I looked up as the front door to the condo opened quietly, Marissa poking her head inside before spotting me and the morning-after shade of red staining her cheeks.
“Hey…” She ducked her head and continued to shut the door quietly like it somehow erased the fact I caught her coming home this early.
“I take it you had a good night with Shawn,” I chuckled, pouring hot water into my ‘Don’t Mess with a Princess’ Leia mug to steep my green tea bag.
I always brought a few of my Star Wars mugs from my collection with me when I traveled.
“Ugh… yeah.” She had that unstoppable smile on her face. I could see she was enamored with him and I was happy for her. Really, I was happy. “He’s great. Everything is great. It’s like… I feel like… I’m floating.” She laughed again. “How does something so stupid seem so possible?”
“That’s awesome, Maris.” I grinned at her, blowing on the top of my steaming cup. “I’m so happy for you, babe.”
And, as is typical fashion for those overflowing with love or even just excitement and happiness over a new relationship, that emotion spills out onto everyone in the vicinity like poisonous waste to those of us who didn’t possess the similar antidote.
“How about you? How was your night? You and Kyle seemed like you were getting along really well at dinner! Did he say anything when he walked you to the car?”
I closed my eyes as I took a drink of my tea. It was all I could do to keep from lashing out in frustration at my friend who only meant well.
Apparently, my silence was taken as an answer to a question that I never wanted to be asked because she continued and twisted the knife even deeper.
“You know you can tell me,” her soft voice floated over me, my eyes opening. “I won’t be mad if you like someone else, Jac. Yeah, Evan was my brother, but he’s been gone a long time now. And we were friends—we were all friends before you two dated and got engaged. I’d be happy for you if you wanted to move on; it would be more than okay.”
The worst was that when she reached for my arm, I flinched, and it had nothing to do with her. It was the little things—the million little things—that could make it through the seams in my defenses.
Even just her slight touch reminded me of the white-hot rage pumping through my veins. Not at her. At him.
I’d given up a long time ago trying not to be mad at a dead man just because it was discourteous. Evan deserved all my rage and more. Not even for what he did, but how it still followed me no matter how high I rose or how far I went—how he’d hurt me, how he’d left, and how I’d kept it all to myself—it was like a prison holding me hostage from the inside out.
“That’s not it, Maris. It has nothing to do with Evan.” The lies piled right on top of all the ones I’d already told her. “I’m focusing on my career right now, that’s all. Who knows how many years I have left doing this? I don’t want a distraction to end it early.”
Her shoulders sagged and sadness blanketed her face, and I immediately felt guilty for crashing the high she’d come home on.
“Don’t be sad. Please.” I tried to sound like I wasn’t begging.
“I’m not, Jac. Just you’ve already put so many years into your career. I just don’t want you to get done with it and wonder what else there is left to your life, is all.”
I shuddered.
I wasn’t afraid of retirement. I couldn’t be afraid of something I refused to let myself think about. It was like getting into a car every day—you don’t think about your chances of dying. I knew it was going to happen. I’d deal with it then.
“I’ll find something new,” I said with a light smile. “Who knows, maybe I’ll start writing Star Wars fan fiction. Or, better yet, start my own Jiu Jitsu school.”
I did have a small problem with all things Star Wars. There had to be some way to legitimize and monetize my obsession.
“Like you need any more reasons to beat people up,” she teased wryly, grabbing herself a mug to fill with some of my leftover hot water.
I held the smile for as long as she could see me.
You’re always gonna find new ways to push people away, huh, Cinderella?
I gritted my teeth, annoyed that it was Kyle’s voice I heard in my head—my own was bad enough. Maybe he was a Jedi Prince Charming. Ugh, no. Then I’d really be screwed.
“Alright, I gotta go change and get out of here. Maybe I’ll see you later?”
She blushed again, looking down to her heels that she was wearing last night. “Maybe… Shawn and I might be headed to the movies though, so I’m not sure. Unless you wanted to do something, then I can stay home.”
I gave her the bright smile I was so used to pulling out of a hat. “No, no. You should definitely go. I’ll be on the mountain all day so I’ll probably just come home, put on The Empire Strikes Back, and crash for the night. We could do coffee or something tomorrow, though.”
“Yeah, definitely!”
And with those plans hanging in the air, I left Marissa in the kitchen to go put on my makeup. It didn’t matter that my face was going to be covered in fabric to be out in the snow, I took advantage of any opportunity to layer something else between me and the world I had to face; the cold that was in it had nothing to do with the snow.
There were different levels of famous. Jac sat right in the middle where her private life wasn’t blasted across national newspapers or TV channels on a daily basis, but also where when something happened, especially during the ski season, it was pretty easy to Google it and find out every damning detail.
I thought I’d wait until the morning to take a look, but by the time I got home from dinner—from that kiss—all I wanted to do was, first, jack off in the shower so my dick would stop hurting long enough for me to focus on my second task—finding out what the hell those morons in the lobby were talking about.
It took about a five-minute scan of the headlines from the Vail Slopes Report from five years ago to get the gist of it.
Horrific fall for professional skier, Evan Scott, fiancé of Jaclyn Blanchard while the two were racing before competition.
I scanned the article reading how Scott was trying to beat Jac, but not having her skill, he took a fall and severely injured his back, requiring that he be medevacked off the mountain.
Scott found dead in the vehicle the day after discharge from hospital, still no fiancé in sight.
I clicked around, reading about her ex-fiancé and his injury that kept him in the hospital for weeks. The many sources didn’t fail to mention that Jac was completely absent from his side, nor did they refrain from speculation as to the reason. A fight before the fall. Blaming herself for pushing him past what she knew he was capable of. More concerned with her career and the World Cup that year than her fiancé’s health.
It made me fucking sick.
Sure, I had no clue why the hell she wasn’t at the hospital, but I knew it wasn’t for any of those reasons. Not when the woman agreed to a double-date during a competition just to make her friend happy. Not when the woman was ready to walk away from an insult to her character but not to mine.
There was a reason why this Cinderella only ever looked for one night; there was a reason why my ice princess fought against her feelings like she was sure they were going to kill her; and there was a reason that simple, kind gestures took her by surprise.
There was more and no one had bothered to fucking ask.
And whatever that reason was made my fucking chest ache to show her differently. My eyes burned from staring at the backlit screen when I should’ve been heading to bed, but I couldn’t stop reading. I was grasping at straws—anything to help me understand how to get closer to Jac aside from tempting her into submission.
The headlines seemed to lull for a few weeks before a different set of vileness appeared on the page. The articles were from the beginning of the World Cup, a few weeks after Scott’s death.
Top two in the downhill—Blanchard and Jensen—forcibly separa
ted after parking lot fight.
This one had an image to go along with the caption. Two, actually. The first was Jac with her back on the ground and Andrea Jensen in a headlock on top of her. The second image was two men holding Jac back from continuing to go at the other skier who, if I looked close enough, wore a small smile of success on her face, like this is what she wanted.
Both women had been reprimanded by the World Cup officials, but since the fight had taken place before the start of the event neither were banned from competing.
But that wasn’t the last of it. Or the worst.
Andrea Jensen took unexpected fall during her run today; officials investigating foul play.
No charges pressed against Blanchard, suspected of damaging opponent’s skis.
It got so much worse. Everything that I’d read before was magnified at the end of this horrifying tale. The second day of the Cup was the downhill competition where Jac and Andrea were set to compete; it was the only event that they were both participating in.
About halfway through Jensen’s run, she took a huge fall and had to be trailed down the rest of the slope due to a knee injury because her right boot hadn’t released from the binding on impact like it should have.
Looking at the footage, the fall seemed to come from nowhere and that was why the commission began to take a closer look at the woman’s skis. For a whole week after the event ended, Jac’s gold medals were held from her until the ruling came through.
Even though there was damage to the right ski, her injury resulted from the release value, or DIN, on her binding being cranked all the way up—meaning that her binding was set to not release her foot on impact.
Whatever caused the damage on her ski was negated by the fact that all skiers check their DIN setting before each run—which Andrea was at fault for not double-checking her own settings. Jac was technically cleared and her medal returned, but the shadow of sabotage was like a scar. Even though the incident was healed over, her image was no longer the same.
Those few articles showed just how quickly the fairytale had turned on Jac. From the Queen of the Mountain with her Perfect Prince, to the Ice Princess who was too concerned with winning to make it to her fiancé’s hospital bed or to win the gold honestly.
The first thing I thought was how fucking strong my Cinderella was. Through loss and lies, she didn’t quit, she didn’t falter. She never gave up on herself or what she deserved. In the moments when she must have been most broken, she only shut the world out in order to hold herself together.
I swore and slammed my laptop shut, cursing myself for pushing so hard.
No wonder she was closed off, she lost her fucking fiancé. Fuck, I was such an inconsiderate idiot. I slammed my fist into the couch pillow, wishing even more so that it was that douchebags face from the resort who taunted her.
This changed everything and it changed nothing. As much as I learned about her past, it still seemed like only the tip of the iceberg with so much still buried underneath.
It didn’t change how I felt. It didn’t change what I knew I had to do.
Ice wasn’t meant to be cracked or shattered or broken apart to find what was below. Doing that would risk breaking everything that was fragile and preserved underneath it. No, ice was meant to be warmed and melted. Softly and slowly, it should be eased away from all the pieces of her that she’d frozen instead of let heal.
She thought I wanted to break her. She thought I would break her… fracture right through her armor and harm what was vulnerable beneath.
She was wrong.
I was going to warm her until all her frozen fear didn’t stand a chance. And then I was going to show her what Prince Charming was really made of.
“WHAT ARE WE DOING AGAIN?” I half-cocked my head from the passenger seat of the giant Tahoe that Danny had rented.
He’d texted me at dawn that he’d be picking me up at Marissa’s instead of meeting me in the gym at the resort. I didn’t bother to ask. He sometimes found better facilities locally that were less touristy.
Wherever we were going, I was ready. My mind was ready for another week. Now that we were officially in the final two and a half weeks before the World Cup, things were kicking into full gear. Even with the Christmas holiday the weekend before the race, this world was focused on the skiers rather than Santa. And I knew I’d be focused on skiing on the holiday—who did I have to celebrate it with anyway?
The two-ish week home-stretch meant restraint. Melatonin to make sure I got the full ten hours if I felt like my brain couldn’t shut off. Training every day because there was no rest for the determined. And no more slacking on the diet.
I’d spent an hour juicing this morning before Danny picked me up. I’d stocked the fridge with my own homemade concoction that I’d perfected over the years: Jabba Juice—my version of a green juice with apple, spinach, celery, and lemon. The Superfruit Skywalker, with beets, carrots, and apple. And last, the Carrot Carbon Freeze, consisting of carrots, oranges, and ginger. There was no reason for naming them except to fuel my Star Wars obsession.
“I was at the Cup of Joe place the other day and I overheard this girl with strangely colored hair talking to the barista making my drink about the gym that she goes to. It has these hydrotherapy machines that they’ve been using a lot in Europe,” he explained, drawing my thoughts back to the present as he turned off the main road several miles outside of downtown Aspen.
Danny never missed an opportunity to remind me how the U.S. fell woefully behind its European counterparts when it came to some of the most state-of-the-art training facilities.
“Of course, there are the regular machines and weights that we use for your regimen, but I’ve worked with these machines before for endurance and stamina, and I want to incorporate them. I think it will make a huge difference in your performance.”
I wanted to tell him I was already so good that it was questionably unfair to everyone else competing against me to give me another opportunity to be even better.
“I don’t have a bathing suit.” In fact, I didn’t think I even owned a bathing suit.
“Jaclyn, I’m your coach. Of course, I made sure to get you an appropriate bathing suit.”
Danny turned into the parking lot of what looked like a hospital, or one of their related buildings.
“Whatever you say, Yoda,” I muttered with a grin.
He always knew I was having a good day when my Star Wars references came out early. Sometimes, he was Yoda, sometimes he was Yo-Danny, and sometimes, he was Darth Danny. One way or another, he usually knew where he stood—whether he cared or not was a different story; he would push me to be my best whether I liked him or hated him.
Sliding down from the front seat, my trainers hit the snow-dusted pavement. The cold air blew right through my leggings and up underneath my Storm Trooper sweatshirt. Grabbing my bag from the backseat, I threw it over my shoulder and followed Danny toward the building.
Porter Adventist Out-Patient Center.
“You know this is a medical building?”
“Oh, Mama Mia.” He shook his head, one hand covering his forehead dramatically. “Yes, of course, Jaclyn. I realized this when I researched it. I called and spoke to the director of the building, Dr. Lev, and asked if there was any possibility that the great Jaclyn Blanchard could come and train here a few days a week for the next two weeks.”
“I hope you didn’t really say it that way,” I grumbled.
More muttered Italian accompanied his hand on my upper back, propelling me through the front door and into the muted green lobby.
Danny went up to talk to the receptionist while I took a moment to look around. The green came as a surprise. I expected everything to be white, but it seemed like the calm blues and greens were more conducive to therapy than sterile walls the color of snow.
To my left were glass doors with key-card access that led to stairs and an elevator beyond. Past that there were several chairs that constituted a waiting ro
om. Further than that, I couldn’t really tell.
Directly in front of me was a small hallway that led to the restrooms and to my right were the doors that led into the gym. They weren’t full glass, only small decorative windows at eye-level that would allow you to look in if you were close.
“Jac, I have to go upstairs and meet Dr. Lev. Do you want to come or wait here?”
“I’ll wait, thanks.” If he was going to give me the opportunity to avoid strangers, I would take it.
Strangers always fell into one of three distinct categories. One, they had no idea who I was. This was a fair amount of people who weren’t familiar with the winter sports scene. However, since the Nike ad I did last year, that number had dwindled significantly. Given that we were in Aspen, it was safe to say this population didn’t fall into that category.
The other two categories were close enough to describe them together, but different enough that I wound up avoiding them both. Either they knew of me and were a fan, or they knew of me and knew about my past and the rumors surrounding me, and took the opportunity to make insulting, rude, or threatening comments. Unfortunately, I’d learned that even the assholes would masquerade as friendly faces until they got close enough to stab you in the back hence why it was just safer to avoid everyone.
I was about to pull out my phone to text Marissa that I’d made a double batch of Jabba Juice if she wanted any because it was her favorite when someone bumped into me.
“Oh, dear me,” the shorter, old woman looked up to me a bit startled. “I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t see you there.”
My head tilted slightly, taking a second to take her in. She had to be at least seventy-five, with short, permed purple clouds of hair cut short above her shoulders. Her face was almost perfectly round with wide eyes that even wrinkled eyelids couldn’t shield. There was a slight hunch to her back and she was holding a cane, but I didn’t think she needed it based on the fact that the bottom wasn’t touching the ground; it was more like an accessory than a necessity.
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