Blue Spring's Riding Academy---Starting New

Lessons N' Love

 Payton's POV.

I walked out of Blair's room and walked into mine. I couldn't help but think about what she had told me. I knew I needed to get my family away from Sabrina and her dad but I didn't know how. I could ask Blair, but I don't want her to think I needed help. I changed into my riding clothes and grabbed my helmet. I knew all my tack was in her stall so I didn't know how I was supposed to get my stuff. I walked out of my room and saw Blair standing at the peninsula waiting for me. "Damn, she looks hot." I thought. "Oh my god what?! Why do I think she looks hot?!?! I don't like her??" "Ready?" I asked, even though my brain was going haywire. "Yea. You ready to get your ass beaten again?" Blair said, a smirk on her face. I lightly slapped her shoulder "Shut up Willows. Not all of us are X- YENT team members." I said. Her bell sounding laugh rang out as she walked out of the door, dragging me with her.

We walked out of the dorm and down to the stable, with her still holding my hand, slightly dragging me. We reached the stable and walked inside. Surprisingly, it wasn't busy. For tryouts being tomorrow, you would think people would come and practice some but I guess not. Right now, it was only 1 o'clock and we had a dorm meeting tonight at 8, so we had 7 hours in between. Knowing Blair, she's going to practice for about 4 hours before even considering calling it quits. Blair let go of my hand once we reached her stall. "Don't waste any time Payton. I want you in that arena in 15 minutes. If you're even a second late, I will show no mercy." She said, her tone deadly serious. She motioned to the tack trunks and told me to get what I needed. I quickly grabbed my saddle, saddle pad, boots, and bridle. I walked back in and grabbed my brushes and then walked over to Spirit. I brushed him quickly, put on his boots and then tacked him up. I strapped my helmet on and walked into the arena and saw Blair already mounted and warming up. I had 3 minutes left out of the 15 to get in the saddle. I halted Spirit and mounted. I fixed my stirrups and cued Spirit to walk.

I heard footsteps behind me and looked back to see Sabrina and her newest minions, Kathy and Katrina. Blair must have seen them and rode over to me. "Payton," her voice was low, "For your sake, pretend I'm your girlfriend. Sabrina's only here because you haven't made it seem like you're taken. What I'm about to do is for your protection." She looked at me and her eyes said she wanted an answer. I lowered my voice as well. "Got it. Thanks for the help by the way. I can't wait to get her away from me." I said with a small smile. "Now that's the attitude I want to hear." Blair said. She shot a thousand watt smile at me, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. She applied a little pressure to Titan's side and walked him into the middle of the arena. As the duo was walking away, she raised her voice. "Babe, take Spirit through a few bends to help his form. I'm gonna dismount and watch you two from the ground." She said. I nodded at her, making sure to smile when she called me "babe" even though we weren't even going out. I looked over to Sabrina as I started my bends and to say she was pissed would be an understatement. She looked ready to kill Blair and her minions were just watching with little smiles on their faces.

Blair started calling out things she was seeing, but she would add some couply words at the end of it. To be honest, I was now about 75% sure that I have a crush on her and with every thing she said, the crush was getting bigger. Sabrina was still watching, which means she's not gonna leave anytime soon. Blair started to call out a dressage test for me. "Babe! Watch your form! You look like a bird!" She yelled. I quickly fixed my upper body. "Good, stay like that." This proceeded to go on for about 2 hours. She took me over jumps and dressage. By the time she finished making me jump with no sturrups, I wanted to die. I couldn't feel my legs. "Ok come over to me and dismount. Titan and I are ready for our turn." She said. I walked Spirit to the middle and dismounted. Blair was right behind me when I dismounted and she wrapped me in a hug. "Think you can walk?" she whispered. "Yea I think so." I said. She kissed my cheek for good measure and then walked over to Titan.

I watched as she put her foot in the sturrup. I didn't even know how she got her leg up that high, but she did. A second later, she was up in the saddle fixing the stirrups. I watched as she squeezed her legs against Titans side to make him walk. I started walking Spirit around to cool him down. I gave her about 10 minutes to warm up Titan and then I started talking. "Babe I want to start with dressage. Once you hit H, go to a working trot." I watched as she hit H and made a flawless walk to working trot transition. "Free canter at C" I called. I proceeded to call out a test for her and watched as she made it look like baby's work. I ran through my three hardest tests with her, all three of them were 20 minutes each, which is pretty long for our age but I was able to do it and ended up blue ribboning two of them and red ribboning the other one.

"Baby, bring him to the wall and free walk him for a minute. I'm gonna set up some jumps." I said, going over to the wall and grabbing the jumps and dragging them out in a pattern. Once I had finished I called over Blair. "I want you to take the course in whatever pattern you want, but without stirrups. You know Titan better than I do, so push him but don't over work him. You got this Blair. Good luck." I said. She nodded and started to canter Titan to different jumps to let him see it. While she did that, I walked over to Spirit and took him to the far wall where I would be able to see the whole course. She did a circle and started the course. She was doing so well that I had to double check she was riding without stirrups. I had her take the course 3 times, all with a different order. I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was 5:23 pm. "Hey babe, it's 5:23. Let's cool down Titan and get back to the dorm so we can change and eat dinner before the meeting." I said. "K, take Spirit to his stall and put his tack up, I'll be right behind you." she said, halting Titan and starting to dismount. I turned Spirit around and started walking to his stall.

I untacked and almost finished brushing Spirit when Blair entered my stall. "You almost done?" She asked. "Yea, just let me untangle his mane. I have no idea how it gets this tangled but it does." She laughed and walked over. "Here, let me help." She said, taking the comb from me. She started combing through Spirit's mane and whatever she was doing was actually working. I watched as she worked section by section and somehow, the tangles disappeared. Blair finished untangling Spirit's mane and walked over to the door with me right behind her. She put the comb in the tack box and picked it up. She took the box and put it back in her stall. "Ready?" She asked. "Let's go so Sabrina doesn't get a chance to talk to us." I said, opening the stall door.

The two of us walked out of the stable, hand in hand and back to the dorm.