I couldn’t say for sure, but I was fairly certain the general public didn’t know about this side to horses. Yes, they could be assholes, but they could also be traumatized or loving. All of them deserved the right to happiness and peace, though.
Our breeding program for the horses wasn’t the central part of the ranch. One collection of semen provided enough for three artificial inseminations, meaning he only did that once a year and bred with a mare a maximum of once a year, too. But one thing we made clear—if they didn’t show any interest in the mares they were set up with, they wouldn’t be forced.
We had a couple of the horses that we used for a church group who brought kids with Down Syndrome or other conditions to ride on, but the rest of the time, they ran around, ate, were ridden, and lived their lives free and easy.
“Yeah, he’s happy with the way his gut sounds and his bloods came back okay,” Jay assured me, snapping me out of my musing. “But back to your face—who’d you piss off more than Santana?”
I sighed and would have rubbed my face, but my hand stopped an inch away from it after I remembered the bruising. I hated that I pissed Santana off as often and as much as I did. The only times she’d ever told me to go fuck myself had been in private, but judging by Jay’s expression, they all guessed she’d done it, even though I doubted she’d told them outright.
Hell, I’d tell me to fuck off if I was Tana. I didn’t mean to be an asshole, I was just still in such a fucked up space mentally almost eight months later. I felt so guilty that I was pissed at Carrie when she was dead, but I was also grateful to her.
I was also angry at myself for not being there with her when she’d died. Our relationship had only ever been casual, a case of bed buddies by mutual consent, but I’d known Carrie since kindergarten, so I’d like to think she knew me well enough to know I’d have stood by her and not been an asshole. That said, there was a small part of me that wondered if maybe I would have been one if she’d told me.
And I just wanted to be the best dad I could be for Toby for his sake, and it was hard not to feel like I was constantly fucking up and being judged for it.
But Tana didn’t deserve my defensiveness. I wasn’t nasty, that’s for sure, but there was no missing the fact I was irritated when someone told me something that I should know but didn’t. I had a stack of seventeen parenting books that I’d highlighted and made notes in on everything they mentioned. I’d also cross-referenced it with shit online to ensure I knew as much as possible.
In addition to all of that, I’d signed up to parenting sites and baby advice pages and had bookmarked everything to do with a kid’s health and the problems they could have. I researched the shit out of research, no lie.
And that’s not to mention the amount of baby stuff I had at home. The first day I’d gotten Toby, I’d gone to the store on the way home and bought one of everything because I didn’t know where to start. I’d picked up packs of diapers in every size and style, every type of ass wipe they had, diaper rash creams, cradle cap ointments, baby washes, shampoos, conditioners, medications for every age… It’d been never ending.
Then I’d hit on the bottles, sterilizers, formula, pacifiers, teething shit, and clothes. Fortunately, he’d been passed over in a car seat, but I’d still gone online when I’d gotten home and had looked up the safest one available and had bought it with next day delivery. It might seem overkill, but most of it had come in handy since.
I was overly anxious, I knew that, and it made my reactions snippy.
“Toby did this last night,” I told Jay, keeping my eyes on Mandalay. “He has a bruise on his forehead and a bump because of it.”
“Shame,” he muttered. “Figured it’d make her feel better if Santana did it herself.”
Tamping down my irritation, I fiddled with my sunglasses while I weighed up the pros and cons of divulging ‘emotional shit’ to him. I trusted Jay—I trusted all of the people who worked for us now that Marni was gone after what she’d done to Addy and us—but I just wasn’t that guy. I usually didn’t have a lot to say and preferred just to stay quiet and listen.
If I wanted to be a new version of myself, I had to start somewhere, right?
“I hate that I’ve been an asshole,” I admitted finally. “I don’t mean to, it’s just fucking hard. I’m constantly second-guessing myself, and it’s like I have all of these thoughts going around in my head on a loop that I can’t break.”