The Winter Games

by Sharp, Dr. Rebecca

  I was only able to enjoy a second of Monroe’s shocked and offended face before I turned and walked away, the faked indifference on my face melting like snow as I stalked angrily towards the exit. The thing about the locker rooms, there was only one light switch—and it was right by the door. Depending on what he ran into on his way out, I could be making more work for myself, but I didn’t care.

  I flicked the switch.

  “Jessa!” I ignored the echo of my name as it was cut off by the door shutting behind me and shutting them in the darkness.

  “Sorry, Chance. Looks like I forgot that you were in there…” I grumbled sarcastically underneath my breath.

  Let him enjoy finding his way out of that dark hole.

  “You still look surprised to see me, J-bird.”

  The good mood I’d been in from my morning appointment quickly evaporated into sheer anxious determination. Today, I told myself, I was better prepared for him. The reality was that I was only as prepared as my ability to control my unfortunate attraction to the asshole.

  “Well, I know you’ve been very forgetful lately—especially with anything involving me. Thought your appointment might have slipped your mind…”

  The gym was busier today. Besides Kyle and Monroe—who’d given me a dirty smirk when I walked in this morning (the kind that made her look a little bit like a ferret)—there were two other therapists and two personal trainers that I hadn’t met yet. The room moved like a well-oiled machine with everyone taking turns rotating through the various pieces of equipment and stretching space.

  “Not after yesterday.” He grinned.

  Retaliation for yesterday’s whole locker room light situation was expected.

  “We’ll start with some strength exercises and then repeat some of the stretches we did yesterday.” I walked away from him before that gaze frayed my focus.

  “Hey, Jessa,” Kyle said with a big smile as I walked by. He’d been out this morning so this was the first I’d seen him all day. I smiled and said ‘hey’ back with a little more encouraging enthusiasm than I should have. Using Kyle to get back at Chance was not a good idea. Chance’s gaze burned a hole in the back of my head.

  “Is that the boyfriend?”

  “Still none of your business.” Bad Jessa. I couldn’t help it.

  “Seems like a tool,” he said with a laugh.

  “Well, he would fit right in with my type then, wouldn’t he?” Stopping at the open quad machine, I turned to meet his icy stare, folding my arms over my chest.

  Chance just grinned at me and I felt a twinge in my stomach. I wanted him to be jealous. Or angry. Or something. But he wasn’t.

  “How many, J-bird?” he asked, climbing onto the seat.

  “I’ll let you know when you get there.” I adjusted the weight on the machine to only thirty pounds—pretty light, something to warm up nice and easy with. I struggled not to shift underneath his gaze.

  “You still working out?” he wondered, positioning himself on the seat.

  “Of course.” I stood and motioned for him to start.

  “You look good.” His eyes trailed over me, lips rising in a slight smile as I felt my nipples tighten. Even with my bra on, they were probably visible.

  My eyes narrowed. What exactly was he getting at?

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “Don’t trust a compliment?” Ten reps. Eleven.

  “Not from you,” I retorted.

  The smile that earned me began the familiar ache in my core—the one that caused me to make poor decisions.

  “Are you going to increase the weight?”

  “Not today.”

  His mouth thinned. Forget ‘Pride,’ his nickname should have been ‘Impatient.’ His whole life he’d been like this—pushing himself right to the brink and sometimes, right over it (to his own detriment).

  Our whole relationship had been like this—pushing us in deep—so deep, so fast that we hadn’t been able to make it back to the surface for air. And you can only drown in desire for so long before you have to breathe in reality.

  We made our way through the machines in relative silence except for intermittent instructions and curt questions.

  Standing up from the calf machine, I nodded towards the mats so we could finish his appointment with some stretching. His body shimmered with sweat and my body reacted accordingly. He smiled and instead, stepped in front of me—standing too close for comfort.

  “What are the chances you are just as wet as I am?” he rasped and I sucked in a breath. “Pretty good, I’d say.”

  I glared at him as my sex dripped with the truth of his words. There was no world in which my body would not cry and scream and beg to be one with his. Accepting that was the first stage in being able to deal with it accordingly.

  He smiled and sat down on the mat, waiting for my next instructions.

  Ignoring the various other images flipping through my mind of positions that I’d like to instruct him in, I took a deep breath and knelt in front of him.

  “Lay on your back, one leg straight, the other leg bent.” His eyebrow rose, but he did as I said. “I’m helping you today,” I clarified, reaching for the leg that was still bent. Positioned between his legs, I grabbed the shin of the leg that was still bent, lifting it and pushing his knee back towards his chest.

  My head jerked up as he hissed.

  “You ok? Is that too far?”

  “You know, J-bird, this position seems pretty familiar…” Oh no. Chance grinned as I felt heat rising in my face. “Except usually I was where you are and instead of stretching your leg, I was stretching that tight fucking pu—Fuck!” He broke off with a curse as I pushed his leg further back, stretching the muscle to the point where it took his attention off of me.

  Well, at least I’d found one way to shut him up.

  Swallowing my distaste for the words, I interjected, “So, how is living with Nick?”

  Using Frost as a barrier was a cheap shot, but it was the only safe bet I had to get the desire out of his eyes; the only thing stronger than it was his anger.

  My message was clear: discussions about our past were not happening.

  “Great.” His smile hardened, gritting his teeth as I pushed on his leg and stretched the muscles even farther. “Lots of weed. Lots of women. Thinking about joining us?”

  If he could still think like that, I wasn’t stretching hard enough.

  “No,” I replied, leaning down on his leg with more pressure, enjoying his wince. “Are those the only plans you have for your future now?”

  “Well, they seem to be working out so I don’t see any reason to change it.”

  Shrugging my shoulders slightly, I murmured, “Just thought you would still want to do something meaningful with your life—something involving snowboarding; you know, the thing that you love.”

  His laugh was like a gust of wind in the dead of winter, the coldness of it sinking right into my bones. “Yeah, well, the things that I love like to fucking disappoint me. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.”

  The chill in my bones deepened as an icy wave of guilt washed over me. I rested frozen against his leg, unmoving as the truth rolled in my stomach begging to escape. Again, I swallowed it down. Not only was it not the time or place, but Chance was not in the right state of mind.

  As much as I was angry at him for how he was acting and treating me, my heart ached for the man that I’d loved. I, too, knew what it was like to have something you love ripped from you—to blame yourself and to feel lost and hopeless. Giving him the truth now would just be an excuse to save me from his wrath; I wasn’t here to help myself, I was here because I could help him. I could save him.

  Or, at least, I could try to. Lord knows that Frost certainly wasn’t helping the situation.

  Helping Chance meant dealing with his vengeance until he realized that he would be able to snowboard again and that there were a thousand other ways he could contribute to the sport even if he couldn’t compe
te professionally anymore.

  Suddenly, I was tired of escalating. To me, the anger on his face only accentuated the hurt in his heart. I was responsible for some of it and I was going to do my damnedest to make it right.

  “Your sisters worry about you, you know,” I whispered softly. They both worried about the life that he was living now.

  Surprisingly, I saw his face harden even more and his jaw tick before his leg fell to the side out from under me. Heat and hardness met my chest as I dropped directly onto his, my breath—and my reservations—rushing from my body in one fell swoop. Chest to hips, we were flush, our breaths crashing together as his hands claimed my hips.

  Eight years was a long time apart but it had done nothing to change the way our bodies fit perfectly together. Those years suddenly felt shorter than that split second. The anger evaporated from his eyes, replaced with pure, uncontrollable lust—the kind that did not stop for time or place or even death. The moment grew long with the realization that it would always be like this between us, no matter how much anger or sadness we tried to layer in between.

  A realization that only made those layers more poignant. And solidified their necessity.

  “The only person who has to be worried about me,” his eyes darkened, “is you.”

  His hips flexed up into mine. I’d felt his arousal thick against my stomach the second we’d touched and the desire that rolled through me was incapacitating. The truth was, with the move and then studying, I hadn’t been with anyone in well over a year… maybe even two.

  But that wasn’t the excuse for what was happening to my body.

  When you breathe in oxygen, your lungs turn it into carbon dioxide because that is all they know how to do; when I touched him, my body responded with desire because that was all it knew how to do.

  That was all it was made to do—come alive for him.

  Fighting against nature is never easy, but sometimes, you don’t have a choice. I could give in, I could let him fuck me until I didn’t know left from right, and I could even pretend (I think) that it meant nothing—but all of that would only fuel his downward spiral and probably break my heart completely.

  Swallowing my sadness, I pushed myself up to my feet needing to get as far away from him as possible.

  “Maybe we’ll just stick to the stretches that we did yesterday.”

  Temperance: The 14th card in the Tarot deck indicates a period of balance, patience, and moderation. You have been able to take the middle road, avoiding the emotional extremes. You are learning to keep calm in stressful situations—balancing your inner and outer selves. However, there can also be a clash between the old and new you—a conflict over which direction or choice to make and what is really important to you.

  TEMPERANCE. THE FOURTEENTH CARD IN the Tarot deck had been taped to Tammy’s bathroom mirror all week. I rarely read myself. Only in emergencies.

  This was an emergency.

  The worst part was that I came up with a million-and-one reasons why the card for patience needed to stay on the bathroom mirror for the short-term—something that I was sure would give Tam a heart attack, but she hadn’t said a word. Every morning she was gone before I was up. By the time I finished at work and then made use of the gym for my own work-out—loved the perks of this job—she was back in her room or getting ready for bed. When she did come out, it was for a brief conversation about work and to tell me that she wasn’t feeling well.

  We were both falling apart and neither of us wanted to take the other down with our respective ships.

  Maybe that was another reason that I’d turned to my Tarot deck. What started as a hobby in high school for the weird girl with the blue hair became a kind of lifeline once I moved to Texas—something that I always seemed to fall back on especially when Chance was involved. The cards didn’t necessarily tell me my future, but they helped me to make sense of the present and the choices that I’d made. They were a mirror inside of myself when all I could see was darkness.

  Still, I rarely read myself because I knew my weakness. I knew how difficult it was for me to stay objective. I wasn’t like Tammy, always calm and collected in the face of her own trauma. Yes, I had goals. Yes, I could hold back my emotions—but only for so long. When they reached their tipping point, they spewed everywhere. And when I felt them bubbling, that’s when I reached for the deck—to try to objectivize what was happening.

  Patience… Temperance… was not my virtue.

  I picked one card from the deck the morning before my interview. The Ten of Wands. End of a cycle. End of school. Finally, beginning my career. After that night at Big Louie’s—seeing Chance—I ran to them again. The Fool. Always an optimistic card. The irony was that I felt like a fool when it came to him—and not the good kind of fool. Anxious for my first day of work, I picked the Eight of Wands Reversed. An odd choice, I thought until I walked into the lobby and saw Chance.

  Obstacles. One. After. Another.

  Chance. The Reversed Knight of Cups. Ruled by his anger and bitterness. Not thinking logically but with his emotions—emotions that were directed at me.

  I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. There was one reason I was looking forward to work this morning—and she was my saving grace. On Wednesday, I was given another patient—an elderly woman, Betty, who’d had a hip replacement and would be with me over the next few weeks as well. She was a character and managed to completely distract me from most thoughts of Chance while in her presence.

  Day One, for example, I walked into the clinic with Kyle that morning, chatting about how my first day had gone. I abruptly said good-bye to him, realizing that Betty was there waiting for me. Wouldn’t you know it—when I got over to her she scolded me for abandoning my conversation with that ‘handsome, young man.’ I stared at her. Looked to Kyle. And then back to her, at which point she insisted that she wasn’t kidding, but that she wouldn’t complain if I wanted to blow my chances with him because that just left more room for her to win him over.

  I died.

  She was kidding. For the most part.

  Kyle was such a good sport about it, too—always saying hello to her if he was in the gym. One time, he winked at her (maybe it was meant for me, but Betty ‘called dibs’ on it). Next thing I knew, she was asking me if I could set up some pool exercises with him (that one was always accompanied with a wink).

  Her sunny spirit made my day.

  A light that was quickly eclipsed by Chance in the afternoon. Countless times I pictured the card for Temperance in my mind as Chance pushed my buttons and pushed my limits. With him everything boiled down to one word: Frustration.

  And it wasn’t because he didn’t do as I asked. Oh, no. He always did exactly what I told him to—which is why I had to think through every word that came from my mouth and every movement of my body several times before they happened unless I wanted another skinny-dipping incident… or stretching incident on my hands.

  Still, he managed to find a way. All the innuendo, the reminders, and the sexual tension he created I fought with frustration to ignore. Unbelievably difficult when, at every turn, the way he teased and tempted me reminded me of all the ways that he knew my body was made for him.

  Oh, and then there was the fact that every afternoon when he was done, Monroe disappeared with him into the men’s locker room. Like she didn’t have anything else to do… besides him.

  I had no right to be jealous. It wasn’t jealousy, I insisted as I pushed my own limits in the gym. And pigs could fly.

  I shifted as I stood; the waistband of my underwear itching my lower back. In an effort of self-preservation and hidden retaliation, after seeing him and Monroe in the locker room that afternoon, I left work and went in search of underwear. I went out and bought myself a whole stack of panties—and not the sexy kind either—to get me through the next few weeks. I wasn’t taking any chances, especially when the way he looked at me convinced me that he had x-ray vision.

  I tried my best to give him th
e disapproving stare that I’d seen Tammy deliver with precision to misbehaving children on a daily basis. It was moderately successful until he caught me staring at him when I thought he wasn’t looking—the attempt then completely undermined as I gave away that he was still the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.

  I hated the damn confident smirk those looks earned me.

  He looked different now—and not just the beard on his face. Day one of our training together made sure that I got a full-frontal assessment of just exactly where and how much my ex-boyfriend had changed. A few scars I didn’t remember. A few hickies that were not from me.

  But I didn’t look quite the same either—not that he had or would have the opportunity to find out. Texas had evolved my passion for Tarot—and also for tattoos. Some things leave such a lasting impression on you… on your heart… that they needed to be branded onto my skin.

  For me, last week had been an attempt to exercise in a pit of quicksand. Chance was the quicksand. Everything about him… about us… dragging down all of my rational sense and sucking me into a well of desire where all my body wanted was to be swallowed whole by the man who would rather chew me up and spit me out.

  All because I’d broken his heart.

  “Honey,” Betty refused to call me by my name, unless she was scolding me for not getting her a date with Kyle, “what’s on your mind? You look far too distracted and not by the one thing in this room worthy of distraction.” She nodded with a dreamy sigh over towards where Kyle was working with a young skier who’d been injured in the X Games.

  I smiled. “Sorry, just a lot on my mind. First week here and all.”

  “Don’t fib me, girl, I’m too old for that. Plus, you wouldn’t lie to a dying woman. Now, tell me the truth before I go dying on you.”

  I rolled my eyes. Betty loved to pull the ‘dying’ card. At this rate, the way my heart raced like a Thoroughbred in the Derby every time I was around Chance, I was at a greater risk of keeling over in this gym than she was. She’d mentioned her age—seventy-eight—for every day that I’d seen her; and the fact that she might not live through her therapy session. (But that was ok, as long as Kyle was the last thing she glimpsed before she passed.)