J.O.P. Stable: The Twin Saga (Book 1: The Summer Finale)

Chapter 2:

Skylar's POV:

I drummed my fingers along the dark brown, slick wood that was our dining room table. I sat on one side, where me and Jewel usually sat together. My parents sat beside each other at the other end of the table.

My mother, medium tall with pale skin like mine, had her dark brown hair curled and in a nice up-do. Now a retired Equestrian, she wore more, fancy, or as my sister would call it, ' fashionable 'clothes instead of regular equestrian brand clothes, tonight's dinner being no exception. She had on a-I think, red Lady Love Song Dress with a crossover sweetheart neckline from ModCloth, which she had paired with silver hoop earrings and the gold horse necklace that my dad had given her for their anniversary. My dad, a tall man with tan skin that matched Jewel, blonde hair that matched me and dark blue eyes that matched both Jewel and me, was the exact opposite of my mother when it came to being ' fashionable ' and I'm guessing that's where I got my opinion about clothes that weren't equestrian brands. Dad was dressed in a black Comme des Garçons piqué polo shirt from their PLAY line and navy Isaia corduroy cuffed trousers from Barney's (Mom had picked those out obviously). I wasn't the best at describing brand names that weren't horse related, but I was getting better.

We all kept quiet, and I distracted myself by trying to guess what our cook, Jonas Everly, was doing behind the closed stark white push open door which led to our kitchen. Normally, mom would be in there helping prepare dinner, but this ' Big News ' must be really important if she was making Jonas cook everything. I was actually trying to send Jewel a mental message, telling her to hurry up so she could easily bring up a conversation about how her lessons had been, since I had already told our parents how my cross-country run had been and how I needed a new martingale and breastplate for Onyx before running out of topics. Jewel was more of the conversationalist between the two of us.

I was about to ask if I could get up and go look for Jewel, but then I saw her scramble in through the dark brown wooden double doors and take her usual seat next to me.

" Sorry! " She said, facing mom and dad. " The zipper of my dress got caught in my hair, took forever to get out "

I immediately knew that was a lie. Jewels hair, normally curly like mine, was perfectly straight and in place, instead of looking like it had gone a round with the zipper on her royal blue Ruby Rox Juniors Banded Colourblock dress which had black shoulder straps. She had on darker makeup than I did. Grey eyeshadow, a thicker layer of eyeliner with wings, and lip gloss that darkened her lips just a bit. I also noticed that she had dusted some light blush on her cheeks.

Mom and Dad both smiled at her in understanding.

" That's fine darling, how was today's batch of lessons? " Mom asked.

" Really great, Shadow threw a shoe this morning when Uncle John came, so I had to ride the school horses for my lessons. Wes and I killed our jumping lesson according to Carol, Steven said my Dressage today with Duchess was better than it had been all week, and I got Lo over the ditch on the intermediate Cross course, Andréa said my position had been perfect over it as well " Jewel explained, beaming.

I made a face while no one was paying attention to me and looked down, playing with my black stone ring. I should have worked more today, especially on Dressage and Show Jumping, they were my weaker areas and so needed improvement, but Andréa said I shouldn't work Onyx for the rest of the day, so there was no point, I didn't like riding other horses....

I looked back up when Jonas entered the room, a few plates piled up in his arms.

" What's tonight's meal Jonas? " Jewel asked, smiling up at him.

Jonas, a recent cooking school grad, looked sharp in a black slim fit Club Room Long Sleeve Textured Shirt, which was tucked into grey Michael Kors Solid Dress pants. His black hair had recently been redone, now layered on top with shorter sides and back.