Wild Horses (29 page)

“Good, good.” The old man smiled. “And how is Attila?” The old man asked as though his grandson was not sitting within arm’s reach.

Kai stirred in his chair with uncertainty and discomfort before he answered the older man’s question. “Oh, he’s getting better. Three days on antibiotics and he couldn’t stand being inside anymore. Good thing it’s not the West Nile virus like we thought before. No more horses got sick from that, either, so….” Kai’s voice wavered, the pain of Bubbles’s death descending on him with unexpected weight. “Yeah… that was bad. But it’s better now.”

An old hand squeezed Kai’s young paw. It felt comforting, somehow, and Kai was surprised to find the old man’s company reassuring rather than threatening.

“Attila.” The old eyes turned to his grandson, who sat on his other side. “It appears that much has occurred since your last visit. Tell me everything.”

Kai saw Attila straighten and gather his thoughts before he launched into a full briefing.

I
VAN
K
ELEMAN
peered at the mound of food in front of Kai with a bemused smile, appearing to enjoy having lunch at a nice restaurant as much as Kai did. “There were days I ate like that, too.” He poked around his plate. “It’s good. I haven’t had a real risotto in ages. And with wine, no less!” He took a sip of his Chardonnay. He and Kai were the only ones drinking. Attila still didn’t feel well enough to enjoy it, but encouraged Kai to go ahead and offered to drive on the way back. “It is a real treat to get out with the two of you.” He sighed. “The home is a good place—and I thank you for that, Attila—but even a gilded cage is still a cage.”

“We should do this more often, then,” Attila said, smiling. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

Attila’s departure for the men’s room left Kai alone with Attila’s grandfather for the first time. Kai had taken a liking to the old man almost immediately. Here was a man who used to run the stables and who trained and rode his horses just as his father had done in Hungary before him. He used to feel the freedom Kai learned to love on his first ride astride Cayenne.

“What would you like to do again, if you could?” Kai asked.

Ivan Keleman allowed a wistful sigh to escape him. “I would like to spend time with the horses. I could ride again, I think. I was going to try almost two years ago, but Attila….” The old man cleared his throat. “Well. You’d probably find out on your own eventually, because there isn’t a soul at the stables that doesn’t know what happened. Attila had a lover back then. He was a nice man—not a horseman like we are, but still nice enough—and it looked like it would work out long-term, but then the fellow just up and left. Attila was crushed back then. He stopped entering competitions, stopped dating. He just withdrew into his little shell of a house where he used to stay with this other young man.”

“What was his name?” Kai’s voice was an angry growl.

“That no longer matters. What matters is that he is happy now, with you. I just… wait… where was I?” Ivan Keleman moved a strand of white hair out of his eyes. “Oh, right. Before that time, Attila thought I could maybe ride again. He bought me a Western saddle, even. Those are more comfortable, you see. After his man left, all he could do was survive. We were all quite concerned for him.”

Kai paid careful attention to the man’s face, and realized that “quite concerned” didn’t begin to describe the level of desperate fear this man must have felt for his grandson’s welfare.

“I would never do such a thing,” Kai said.

“That may be easy to say now, young Kai, but suppose you meet trouble along the way?”

Kai flinched—he had almost walked out on Attila, but it had been with the best of intentions. “We already had some trouble… but I didn’t leave anyway. I talked to him, and… and we resolved all that.”

“Resolved what?” Attila asked from behind him.

“I told Kai about Theodore and how he left, and Kai reassures me he would never do that to you.”

“Kai almost did just that,” Attila said with a frown.

“Only to protect you and the horses,” Kai tossed back, suddenly on the defensive. “And I wouldn’t have left while you were sick, either.”

“You were going to get on that wreck of a bicycle and ride back to Pittsburgh, Kai.”

“But I didn’t. I talked to you about Mona, and… I’ve never met anyone like her before. It felt… it felt like there was nothing I
could
do.”

“Slow down, boys, slow down. Let’s ask for the coffee and the dessert menu so I can enjoy this fine restaurant for a while longer, and you can tell me all about it.” The elder Keleman glanced at his grandson. “Help me get to the men’s room, Attila, while Kai takes care of our coffee.”

“Do you want decaf, grandpa?” Attila asked.

“Absolutely not. I want a cappuccino, regular, no sugar. They give me nothing but that decaf piss water over at the home.”

“O
H
,
BOY
.
I never expected your grandfather to be such a firecracker! He wanted to go riding, you know. That’s how we got around to that guy you were seeing.”

“He talks too much.” Attila’s obvious fondness for the old man warred with irritation.

“I’m glad he said something. Wow. So… this other guy, Theodork.”

“Theodore. He was not a ‘dork’, Kai. I… it was very difficult when he left.”

“So, you and Theo. Did you fight a lot? You know, like when you were sick and miserable and had a fever and you kept sniping at me, hoping I’d just leave you alone?”

“Sure, we argued. I am told that is to be expected for any couple.”

“But… was it bad enough for him to leave?”

Attila sighed. “I do not wish to discuss this, Kai.”

“I figure you don’t.” Kai slipped his hand onto Attila’s thigh in a gesture of comfort and support. “I just got an idea, is all, and I shouldn’t even tell you about it, because if I’m right, then you’ll run back to your Theodork and I’ll be left high and dry, crying my eyes out.”

The black Bronco swerved a bit before Attila put a blinker on and pulled into the emergency lane. He put the hazards on and turned the engine off. “I shall not leave you ‘high and dry’, as you put it. I am no longer interested in Theodore. Just to clear the air, I did love him, and I was told the feelings were mutual. When he left, I didn’t want to go on anymore. The horses pulled me through—I couldn’t just disappear and have them starve or see them sold off in an estate sale.”

Kai nodded, ignoring the bad pun.

“This is hard to even talk about. The thought that you could leave and that woman could drive you away, and you would leave only to protect me and Cayenne and Sen and the rest of them… Kai.” Their eyes finally met, and Kai was stunned to see Attila choking back tears.

“Hey, dude.” He pulled Attila into his embrace. “I’m here for you, and I’ll be here for you for as long as you want me, which I hope will be for fucking ever, okay? I don’t ever want to leave you. I don’t care how pissy and snippy your stupid remarks get when you’re sick and your iron control begins to slip. I love you, Attila. Just before you hear my theory here, I need you to know that.”

“This is inexcusable,” Attila spat, trying to pull himself together while fishing around for tissues. “I shall not act like such a….”

“Hush.” Kai reached into the door pocket and handed him an old paper napkin.

“I am sorry for calling you a controlling prick,” Attila said once he had wiped his nose. “And I’m sorry about launching swear words at you. That was… inappropriate.”

Kai bit back an amused grin. Attila’s version of swearing had an old-fashioned, refined air to it. “Having feelings is human. When I was having a hard time, you gave me a break. And you didn’t call me anything untrue—and you weren’t nearly as mean as Hal was that one time, either. Listen, you deserve the same level of being taken care of as anyone else, you know?” Kai kissed Attila’s jet-black hair.

Attila wiped his eyes, cleaned his nose, and honed in on Kai’s impromptu confession. “You love me?”

“Yeah. I love you.” A kiss on Attila’s high cheekbones followed. “You’re awesome and kind and smart, and you forgave me for doing bad things to you. You… you’re not trying to change me. Plus you’re as hot as July. Of course I love you.”

Attila buried his face into the crook of Kai’s neck, inhaling his scent. “I’d like to say that I love you too, but I don’t want it to be in response to you saying it first,” he said in a petulant voice. “But then I don’t want you to feel bad because you think your feelings aren’t being returned, so… so I feel I am at something of an impasse.”

“I think you love me,” Kai said. “I hope you do, but if you don’t, I’ll learn to cope and just live with your lust for my body and your delicious cooking.”

“You would do that?” Attila asked.

Kai shrugged. “I’ve never had anything as awesome as this, right here, right now. Of course I’d do that.”

“You had a theory,” Attila reminded him after a moment of comfortable silence, steering away from the emotionally charged subject.

“Yeah….” Kai braced himself. He was about to take the worst, most ill-advised risk of his life. What he said might cost him Attila and all they had together.

“W
HEN
Theo was still around—were Mona and Lindsey already at the stables?”

“Yes.” Attila nodded. “She had four horses boarding at the time. She… she was really good to me back then. I cannot give her what she wants, but she was as kind as could be after Theodore left. She brought me cooked meals, she and Lindsey spent extra time and helped with the horses, all that. I didn’t actually need their help. There was nothing in my life except for mucking out stables and making sure the horses were fed and trained and exercised. I got totally lost in my work.”

Attila’s eyes dropped down to the mud that streaked the floor ever since Kai started driving his normally pristine Bronco. His car, just like everything, used to be pristine before Kai showed up in his life. It was a fair trade, though. What was a bit of mud on the carpets of his truck in comparison to the endless, empty nights in the hayloft? The memories of horse smell and hay in the night came back to him. He sure had spent his share of solitary nights in the hayloft when things weren’t going so well. Only the sounds of the horses shifting had been his company, along with the fear of his family discovering him up there, hiding from humanity. After a time, he had forced himself to abide the empty house. He had painted the kitchen a sunny yellow, rearranged the furniture, rehung the pictures. He had had the bathroom redone, and he changed the landscaping around the pool until it no longer reminded him of the lover who walked out on him with only a short good-bye on a Post-it note.

Kai’s insistent voice broke through the haunting memories. “But if Mona was there and she was being
so very kind
, do you think she might have driven him off the same way she tried to drive me off? You say he wasn’t a horse person. Maybe he wouldn’t know horse stuff—just like I didn’t know, you know?” Kai’s voice faltered.

Attila looked up at his guarded expression and sighed. “Even if that were so, it doesn’t change the fact that I love you.” There, he said it. He forced himself to say it because Kai needed to hear it just then, and the sunshine smile that spread across the younger man’s face made the loss of his protective reserve worthwhile.

K
AI
put his arm around Attila and squeezed him closer. “So… you won’t dump me to search for your former lover?”

Attila came close to rolling his eyes. “It had not occurred to me that he might have been driven away by Mona,” he admitted. “I recall she hit his face once, a week before he left, but he said it was just a petty argument—he had suggested she was too heavy for the horse, or some similar, ridiculous nonsense. He might have said that—he teased those around him incessantly—so I never connected their spat with his departure.” The blue of Attila’s eyes faded to a dull gray as he turned toward Kai. “This is my fault. I should have made it clear to her that I am simply not interested. I just… she is just so… I tend to avoid her, except for her lessons.”

“You’re scared of her.”

“No, not entirely. She just… she is a difficult client and I’d be happy to ask her to leave, except she is the mother of a promising student. I like Lindsey a lot. She has blossomed ever since you showed up—did you notice?”

Kai bit back an embarrassed smile. “We talk a lot. She’s a good kid. Still young and all, but she’s an adult and she’s trying to live up to that. Did you know her mother doesn’t let her go anywhere by herself?”

Attila shook his head.

“Really. Only to college and back, and she checks on her through her cell phone all the time. She even e-mailed her professor last year when she thought Lindsey should have gotten a better grade.” Kai paused in wonder. What would it be like if his own parents took that much interest in his life? Would it be better than no interest at all, or would it be just as bad?

“Maybe I should talk to Mona,” Attila said.

“No, maybe you should talk to Lindsey. She is, like, totally desperate for any sort of responsibility. She wants to take care of her own things by herself. She’ll accept help only from Hal. Although,” and Kai shot Attila a mischievous smile, “she is pumping me for war stories of my life on the street, and all that.”

“I have been blind to how isolated she must feel,” Attila said. “Her parent’s divorce was hard on her, too. She has always been her daddy’s girl. I’m glad you got her and Hal talking.”

“Yeah.”

A police cruiser pulled up behind them, lights flashing.

“Oh great, we’ve got company,” Kai moaned. He was never fond of the police. They hindered him when he was underage and trying to break free, and they failed to help him when he needed them the most.

“No problem,” Attila said, and Kai was amazed to see him pull himself together. With a visible effort he summoned his stoic mask and assumed that quiet, solid air of command Kai was accustomed to seeing. “Can you drive, Kai?”