Horse Ridin' (Motionless In White)

Chapter 14: The Case of the Missing Spider

Written: 10/2/16

-

Sirenia was gonna kill him.

Jared was sure of it. He was counting on it, really. If he was dead at least he wouldn't have to find his lost spider. And spider was an understatement.

Jared had lost his pet tarantula.

How, you ask? Who knows. How can you lose a giant monster spider? Jared wasn't even sure how he'd managed it. Yet somehow he'd gone in to feed the thing this morning and it was gone. And he'd torn his house apart since then and it was still missing.

He had no idea what to do now. It was somewhere on the property, sure, but it could be anywhere. And anyone who knew Sirenia knew she was terrified of spiders. And by terrified I mean 'jumping on shit and screaming' terrified. And considering the girls had absolutely no idea he owned the tarantula he thought it was best things stayed that way.

And that was why he and Ghost were now rooting through the barn looking for the tarantula, hoping (and praying) that maybe he'd wandered down there in search of food. If they got lucky they'd be able to find him before Sirenia did.

Luckily for Ghost and Jared, the girls were both up at the house dealing with their newly acquired snake, rats, iguana and German Shepherd. Karma was loving life on the farm and following the girls around everywhere they went, refusing to let either of them out of his sight at all times. He didn't particularly like anyone else, even Ghost, and chose to hide behind the girls whenever someone came near. When he felt they were threatened, though- that was a different story. Then he'd bark and try to bite them.

And that was how Jared had gotten bit in the hand and ended up with 5 stitches. 

But that was within the first week they'd had him. Now it'd been a whole month and he'd adjusted a bit more to Jared and the others being around. He didn't try to bite them anymore- he just glared at them whenever he felt his people were threatened. 

The girls were doing well, too. Partially because they didn't know there was a huge spider loose on their farm, but they didn't need to know any different. All they needed to know was that things were going well. The guys thought so too. Ghost had been reporting back to his brother often on how Josh and Ricky felt about the girls and how much they wanted to ask them out. They hadn't yet, though, leaving the girls just as oblivious as they were months ago when they first met the guys.

As far as the friends aspect went things were going well too. Neither had confided in the guys much about themselves or their pasts but that was to be expected- they did know about both the girls having anxiety now though. So did the rest of the guys. It wasn't much talked about but more of a known fact- they struggled with it and the guys tried to help as much as they could.

It had been a trial and error method- try something and see if it works. If so keep doing it. If not stop doing it. Josh had quickly learned that cracking jokes immediately brightened Sirenia's mood but when Ricky tried the same with Rosaline she only seemed to become more self loathing and make jokes at her own expense. They had also both learned that neither of them liked much physical contact with people, making it exceptionally hard for both of them to flirt with the girls or do something 'slick' like wrap an arm around them, but regardless of that handicap they were really, really trying to get the point across to the girls.

They were both just oblivious. As all hell. Probably two of the most oblivious people you could meet. At least when it came to others having feelings for them.

Although of course they were both busy and didn't have much time to think the boy's feelings over, either. Brenda had come out, tried Masquerade (3 times now) and seemed to love her. Abigail's papers were about to be signed so she'd officially no longer be owned by Sirenia and Rosaline. They'd gotten 3 new horses from auction and 2 more for training, leaving Rosaline with all 3 of the auction horses while Sirenia handed the 2 for training. Their owners had dropped them off each off for 3 months of training, meaning Sirenia would have her work cut out for her with how badly behaved the two of them were.