Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 01 - Dark Horse (52 page)

“Jeff’s cool—very Zen, very… gentle. He was great in Kentucky, with—” And there’s another area that Dan shouldn’t really delve into if he wants to maintain his composure. Then again, he’s having a conversation with a stolen photograph, so maybe it’s not his
composure
that he’s lost. But he continues anyway. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s sneaking around. “You’d like him. Well, he’d probably put you to sleep, a little, but… in a nice way. And you’d like Evan, too, I think. You guys are kind of alike. You’re both intense, and you go after what you want. He’s gotten stuff a bit easier than you ever did, so, you know, he’s a bit more laid back, but… I don’t know. Hey, maybe it’s like a compliment, right? It takes two of them to add up to one of you?

“So, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. It could all end up in a big mess… but at least I tried, right?” He touches the picture gently. There are marks on the glass over Justin’s face where his fingers have rested so many times. He’d thought about cleaning them off, but had decided to leave them. “I miss you, baby. But… I’m still here, right? I gotta try to put a life together. So… this is what I’m trying.” He pulls his fingers away and raises his eyebrows, trying to get himself into a lighter mood. “God help us all.”

And then he’s out the door and into his truck, on the way to Jeff’s.

It’s not a long drive, maybe about ten minutes, but it’s long enough for Dan to get ridiculously nervous. He can feel his shirt sticking to his back and wishes he could blame the heat, but the air coming through his open window is cool. He sits forward a bit, trying to get a breeze circulating between himself and the seat. He wishes he’d brought a change of clothes, although he supposes it might be a little awkward to show up for a casual dinner with an overnight bag.

He pulls into the driveway with plans to stand outside for a bit and collect himself, but Jeff is sitting on the porch, Lou at his side, beer in his hand and feet up on the railing. He looks cool as a cucumber, the bastard. Dan wonders again just what those two are risking with all this. He guesses maybe they have nothing to be nervous about. And that means he doesn’t, either, he reminds himself. He’s not sure if he wants anything, so it’s not like he’s desperately hoping for a certain outcome. And sex is sex. If he doesn’t get it here, he can always get it somewhere else. That helps a little, and he pulls himself out of the truck and walks toward the house.

“Hey, Dan,” Jeff says softly, and maybe he is a little nervous, because his eyes don’t seem to be quite as still as they usually are.

“Hi. Evan not here yet?” Dan’s voice sounds fairly normal. He bends down to greet the dog.
“No, not yet.” Jeff nods his head toward a galvanized bucket by the porch steps, full of ice with several bottles of beer sticking out. “Help yourself. Or I could get you something else, if you’d rather.”

“No, this is good, thanks.” Dan pulls out a bottle and twists off the lid, takes a long pull. It feels perfect, and he takes another swallow which is almost as good. He looks around the porch and takes the seat next to Jeff’s, with a little table between them. Jeff looks pretty damn comfortable, so Dan kicks his own feet up on the railing. Physically, everything is lovely. Mentally is a different matter.

They sit quietly for a while. The front yard isn’t quite as landscaped as the back. It’s mostly driveway and lawn, but there’s a huge pine tree near the road, and a pair of squirrels are having some sort of interaction. It’s not clear whether it’s friendly or hostile. There’s certainly a lot of chasing and chattering. In one overly ambitious move, one of the squirrels launches itself from a branch of the pine tree to a branch of a smaller tree on the neighbor’s lot, and just barely makes it. The little creature is hanging on by the nails of one paw, and Dan feels Jeff tense and half-rise beside him. Then the squirrel squirms a little, and manages to pull itself up and start scolding again, as if the whole thing was its partner’s fault. Jeff sits back down in his seat, and Dan waits for a few breaths. Then he can’t resist.

“Do you rescue a lot of squirrels out here?” he asks, his face as straight as possible. Jeff doesn’t respond. “’Cause that was a close call. Were you gonna run over there and catch him? Or just give him first aid after he fell?” Jeff’s still silent, and Dan looks over at him.

Jeff’s fighting to keep his face serious. “I guess I’d have done whatever I could, you know. Whatever it took.”
Dan nods. “That’s… that’s beautiful, man.” They’re still grinning a little when Evan pulls in behind Dan’s truck.

The driveway’s not that wide, and Dan feels a little panic when he thinks maybe his vehicle is being blocked in, but calms down when he sees that Evan is parked far enough to the side that Dan could still get by. Still, that reaction maybe wasn’t a sign of total comfort with the situation, Dan reflects.

Evan gets out of the SUV and waves, and then takes a moment to take off his jacket and tie, throwing them both on the passenger seat. Dan’s not sure how he feels about that. Evan looks hot in a suit, but two pieces of clothing off already makes Evan that much closer to naked, which can only be good.

Evan crosses to the porch a little slowly, almost hesitantly, and Dan gets a bad feeling. Evan had said that he’d been nice to Jeff on the phone, but Dan thinks maybe this is the first time they’ve seen each other in person since… since Dan’s unfortunate display. He pulls his feet down off the railing. They were blocking the way between Evan and Jeff, and Dan thinks maybe he’s done enough blocking there already. Jeff stands up and seems a little tentative himself, but when they get close enough they both go in for a hug, and Dan sees that Evan closes his eyes as he buries his face in Jeff’s neck. Dan feels terrible. There are more important things happening at this dinner than just deciding whether he’s going to get laid.

The hug doesn’t last long, but they’re both smiling when they pull apart. Evan looks over at Dan. “Hey, man.” He looks a little sheepish, but Dan just smiles.

Jeff clears his throat. “Uh, I’ve got some stuff to do in the kitchen. Do you guys want to move back to the deck, or…?”

“We can hang out with you, man,” Evan says, and Dan nods. It occurs to him that the chairs on the porch are the same ones from the deck in the back, and he doesn’t really think they were out here the last time he was. He wonders if Jeff had planned to wait on the deck, so that Dan and Jeff wouldn’t be in the house together before Evan got there to chaperone. He wonders if it was for Jeff’s peace of mind or for Evan’s. Maybe for both.

“But, uh… I just need to talk to Dan for a minute first.” Evan waves the papers in his hand at Jeff. “It’s just some business stuff. We can stay out here?”

Jeff nods, and Dan is confused. Evan hasn’t taken too much interest in the business side of the horses thus far… what’s so important that it has to be talked about now? He looks inquiringly at Jeff, who just shrugs and heads into the house. Evan comes over and takes Jeff’s seat, setting the papers on the table.

“Sorry for the drama, man… I was hoping to get this settled earlier, but… well, I’ve already been asking the guys to do it pretty fast, and we wanted to be sure it was right. And I wanted to talk to you about it now, because it might have an influence on what we talk about later. But I wanted to make sure you understood that it’s totally separate from any personal stuff. So that left now as a time to talk. Is that cool?”

Dan thinks for a second. “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But… okay.”

“Okay, yeah. I guess that was a little convoluted. But I’ll make it more clear. Uh, first off, I wanted to emphasize that this is a business decision. You know how important you are to the barn… I really don’t want to be involved in the business without someone I can trust running it. And, annoying security crap aside, I totally trust you. So I know you’ve been worrying about me maybe firing you, and I can say all I want to that I’m never gonna do that. I understand that you can still worry about it. But… I’ve been just as worried about you maybe quitting. I mean, that show on Sunday was a big eye-opener… I knew you were good, and I didn’t really think you’d have trouble finding another job, but… people were drooling over you, man.”

Dan frowns. “I don’t really remember anyone drooling over
me
.” “Yeah, not to your face… they were too intimidated! Seriously, man.

It was like if Bill Gates showed up to some local entrepreneurs’ club.” “Whatever, man.” Dan just shakes his head.

“Yeah, okay, you don’t have to believe me, but I think you can believe that it would be really bad for the barn if you left.”

“I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch, though. I mean, I could try to find someone to replace me… not Sean, he’s a good rider but not much of a trainer… but I’m not exactly irreplaceable.”

“You’d be
hard
to replace. But… here’s my solution. I want to make you more attached to the business. Make it so that it’s equally hard for either of us to walk away. And then, if stuff doesn’t work out on the personal level, we’ll still have to find a way to get along, or else we’ll have to mutually agree to dissolve things.”

Dan looks with some trepidation at the stack of papers. He’s heard of non-competition contracts, where people have to agree to not take a job anywhere else in the same industry if they quit working for their original company. Dan can’t think of what he’d do if he wasn’t working with horses.

Evan reaches over and pulls out a stapled bundle. “So this is what we came up with. It’s modeled on a couple other contracts, some in the equestrian business, but really more from restaurants with top chefs, and a few other fields. Anyway, you’ll want someone to look at it, but I think it’s fair.”

He passes the pages to Dan, but Dan doesn’t even look at them, just waits for Evan to explain.
“Yeah, so… it’s a partnership agreement. Uh, there’s lots of details, but the big picture would be that we’d form a business partnership that would own the horses. Uh, obviously I’d be putting up most of the money, so I’d own most of the business, but you’d have the right to buy in… there’s a bunch of stuff about valuations and whatever, but you’d buy in at a fair price, whenever you want, up to a maximum of you owning fifty percent of the business. The business would hire you as the head trainer, and your salary and stuff would stay the same, but you’d also get profits… you know, if we ever make any. So even if you quit as the trainer, you’d still be tied to the company, because you’d want to make sure your investment was doing okay.”
Dan’s not sure if he’s hearing this right, and just waits for Evan to continue.

“Yeah, well, that’s from my perspective. From your perspective… you’d have less money right now, because you’d be sinking some of it into buying the company, but you’d be building something for the future. And you’d be an owner of the horses, which just makes sense. You put so much into them, it’s like they’re yours already, really… this would just… reflect that. And honestly, it’s not like you seem to need as much money as you’re making. I’ve never seen you buy anything but alcohol and paninis.”

Evan pauses for breath, and then looks at Dan a little anxiously. “So… general impressions? I mean… obviously we can go on the way we have been, but… I thought this might be better… you know, especially because then I wouldn’t be your boss. Or, I would be a little bit, but you’d be your boss too.”

Dan is pretty sure he misunderstood something. He kind of wants to leave the house right now and find the nearest fax machine to send this all off to Chris. Sex is good, but a chance to own the horses, even partly… but he must have misunderstood.

“Okay… let me… okay, let me say what I think I heard, and you can tell me when I go off the rails.” He tries to control his voice. He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself by acting too excited and then finding out that he’d gotten the wrong idea. “So, what I heard… we’d start a new company, and you and me would be the partners.”

Evan nods. “Okay, or… I didn’t want to confuse things, but maybe Tat instead of me. It’d be a bit different, because it’d have to be in trust or something, but… you know, the horses are her thing. And, it’d take it even further away from me being your boss, which would be good for both of us, probably. But, yeah, you and a Kaminski would be the partners.”

“Okay. And I’d… okay, let’s say the company would be worth a million dollars. Just for easy math. So then, say I put in a hundred thousand now. I’d own ten percent of the business?”

“Yeah. Have you got a hundred thousand?”
“Fuck, no. But, you know, for easy math.” Evan grins, and Dan continues. “So then, next year, we’d… what, we’d get somebody to say how much the business is worth then? And let’s say that… for easy math, let’s say that it doubled. I know that’s not gonna happen, but….” Evan

nods, so Dan continues. “So now the company is worth two million, and if I put in another hundred grand from somewhere, I’d buy another five percent?”

Evan looks a bit apologetic. “Yeah, I know it seems like it’s gonna take a long time for you to get up to fifty percent… I mean, if you think the company is going to grow that fast, it would make sense for you to get a loan from somewhere—if the banks won’t give you one, I could, if it’s cool with you—and then buy your whole fifty percent right at the start. But, honestly, man, I don’t think it’s going to grow that fast.”

“Yeah, no… it’s…. Okay, so… what about the barn, and the paddocks and everything?”

“They’d stay part of the Kaminski property, and the business would pay rent. Again, we could get somebody to do a valuation… it’s in the contract. And if I get some horses just for fun, then we could just figure out a price for boarding them at the barn. Same with Smokey, if you keep him there. Or… you’re using Smokey for barn business, sometimes, so maybe you want to sell him to the business. Whatever makes sense.”

Dan sits back a little. He feels like Evan just nonchalantly pulled up a chair and offered Dan his dream come true. He’s in a bit of a daze, and Evan seems to be misinterpreting it.

“So, like I said, we don’t have to do this. And, yeah, this is totally separate from anything that you and me and Jeff talk about later. I just wanted to say it now, because I thought that one of your objections later was going to be that I’m your boss. So… if we’re changing the business relationship, as a totally separate thing… it might affect things later….” Evan trails off and looks at Dan a little anxiously. “So…?”