Page 1 of Stick Around,
Chapter 1
Sparklehoof
Quinn
I’d never thought my life would hit rock bottom at a hobby horse competition, but here I was.
“It’s right through here!” April squealed, pulling me by my hand through the hallway of a Las Vegas hotel’s basement-level convention center. “This is going to be the most amazing thing ever. Trust me.”
Those words should have been my warning sign.
Post-breakup decisions rarely made sense, but accepting this adventure with my best friend might have been the worst in my twenty-eight years on this earth.
And that was saying a lot considering I’d been engaged to a man who’d been sleeping with various women on a hookup app.
The thought of my ex made my jaw tighten at the memory of his parting speech after I’d confronted him about cheating on me. He’d had the audacity to look wounded while explaining how I didn’t understand his needs and how he was wireddifferently. As if infidelity were some sort of evolutionary advantage he’d developed.
Three years together, and apparently, I was the unreasonable one for expecting basic decency. To make matters worse, he’d also claimed I had no professional drive while I was still in my teaching clothes with glitter stuck to my sweater from an art project.
Did teaching pay a six-figure salary? Of course not. But to say I had no drive because I’d chosen to go into teaching? It had taken everything in me not to drive my foot where he’d really understand just how driven teachers were.
Before I could continue down a thought path that helped no one, we were stopped at a table where a woman handed me a clipboard and pointed to two X’s on an official-looking form. Her glittery eyeshadow matched the sparkly unicorn plastered across her T-shirt. “Sign here and here.”
“Oh, absolutely not.” I tried to hand April the clipboard, giving her my best teacher stare. “I thought we were going to the buffet and then going to the spa for manis and pedis!”
April’s eyes sparkled with the distinct glee of someone who had orchestrated chaos and was now watching it unfold. “This is better than a nap or a spa! This is immersion therapy.”
“Immersion into what? Delusion? I can live without riding a stick with a stuffed horse head, thanks.”
April sighed dramatically. “Quinn, you’ve spent weeks crying in your apartment. You’ve watchedThe Notebookthree times, and you hate that movie. You even ordered a custom voodoo doll on Etsy.”
The woman who’d handed me the clipboard gasped. “Who hatesThe Notebook?”
I shifted uncomfortably under her accusatory stare. “I only hate it because love like that doesn’t exist in real life. It’s false advertising wrapped in attractive cinematography. Nobody rowsboats through swan-filled lakes without being brutally attacked or stands in the rain declaring undying devotion without catching pneumonia.” Romance was officially dead, buried, and decomposing at this point. “And don’t act like the voodoo doll was my rock bottom. You were the one who suggested adding his actual hair to it for maximum effect.”
“Look.” April grabbed my shoulders, her expression softening. “This is silly and ridiculous, and that’s exactly what you need right now. You’ll bounce around on a stick, we’ll laugh our asses off, and then go get those yard-long margaritas you wanted.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Are you entering too?” The clipboard felt heavier in my hands with each passing second, like it was slowly transforming into a contract with the devil who was wearing glitter eyeshadow and promising emotional healing through public humiliation.
“I’m your coach and photographer. Someone needs to cheer you on from the sidelines.” She grabbed a pen from the table. “You can have the rest of my rum from my purse flask, and I’ll pay your entrance fee and for anything you need to compete.”
“I’ve never even ridden a horse.” I snatched the pen from her. “You’re paying for the margarita, the buffet, and my mani and pedi too.”
I signed the form because apparently my dignity had been buried somewhere beneath my hangover and the hollow ache that had taken up residence where my future plans used to live.
After handing the clipboard back to the woman and getting a participant bib, April grabbed my hand and pulled me into the convention hall before I could protest further. The scene inside could only be described as what would happen if a six-year-old girl’s birthday party collided with a competitive sport.
Actual grown humans with full-time jobs and presumably mortgages were prancing around on stick horses like they wereactual horses. Some wore riding boots and breeches. Others had gone full fantasy with unicorn horns and rainbow manes attached to their stick horses.
April looked like she might explode with excitement as she pulled me toward a booth draped in pink tulle and fairy lights at the far end of the hall.
“What fresh hell is this?” I groaned, rubbing my temples where a headache threatened to bloom. I’d expected Vegas to be weird, but this brand of weird felt like it was specifically engineered to test my already paper-thin emotional resilience.
“Embrace the chaos, Quinn. It’s cheaper than therapy, and there are probably snacks.” April stopped at the booth where a woman stood with a T-shirt that read “Stick With It.”
She beamed at us. “Welcome to Hoofin’ It Designs! Are you looking to rent or buy? We offer both options.”
April rubbed her hands together in glee. “My friend here needs to rent a mighty steed.”