Free Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) by Kim Ablon Whitney Page B

actually aligned in that goal, and I didn’t hold out much hope of convincing him. At least not today, my first day in Welly World.
    Dale turned and walked off. I leaned back against Logan’s stall door and let out a breath. I hadn’t even been in Florida a few hours and things were already more complicated than I had thought they’d be.

 
    Chapter 11
    That first night we went out to dinner at a place Chris liked called Oli’s. Apparently you couldn’t go anywhere in Wellington without running into people you knew. Or people Chris knew, anyway. On the way to our table, we passed Tommy Kinsler and his girlfriend. Chris stopped and chatted innocuously. Instead of talking about the weather, they exchanged thoughts on the footing at the show. Maybe footing was the horse show equivalent of weather for a common conversation piece. They were civil to each other, but not as chummy as they’d been in Vermont and Chris cut it short by saying we’d better go sit down.
    “What’s that like?” I asked Chris when we were seated. “You and Tommy?”
    They had been close until this past summer when Harris had pulled his horses from Chris and given them to Tommy.
    “We’re both professionals—we can still be civil to each other,” Chris said, picking up a menu.
    “That’s it? That’s all you feel about it?” Sometimes Chris could be almost too controlled in his emotions. He was always so levelheaded. But underneath it seemed impossible that he wouldn’t have the same emotions that we all did.
    “Are you still friends?” I asked.
    “Definitely, but I’m not going to lie… it’s hard to watch him ride my horses.”
    “Just hard?”
    Chris placed the menu to the side. “No, it nearly kills me. Each time I watch him go into the ring on Titan I think I might die.”
    He said this with a straight face and little emotion and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I gave him a confused look. “Are you serious?”
    “Yes, totally, completely, undeniably, thoroughly, utterly, unconditionally, unreservedly serious.”
    I burst out laughing. Most people would show their emotions with a slew of passionate swearwords, a raised voice, or a pounding fist. But it was so Chris to convey his emotions in a calm and composed, well-spoken, cerebral manner.
    “What was that again?” I teased. “Completely, thoroughly, totally…?”
    “I think it was: totally, completely, undeniably, thoroughly, utterly, unconditionally,” he said with a smirk. “Oh, and unreservedly, at the end.”
    The waitress came and filled our waters. Chris ordered a beer. She said she’d give us a little more time with the menu, since I hadn’t even opened mine. Having been here before, Chris already knew what he wanted.
    He continued, “That was my horse. I brought him along. And now he’s Tommy’s. It’s not Tommy’s fault. Tommy’s a good guy. And this is a business and this kind of stuff happens but it kills me to watch them. I don’t know how long it’s going to take for that to go away, or if it’ll ever truly go away. Maybe it’ll be better when I have a horse for the big ring again.”
    “But in the meantime it nearly kills you.”
    “Yup.”
    I loved how Chris had gone from seeming like somehow he was above emotion to admitting just how much it hurt him to see Tommy ride Titan.
    We had a nice dinner. The food was good, the restaurant was quiet enough for us to talk, and it felt great to be with Chris and not to be worrying about when I’d see him next or how much time we had left together. All of Vermont had seemed to be lived under somewhat of a ticking clock as the circuit inched toward its end and we went our separate ways. Of course, the Florida circuit wasn’t forever either but it was just starting and we had months together ahead of us.
    Tommy and his girlfriend must have come in shortly before us, because they were heading out the door at the same time we were. This time, Chris introduced me to Tommy as his