Disguised In Lavender

Part 39

The riding hall was much larger here than it was at Winchester manor, Tanner had been right about the amount of contestants. Lauren hastily buttoned her shirt over the marks on her neck, Ann beside her looking as innocent as ever. "Laur, have you seen Dalla?" Tanner ran up to them with his hands clenched, a bridle hastally swung over his shoulder wrapped. "Um, not since we got off the train, why?" Uneasy silence flew over the trio for what felt like an eternity, Tanner tugged on the loose rein of his bridle and nodded. With no explanation, he jogged off down the long hallway and vanished into a stall with a creak.

Lauren glanced over at Ann who squinted to see where the boy had gone, looking up at her girlfriend with a shrug. "Alright everybody!" Mr. Terence's booming call for attention and resounding clap of his huge hands broke their confusion. He was dressed in skinny blue jeans and a black belt holding down the frayed edges of an old Talking Heads T. "We're going to be doing rider drills today so there's no need to saddle up the beasts." Lauren groaned, leaning her head back to prove her point of exasperation, every student copied in similar fashion. Rider drills were basically full body gym days enforced before a show to keep riders in top form after a long train ride.

Usually the rider drills would mean an even longer drive to the nearest facility but Grant Creek stables had one of their own. Down the long hallway there was a curved opening like what would usually be an entrance to a ring. This time though, when the heavy barn doors were fully pushed aside, there was a tiled gym. "Woah." Lauren breathed in awe, her misgivings on training day shoved aside in a moment of appreciation. "I want team A to be Eventers, Team B stunt riders, Team C is dressage, and Team D are my barrel racers." Mr. Terence waved his hands like a conductor to an orchestra and watched his students evenly find their place. It wasn't every day that a barn of teenagers could move like a flock of sheep but today was different.

The first show would start at Ten and end at midnight, this was for the companionship trainers though, not riders. Ann wasn't a companionship trainer, thank god, Lauren grabbed her elbow and pulled her into line beside her. The younger girl didn't try to wriggle out of her grasp, only cheekily crossing her arms so that they were intertwined. "Don't get too cocky, we're going to get riding in before tomorrow morning." Ann warned, hip checking Lauren lightly as Mr. Terence motioned for their line to go inside.

Unlike in the ring, the light through the gym wasn't from the wall length windows and musty coating. "I like this, let's stay here." Lauren bounced on her heels, looking up at the hanging lights in moth-proof cages. "No way, I could never live out here." Ann disagreed sternly, following the moving line of riders and trainers to the humming treadmills. Their group was Eventers so running was pretty common, already most riders were in stage four. Lauren tugged on her collar and bit her lip, pretending to examine the setting as she side eyed Ann. "Concealer, darling?" The trainer taunted lowly, spinning a tube of concealer from her pocket as Lauren glared at her.

She held out her hand and patted the skin colored makeup along her neck, all the while keeping an eye on the smirking trainer. "Let's get the cycle going, please." Mr. Terence snapped his fingers as he walked by Lauren and Ann, making them both jump and nod. This was how she would get back at Ann, she grabbed onto the back of her collar and pulled it over her head. She shook down her hair, though it hardly went below her shoulders, quickly pulling it into a low bun. Ann pursed her lips and glanced away, stepping back to sit in the group of other trainers whispering together. "Whimp." Lauren mouthed when her girlfriend glared up at her, walking slowly on the rubber coated runner.

Switching stations until it was noon had made the concealer on Lauren's neck run slightly as she pulled her shirt back on. The dress style top was tucked into loose fitting black leggings that matched Ann's from the night before. "A college student with a caffeine addiction and a high sex drive, aren't we soulmates." Ann sighed as she looked up at Lauren, leaning back on her palms teasingly watching the other trainers get up and leave. "If you don't buy me lunch we're through." It was loud enough in the gym that no one heard but the threat made Ann stand up quickly enough to grab Lauren's hand.

"Dalla didn't show." Tanner came running at the two girls with his hands covering his face in despair, as if it was his fault. "She'll turn up, it's not like she ran back to Utah." Lauren comforted her friend lightly, ruffling his brown hair into his eyes so that he blew a mint scented breath back at her. "Our luck isn't good enough for that." Ann grumbled under her breath, earning a reluctant nod from Tanner.

Lunch was served buffet style lined up along the tack room doors on the opposite side of the horses. Lauren laid a picnic blanket over the straw dusted floor of Ducky's stall, his buckskin frame shadowed. Even as a trainer, Ann sat as close to the stall door and as far from the kind eyed gelding as she could. "I wanted to take you to the lake at least one more time before I graduated." Lauren explained softly, her eyes downcast, fingers fumbling with the foil that once covered her grill cheese. Ann looked up at her with an apologetic sigh, shuffling slightly closer so their knees touched. "You're seriously leaving me here?" Her tone was joking but it left a pit in Lauren's stomach that made it hard to laugh, she shrugged.

"You have JK and really, I can only go so far." Both fell into a calm silence, Ducky's heavy huffs through his hay the only thing breaking the chatter from outside. "So you have a plan?" Ann asked slowly, knowing it was a sensitive topic from any girl in the US as willed as her girlfriend. "Sort of, I'll buy Gravity and heckle Mr. Terence for that lake land behind the school. I can fix it up pretty nicely and buy more horses and animals, I want a shepherd dog and some sheep maybe. Zack will be going to Minnesota for a business thing so no more roommates. Tanner's going back for a year with his family in Chicago, so no more of him either." Lauren molded her foil into a malleable ball and tossed it to herself, thinking of what she would do.