, is this about my birthday?” Dustin didn’t speak, but the look on his face was answer enough. “You were
drunk
, Dust! I wasn’t going to let you do something you were going to regret when you weren’t sober!”

“Well trust me, I regret it!”

He tried to storm past Vince to the door, but Vince grabbed him and surprised even himself by shoving him against the wall.

When their eyes met, Vince saw both tears and fear in Dustin’s.

Vince closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the wall beside Dustin’s head, lifting his arms up to rest them above his head, giving Dustin the opportunity to move out from under him, to leave and let him fall to the floor in a heap of misery.

But Dustin didn’t move. If it weren’t for the fact that Vince could feel his breath on his neck, he would have thought the kid wasn’t even breathing.

“Please stay,” Vince requested quietly.

When Dustin didn’t respond, Vince brought his hands down to Dustin’s shoulders. “Please stay,” he repeated, moving his head to look at him.

All Dustin did was close his eyes.

Vince lifted his head away from the wall and pressed his forehead to Dustin’s. His hands moved from Dustin’s shoulders to the sides of his neck, his fingertips twined in the hair at the nape of his neck. He took one tiny step forward.

“Please?”

Dustin drew a ragged breath but didn’t move or speak or even open his eyes.

So Vince kissed his eyes, tasting the salt from Dustin’s tears. Then he turned his head and lightly touched his lips to Dustin’s. Vince was less surprised and amazed by his actions than he was determined that his feelings for Dustin weren’t going to be kept to himself anymore.

Still, Dustin didn’t respond.

“Please stay,” Vince murmured before leaning in to kiss him again.

Just before their lips touched, he felt Dustin’s arms wind around him, his hands grabbing the back of his T-shirt and holding him tightly as their lips came together. Vince felt Dustin’s lips part and yield to him, then Dustin was kissing him. Vince struggled to hold on to reality in the short moments their lips were together and finally pulled away. He looked at Dustin questioningly but saw no fear or sadness in those green eyes.

“Okay,” Dustin breathed. “I’ll stay.”

Vince laughed and grinned. “God. Thank you, Dust.”

Dustin just smiled and kissed him again. Roughly, deeply. Like he couldn’t believe what was happening and didn’t want to let reality in. Vince finally stopped holding back and returned that same intense feeling as he kissed Dustin, pressing him heavily against the wall without thinking about it. But Dustin pulled him closer, sliding his hands up Vince’s back—under his shirt—and holding Vince tightly against him. And Dustin didn’t smell or taste like beer this time. Somehow, Vince knew that whatever his senses picked up was purely Dustin—everything he felt, smelled, tasted, heard was
Dustin
.

Vince was utterly lost in it.

Dustin broke the kiss before it could go beyond making out. “Wait,” he gasped.

Vince quickly took a step back. When had he actually pinned Dustin to the wall anyway? “I’m sorry,” he panted.

“It’s okay,” Dustin replied, pulling his hands from under Vince’s shirt. “It’s just… I told you about being on the streets. How I had to basically let myself be raped to survive.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve never been tested. For anything. If this is actually happening, I want to know. I want
you
to know.”

Vince nodded. “I understand. Do you think you have something?”

Dustin shrugged. “I don’t know. But the chances of me being clear after all that time seem low.”

Vince nodded again, trying not to feel worried. “It’s a good idea. I have to leave tomorrow, but I’m assuming Jane is going to be house-sitting because she and Mandy usually do. At least until the baby comes.” Oh god, he was going to miss his child’s birth. Could this situation be any more depressing? Leaving Dustin now and abandoning Jane… “Jane knows that I’ve had feelings for you for a long time,” he pressed on. He heard Dustin inhale sharply, but before he could say anything, Vince kept talking. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to know about this, and I’m positive she’d be willing to take you to get tested. I can talk to her if you want me to.”

Dustin nodded. “That would be good. So… you leave tomorrow?”

Vince sighed and moved to lean back against the wall next to Dustin, sliding down to sit on the floor. “Yeah, I know. I’m horrible.”

Dustin sat down next to him. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I should have told you weeks ago that I wanted to be with you,” Vince explained. “I was honestly terrified. My life is so crazy, I didn’t want to end up hurting you. And I wanted
you
to tell
me
if you wanted something with me so I wouldn’t be so terrified. But then you did, and I fucked it up so bad.”

“God, you have no idea how awful that felt,” Dustin said quietly.

“I wasn’t trying to reject you,” Vince murmured, taking Dustin’s hand in his. “I really wasn’t. I just didn’t want you to do something you’d regret because you were drunk. I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of you either.”

“I can see that now,” Dustin said, gripping his hand. “It’s okay. I appreciate that you stayed, even though I was really confused when I found your note.”

“I didn’t know what I could do. I tried to catch you alone to talk to you yesterday and all day today. I understand why you’d be avoiding me, though.”

Dustin nodded. “Talking to you hurt too much.”

Vince let go of his hand and put his arm around Dustin. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

Dustin shook his head. “It’s okay now. Just sucks that you’re leaving tomorrow.”