Gold

by E. J. Noyes

  Stop it.

  I gathered my coat and a scarf and half-ran out the door before I could drive myself crazier by changing my mind. I needed to work my nerves out with someone. It was a long shot, but Hayley might be awake. I sent her a text and waited. She called as I was backing the car out and her question was slightly panicked. “Is everything okay, Aspen?”

  “I have a date. Right now,” I blurted.

  “Ohhh shiiiit.” I heard my sister’s sliding door open and could picture her walking out onto her back deck. She’d be leaning over the railing, looking out into the moonlit night over her dry, dusty yard and the kids’ playhouse I helped Ryan build last year between ski seasons. If it were earlier in the evening she’d have a glass of wine in hand. Years ago, pre-kids, she’d have a cigarette too. “Spill,” Hayley demanded.

  “I’m freaking out.” I had about ten minutes to sort myself otherwise I would be arriving at Cate’s a sweaty, nervous wreck.

  My sister spat a series of rapid-fire questions. “Why? Where are you going? Who is this woman? Why is this the first I’m hearing of it? Who asked who?”

  “Ahhh, just out to dinner. She’s a client. Was. Was a client. She asked me.”

  “Oh, darling, why are you so freaked out? You of all people can get by on charm alone. And you already know her.”

  I made an indecipherable sound. “Because I like her.”

  Hayley laughed, finishing with a snort. “You like her? What are you, thirteen again? Take a breath. Give me some details, talk it out with me.”

  I did as instructed, drawing in a slow lungful of air and letting it out again. The enforced pause helped me articulate, “She’s an American vacationing here, if you can believe it. Absolutely stunning, so sweet and kind. She’s a physical therapist. Deals with rehabbing sports injuries.”

  “Nice,” Hayley interrupted dryly. “You can discuss all your broken bones.”

  Nobody knew how to press my buttons like my sister did. God I loved her, and missed her fiercely. “Hayls,” I said quietly. “It’s the one I had the anxiety attack with.”

  “Well, she’s already seen you freak out. Can’t get any worse.”

  “That’s what Doctor Spencer said.” My therapist had been great when I’d phoned her at two in the morning Aussie time, to have a mini-meltdown about dinner with Cate.

  “Smart woman. And what does she think about this date?”

  “Told me to be careful, but I get the feeling she’s cautiously optimistic about my interest in permanence.” Then I dropped the thing I knew would interest my sister the most. “Cate’s also got a teenage daughter.”

  “Oh really?” Hayley asked ever-so-calmly.

  “Yes really. I taught her daughter first, actually.”

  “So the kid doesn’t hate you. Bonus.”

  “Yeah.” Aside from my ex, my sister was the only person who knew how desperately I wanted children.

  Hayley chuckled. “That changes everything. I bet you’ve already got the wedding planned.”

  “Hardly.” I ran a quick loop of the wedding march. Dun-dun-dun-dun…Cate in flowing white. Dun-dun-dun-dun…me in a tux.

  “You’re such a bad liar, Aspen. Look, just go easy and don’t fuck it up.”

  “Gee, thanks. You give the best advice.” Stopping at a crossing to let a group of people pass in front of me, I leaned forward to rest my head on the wheel.

  “Oh stop being a baby. You know what I mean. She asked you, obviously she’s into you. Be yourself and take things as they come.”

  The person behind me gave a long, intrusive honk. I drove forward and offered an apologetic wave when they zoomed past. My frayed nerves were now even more frayed. “I’m just nervous. It’s been so long since I dated.”

  Hayley grunted. “Chill out. It’s not quantum physics, just some basic math. One plus one equals fun.”

  “I know.” I consciously relaxed my grip on the steering wheel, trying to calm down. “The feeling came on right away, Hayls, like I just felt connected to her. I’ve never felt that before.” All my other relationships had been slow burns, a gradual windup. Cate was like an explosion from the outset.

  “Maybe you should run with it.” I sensed my sister shrugging, even through the phone. “Maybe that’s what you’ve needed the whole time.”

  “Maybe.” I slowed the car to a crawl. “Ugh, I’m nearly there.”

  “Have fun, email me and let me know how it went. Tell her the story about the raccoon!”

  I made a noncommittal gurgle and pulled up at the top of the driveway. “Love you. Thanks for the pep talk. Hugs and kisses for Anna and Davey. Say hi to Ryan for me.”

  “Will do. Love you too.”

  I ended the call and made a final check in the rearview mirror. Just dinner and conversation. Getting to know her better. Nothing to worry about. As I slid from the driver’s seat, Cate was closing her front door and I hurried as fast as I could to meet her.

  From a few feet away, I smelled her perfume, that sweetness with just a hint of spice. She smelled incredible, she looked incredible. Jeans with gleaming brown boots and under her coat I caught a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage through a fitted blouse hugging curves and clinging to her breasts. Skiwear had hidden her from me and now I knew what lay underneath, it was going to be very hard to keep my eyes away. She’d left her hair down, curling softly past her shoulders and it was all I could do to not reach up and gently pull a few strands between my fingers.

  Cate placed a hand on my shoulder and stretched up to kiss my cheek. “Evening.”

  “Hey.” Close up, the scent was intoxicating. My eyes drifted closed, my nose brushed against her hair and I inhaled. I breathed her in like it was the last breath I’d ever take. Hard to do discreetly but if she noticed, Cate didn’t say anything. Eventually, she let go of my shoulder and I stopped treating her like my own personal sniff toy.

  I led her back to the car, opened the passenger door and carefully closed it once she’d settled. On my way back around, another image of her in a dress and heels sauntered into my brain. Hair up, hair down, it didn’t matter. I could picture my fingers sliding under dress straps, pulling them off her shoulders and letting the dress puddle on the floor. Bending to press kisses along her shoulder, up her neck, along her jaw to her mouth. The thought was uninvited, but not unwanted. Saliva welled suddenly in my mouth. A gentle hum of arousal joined in. It was going to be a torturous dinner.

  Chapter Nine

  Seated in the corner of the Italian restaurant in town, against wood paneling and under warm lighting, she was even more beautiful. Watching her was like watching the sunset—I wanted to stare until the last possible moment to make sure there was nothing more to see. But Cate would never dip behind the mountains and flare out the way a sunset did. She would always be incredible, luminous.

  I took a small sip from my wineglass. “So, aside from Derek Andrews, who else have you worked on?”

  “Hillary Wynne’s right knee is mine, so I guess I can take credit for the Lynx winning the WNBA Finals in the three years she played for them.” Cate grinned, then rattled off a handful of names from the WNBA, NFL, and MLB, each of them a well-known and high-performing player. She wasn’t boasting exactly, but I still sensed in her the self-assuredness and hint of arrogance I’d always associated with myself. Not an innate part of our personality, but coming from knowing you were good at something.

  “Do you work in a hospital?” I asked.

  “No, I work in a clinic in Denver.” One hand reached for her wine, the other slid across the table to take my right hand. “I can fit in with school hours, which means I’m usually done when Gem finishes.”

  Family was important to her. I filed it away with everything else I liked about her. “And are you taking on new clients?”

  “Always. Why do you ask?”

  “For me.”

  She leaned close, concern etched in the planes of her face. “What’s wrong?”

  Too many things to list an
d spoil our dinner with. “Nothing new but there’s always room for another medical professional in my corner, Cate.” I winked. “There’s plenty going on in this body to keep everyone busy.”

  She relaxed, eyes crinkling with amusement. “You don’t have to book my time and spend money for that.”

  I laughed. “Now you’re just throwing my own words back at me.”

  She inclined her head, the smile still teasing at the corners of her mouth. There was a comfortable lull in the conversation as we perused the menu but the moment we’d ordered and were alone again, she pounced. “Will you do commentary again for the Winter Olympics next year?”

  “I’ve been asked,” I said carefully. There was still a month to go before I had to give my answer, but I’d already decided I probably wouldn’t accept. I’d be even more of a relic and someone more current would be ready to move into a commentary role, either freshly retired or injured and unable to compete. I was happy enough with my World Cup commentary.

  “Will you do it? I heard you commentating in Sochi.”

  “Did you now?” I deliberately avoided the first question, and was suddenly self-conscious about the second statement.

  “Of course. I love the Olympics, and when I heard you were on the commentary team I made sure to tune in.”

  Placing a hand to my breast, I affected my best mock-shocked look. “Cate, have you been stalking me?”

  She laughed so loudly that the couple at the table next to ours turned to look at her. They didn’t seem annoyed, more interested because Cate’s was a genuine, infectious laugh. She shook her head. “No. I thought you’d know that by my bumbling when we met.” Glancing down at our joined hands, she smiled, almost to herself. “You know how it is, you see someone you think is hot and then you find out they’re a lesbian and that secret fantasy side of you thinks ‘all right, it could happen.’”

  “Secret fantasies. I think I like the way that sounds. Tell me more about how hot you thought I was.”

  “How hot I think you are,” Cate corrected me. “First noticed you in Torino and thought you were cute. And very young.” The wink was so quick I thought I’d imagined it.

  I grinned. “Not that young.”

  “Young enough that I probably shouldn’t have thought about it as much as I did,” Cate qualified. “Age aside, I got a little crush on you.”

  “Do you still have it?” I asked slyly.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Well then…yes.”

  “Yes what?” An eyebrow quirked.

  “Yes, Cate. It could happen.”

  I shook my napkin into my lap and answered the question she’d asked just before dinner arrived. “No rebellious phases. I hardly drank because of training, and never felt the inclination toward drugs.” The expected discomfort appeared right on cue, and I forced myself to acknowledge the feeling, and amended the statement in my head. ‘While I was competing, I never felt the inclination toward illegal drugs.’ I ran suddenly damp palms over the napkin on my thighs, and forced a smile. “Plus I used to spend half my time peeing into cups or presenting an arm for a blood draw.”

  “So what did you do then if you weren’t off running amok?”

  “Really, all I really did was study, train in the gym, and ski. Missed a couple of lectures and got a few piercings, but other than that…”

  “I see.” Cate reached out and gently ran her thumb over the small stud in my nose. “You said a few. Where else?”

  “I can’t give away all my secrets on the first dinner, Cate,” I teased. My light tone didn’t stop the tightening of my nipples against the bars through them.

  “Will I ever get to see these other piercings?” she murmured.

  “If you’re lucky.” Even the thought of her naked with me had my pulse racing, and when I added the thought of her tugging my nipples with her teeth, I had to cross my legs against the fierce surge of arousal.

  Cate’s teeth were buried in her lower lip, her expression telling me clearly she knew what I was thinking. She glanced away then back again, an eyebrow slightly dipped as she studied me. “You teach mostly kids?” Cate picked up her fork.

  Grateful for the conversational shift back to safe ground, I nodded. “Mhmm, teenagers for the most part, and adults when they’re above a certain skill level. There’s only a couple of us qualified to take on the higher level clients.”

  “Why kids?”

  “Why not? I love kids. Being able to joke around and be silly for most of the day is great.” I still hadn’t touched my cutlery, but with so many questions bumping around my head, I had to shove one of them out. “Does Gemma know you’re having dinner with her ski instructor?”

  “Yes, she knows I’m having dinner with my ski instructor.” Cate kept eye contact. “We talked about it, and Gem says she’s not bothered by the prospect of me dating again.”

  I stayed quiet at her use of dating. Was this dating? We only had a few weeks to get to know one another and then they would be gone. Cate continued, “Besides, she’s reading science articles on the net. I got a rushed ‘have fun’ out of her. Some days I can barely drag her away from the laptop to get her to the mountain.”

  “That’s some serious dedication.”

  “Sure is. She wants to be a veterinarian.” Cate ate a mouthful of her dinner, a small sound of approval escaping once she’d swallowed.

  “Smart kid,” I said tightly, my brain stuck on the sound she’d just made. I wondered if I could ever get her to make a similar sound, but I didn’t plan on using food when I tried.

  “Yeah, she is.” The pride in her voice was evident. “The donor was a vet too.”

  Interesting. “Does she know that?” I asked. Perhaps a rude question but I was curious and it came out before I could stop it. I offered an apology but Cate waved it off.

  “No, she doesn’t. Just one of those weird coincidences. I haven’t really told her anything, but he’s identity-release so she can find him when she’s eighteen if she wants to.”

  “Do you think she will?” I asked quietly.

  “She seems sure, but who really knows what they want at that age?” Her eyes widened. “Except you maybe, training toward all your medals.”

  I paused, trying to frame my answer in a way that wasn’t too deep or forward. In the end I settled for, “That wasn’t all I wanted, but it took me a while to realize that.”

  We finished our meals, teasing out knowledge between bites. I told her the story about the time I mistook a raccoon for a cat, and as my sister had predicted, Cate laughed so loudly she nearly choked. We skirted around our exes for a little while until Cate stepped over the unspoken boundary while we were talking about children again. “My ex never wanted kids, but she wanted me. She just wasn’t present for it, you know? It was like she never really bonded with Gemma, and vice versa.”

  “I can’t imagine that. Gemma seems like a really great kid.”

  Cate smiled fondly. “She is.” The smile faded a little. “She’s been having some trouble at school with bullies and stuff. I think that’s why she’s developed a bigger interest in skiing these past few seasons. She wants to show she’s good at something that’s not just academic.”

  “Ugh. Kids can be so awful to each other. I always just want to tell them all it gets better when you grow up and they just have to wait and see.”

  Cate took my hand. “Yes, eventually.”

  Her touch made me bold. I asked a stupid question. “So, uh, is your ex still involved with parenting?”

  “No. A few years ago, she dropped the truth about not wanting Gemma. Then she took a job in the UK and that was that.” She glanced at a passing server, the muscles along her jaw jumping. Underneath what she’d said I sensed there was still something she’d withheld. Something painful. I wanted to know, but I didn’t feel like I had any right asking that.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, except an ineffectual, “Damn.”

  Cate paused, frowned, then her expression went neutral
as though she’d made a decision. “She uh…made me feel like she’d been saying it all along and I’d ignored her and just went off trying to get pregnant anyway. It got so bad that I was wondering if I was insane, if I’d just imagined the past ten years.” Her voice was completely steady, but one hand nervously twisted the napkin. “It took a few incidents, a bit of help from Dani and Mel, and my parents to make me realize I wasn’t crazy, that Lisa really is controlling, jealous, and manipulative.”

  “That’s so shitty. I’m really sorry.” The concept was foreign to me, treating someone that way when you were supposed to love and protect them.

  She looked back at me, and the moment we made eye contact, hers softened. “You’re sweet. Thank you.” She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “Sometimes we make mistakes but can’t see until it’s too late. Or until people help you. I was lucky it ended before I’d wasted any more of my life.”

  I gently tried to steer the conversation back to something less heavy. Not that I didn’t want to know everything that had shaped her, but because I sensed that continuing to talk about it would only upset her further. “So, you had Gemma once you were done with college?”

  “Just. She was conceived in the final year of my DPT degree.”

  I did some quick mental math. If Gemma was thirteen then Cate was about—

  “Forty,” she offered. “And very close to forty-one.” She seemed to have let her guard down again, and now her smile was free and open.

  I tried to look contrite. “I’m so sorry. Sometimes my face doesn’t know how to keep my thoughts private.”

  “I know, and I’m glad for it. You look very cute when you’ve been caught with your inside thoughts showing on the outside.”

  Thankfully, I wasn’t really the blushing type because I’d have been bright pink.

  She reached for her wine. “What about you? Kids?”

  Both my eyebrows climbed skyward. “Yeah absolutely, for sure. I mean I never pictured myself actually having kids.” Leaning back in my chair, I made a bulging motion over my stomach. “But I’ve always thought some day, with someone, I’d love to have kids.” Could I be any more obvious?