“What do you say we get you back home?” I asked, walking in the direction of the barn.
I turned around, hopeful that Dolly would be on my heels. She hadn’t moved an inch. Unfortunately, there was no halter and also no rope to lead Dolly back to her home. I glanced up to the sky, clenched my eyes shut, and drew in the dusty air. Dolly was a miniature pony. I was also miniature: standing at five-foot-two. If a three-year-old could ride Dolly without going catatonic, so could I. I opened my eyes with my heart pounding, I sucked in courage, and I climbed on board.
“What are you doing?” Garrett asked.
“The article in front of Dolly’s stable—it says she loves nothing more than giving pony rides.”
“To children,” he said.
“Well, I’m improvising.”
I laid my stomach along her spine, lifting my leg in the air. I was far too adult-sized to make getting a ride from a miniature pony look good, but damn, this bitch was loving it. Dolly trotted toward the stable, giddily, and I couldn’t help but smile as the warm breeze hit my cheeks.
The pace was slow and steady, until suddenly, dirt started to fly in the air, wiping the grin off my face. Terror took over as Dolly’s little hooves picked up speed. My eyes widened to saucers, seeing us galloping ahead, toward a low crossrail.
“Dolly, don’t you fucking dare!” I yelled.
She fucking dared.
Dolly lifted her head up, and barreled toward the hurdle like Ryan Gosling was waiting for us, shirtless, on the other side. We flew through the air, and I closed my eyes, feeling my stomach slam against my ribs. Dolly thudded to the ground on her front hooves, pounding my vagina hard against her bony backside.
I patted the side of her head, screaming into her ear over the increasingly dirty wind in my face. “OKAY, DOLLY, YOU DID IT. YAY! IT’S TIME TO GO NIGHT-NIGHT NOW.”
Garrett was on our heels, panicked. He whipped his head back to the party tent, making sure that we were getting farther and farther away from blowing our criminal cover.
Breathing hard, I looked up to see rows of low-jump hurdles. I tugged at Dolly’s mane as she lurched over one jump ring after another, my lady parts getting hammered, and not in a good way. My cheeks flapped harder against the wind as she picked up her pace, holding on to a speed that miniature ponies shouldn’t be capable of reaching.
A high hurdle was ahead of us, clearly meant for a stallion, not for Dolly, the unsung hero of a petting zoo. I guessed Dolly had bitterly looked on year after year as the big horses got to cover the tallest hurdle while she had to give screaming two-year-olds a nice little trot around a ring. Now, she would show us all.
I could hear my heart beating in my head with nausea settling in my throat. I turned my head around to look at Garrett. He was running yards behind me, with helpless wide eyes and his gorgeous, messy hair blowing in the wind. Dolly picked up the pace, and I whipped my head forward: yards away, the tallest hurdle was approaching. I squinted, realizing it wasn’t just one hurdle. Dolly would have to jump wide enough to clear a triple.
Dolly’s mane flew into my howling open mouth as I ducked my head to the side of her neck, unable to watch as I met my death. This was a fitting end. I imagined how the East Hampton Star would cover our demise: “Dolly died heroically, a miniature pony trying to reach her full-sized dreams. Also a casualty of Dolly’s high-hurdle aspirations was Maggie Vine, that rando who was last seen with Asher Reyes.”
I opened my eyes, seeing Dolly’s hooves tuck under her belly as we left the ground.
“AHHHH!” I screamed, with two hands clutched behind her ears.
We arched toward the hurdle like E.T. and Elliott floating over the moon—except E.T. was clenching her glutes to keep from shitting on the mini pony underneath her bare ass.
Somehow, Dolly cleared all three high hurdles. I was strangely proud of her, but I didn’t have time to celebrate her personal record, as my right boob slammed against Dolly’s spine, knocking the breath from me. I lost my hold on her, flailing my arm desperately toward Dolly’s mane, gripping on to her fur, and squeezing my legs around her body as she ran toward the barn. With each gallop, I felt my chest inching down Dolly’s side, my chin now nearing her front leg, my sweaty palms now losing a battle with gravity.
I lost my hold on Dolly’s mane just as the sandy floor—the floor that my face was about to meet—became concrete. My shrieks echoed through the barn as my body tumbled off the miniature pony, hitting the cold hard floor with a thud.
I tried to catch my breath, pressing my palms onto the floor and peeling my cheek up off the ground. Dolly stopped prancing and turned to loom over me. She nudged my trembling body with her wet nose, and I dug my heels onto the floor, sliding my ass away from the least terrifying animal of all time: a My Little Pony Happy Meal toy come to life. Dolly pointed her chin into the air and pranced to her open stall, as if she hadn’t just scarred me for life.
Garrett flung himself against Dolly’s door, sliding the brass lock closed so she was locked in for good. He stared at me breathlessly, with sweat dripping down his bare chest. I pressed my hand onto my neck, searching for reassurance that I was still alive.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I pulled myself up with dark eyes on him, catching my breath.
“Am I okay?” I crossed my arms over my battered dress and used the stall to keep my shaking body upright. “What about any of this is okay?” I asked.
His eyes moved away from mine, focusing on his shifting feet.
“We were never good at timing,” he said quietly.
I paused for a second, almost insulted by the truth.
“You’re impatient, and I’m too patient—is that what you mean?” I finally said.
Garrett stared at me wordlessly, and then lowered his focus to his unbuttoned shirt. I watched his fingers, fingers which had just been inside me, stitch up our crime.
“You know that night—the night of my twenty-fourth birthday?” I asked.
I waited for his eyes to come back to me. They did, warily.
“When we almost kissed after karaoke?” I continued. His hands froze on the loose tie around his neck. “I was dating someone else at the time, which is why I didn’t kiss you back. I broke up with him right after you left.” I twisted my dress in my hands, the memory pounding at my chest. “Later that night, I showed up at your door to finish what you started, and Quinn answered the buzzer.”
His eyes were soft on me, his body still.
“I think about it too much,” I said, my voice getting smaller, tears forming. “About how if you had believed in the possibility of us, the way I did, that we’d probably be…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. I didn’t need to finish it. He knew.
We stared at each other until the silent tears were down my chest. His fingers were still on his tie, and I shook my head in pain, walked past him with my shoes in my hands and my heart on the floor. I had waited twelve years for Garrett Scholl to come around. Our moment had passed, like so many times before.
32
TWENTY-NINE
“FUCK.”
Breathless, I stared into my shallow purse, then back at my locked door. In borrowing a bag from Summer tonight, I had failed to transfer my apartment keys to this purse—which was problematic, considering the guy I had lusted after for six years was standing at my doorstep, his body throbbing behind me, ready to fuck me into the next morning.
I turned around to look at Garrett, apologetically gritting my teeth in a straight line. My lips parted, taking him in. His shirt was hanging off his sweaty body, his blond hair an adorable mess from the way I messed it up in the cab.
He tugged me close to him and hungrily kissed my mouth, then my neck. I arched my chin to the ceiling in a moan.
“We can go to mine,” he whispered against my ear.
My lips came up to his mouth, with my hand gripped on his belt loop, his hard dick throbbing against my thigh, his face flushed. My breathing quickened. I needed his lips back on mine, but not here.