by Piper Rayne
“Look, your lucky charm just walked in.” Beckett eyes the door.
I swivel in my chair, coming eye-to-eye with Demi Harrison. Out of all the lucky charms in the world, why couldn't I just have a rabbit's foot? Why does it have to be the girl who wants to kick me in the nuts?
Chapter Five
“He's going to grab this one.” I zip my jacket up to my nose, bury my hands in my pockets.
We stand at the bottom of the halfpipe after watching Grady's first run not go as great as he would have hoped.
“Definitely,” Beckett says next to me. The guy's in a much better mood now that his event is over, and he claimed silver for slopestyle boarding.
“Hey guys, how's he doing?” Skylar and Demi come up and join us. Beckett instantly gives each of them a hug.
My hands stay tucked into my pockets as they smile and wave. Demi stays on the opposite side of Skylar, as far away from me as she can get. For the first time in forever, I'm hesitant to talk to her. Ever since Beckett brought up the damn lucky charm thing, it’s been stuck in my head. I can't help but replay the entire Winter Classics four years ago and damn if he wasn't right. I slept with her before qualifiers and finals. Actually, she went down on me in the middle of the qualifiers during a break. Now I have to somehow find a way to persuade her to sleep with me again before my qualifiers in a few days.
“Oh, Mia!” Demi waves her hand in the air.
Mia and her brother, Brandon, head down our way, their parents in tow.
“Hey, we were up closer but I think I was making him nervous.” Mia cringes.
I fist pump Brandon. “What's up, Salty?”
“Just crossing my fingers he can pull this one out.” He straightens his black-framed glasses on his nose.
“Look who's up.” Beckett nods toward the screen where Matt Peterson's face is prominently displayed. “This’ll be the deciding factor. If he uses his Peterson's Bag of Nuts trick and nails it, for sure he’ll win gold.”
Peterson is another American expected to do well these games. Basically, he’s Grady when he started making a name for himself. Instead of seeing him as the threat he is, my buddy has been giving him pointers. What can I say? Grady can be an idiot.
“He's got nothing on my man.” Mia stands right at the edge of the oval, clapping her hands.
“You do realize if you go home with gold and he doesn't, things might be icy,” I say, and Mia twists her head my way, narrowing her eyes and I'm left with a shiver from the sudden cold front.
“He's going to win,” she says with certainty.
Brandon knocks me with his elbow.
“Shouldn't you be up in the announcer's booth?” I ask him.
“Not for finals. Only qualifiers.”
“That's bullshit.”
“It is what it is.” He shrugs. “I'm just happy to be here.” One corner of his lips lift.
“For sure.”
The announcement that Matt Peterson is next up booms over the speakers, so we all shift our gaze to the pipe. He starts his run, dips down and he's hitting every trick, catching great air.
Why the hell did Grady help him?
“There it is,” Beckett murmurs next to me.
“Damn,” Skylar says. “Great ride.”
The crowd goes crazy. He comes right up to the fence, slapping hands. The kid knows his ride was enough to put him in first. As we stand at the bottom, watching the screen, I guarantee the group of us are praying and hoping the judges saw something we didn't. Something they can deduct points for.
The score goes up and the cheers get louder. Matt’s holding his board up in his hands, pumping it up in the air.
Grady's next and to even medal at all, he's got to move up in the standings. While we're waiting, I catch Demi in my peripheral vision running lip balm over her lips. You'd never guess she is a skier based on how soft her lips and hands are. Damn, I can’t help but wonder what flavor that lip balm is. Last Classics she was like Baskin Robbins with thirty-one flavors of lip balm.
She glances at me from the corner of her eye and then turns to look directly at me. Demi Harrison is never intimidated. At least not by me.
I smile, hoping to calm the seas and maybe make my approach, but she snaps her attention back in front of her.
“What's up with you two?” Salty asks, knocking me again with his elbow.
“Nothing.”
“So, I can ask her out then?” There's no ounce of humor in his expression, which means no one has shared my past with her.
“Sure.” I bite back my first thought which is to punch him in the face because it’s ridiculous.
He laughs, slapping Beckett on the back. “Same ol’ Dax.”
Beckett turns around, Skylar staring on, looking like she’s wondering what they're laughing about. Thankfully, Demi is busy talking to Grady's mom who won't stop bragging about her son.
“Jackasses.” I move away from them, wrapping my arm around Mia. “He's got this,” I wink, and she slides into my embrace, slapping me on the stomach.
“I know he does.”
Grady's face and name show up on the screen. “GO GRADY!” she yells, nearly busting my eardrum as though he could hear her. Her hands are clapping nonstop, she's jumping up and down.
“You get he can't hear you, right?” I ask.
Again with the arctic eyes. “He knows I'm here and it makes me feel a lot better than biting my nails in silence.”
I hold up my hands. “Okay, okay.”
Grady comes down to his starting point, and we watch him do his usual OCD routine, fastening one mitten and then the other and back to the other before he’s satisfied.
“Here he goes,” she mumbles, and she squeezes her eyes shut for a second as he drops in. “This is yours, babe,” she whispers. This is entertaining. I've never in my life felt as much stress watching someone else compete as she is. You'd think she didn't already win her own gold and that it was her up there. It's fascinating in a way.
He catches the air he needs, grabbing his board and the crowd starts clapping.
“There you go. Keep it up. The triple...” Mia talks to herself as we all fixate on Grady.
He slides up the other side of the pipe and nails the trick. “Way to go. Just a couple more.”
“Do you always talk to yourself?” I ask.
She elbows me in the rib, quick and hard. “Ouch.” I rub my side.
“That's it, another one,” she whispers, her hands sewn together and her eyes closing every once in a while.
Grady's had an excellent run so far. He's got enough tricks with high technical points to win if he can land his next two.
“One more. You're the best. Don't stress. Do the trick and land like you do every day…” She's not even finished with the sentence before his board falls midway down the slope of the pipe.
Flawless, a flawless run. Mia starts screaming, clapping and jumping.
Grady rides down to the fence line and leans over. Mia grabs his cheeks, planting a kiss on his lips. “You did it, babe! It's yours.”
He smiles and lifts his goggles, his gaze landing on the scoreboard. The waiting is agony. At least in my event, I know if I was the first down I'm probably pretty solid.
Mia starts talking to herself, strike that, she's talking to the judges.
“You know he was the best. Give him the points he deserves. He's the best boarder out there.”
“Again, they can't hear you,” I say, and she jabs me in the ribs again. Harder this time. “Jesus!” I grip my side. “I do have prelims in a few days.”
“Then stop saying stupid shit,” she bites back, her eyes never leaving the screen.
“Hello, it's Dax,” Demi adds.
I turn my head to see she's putting on more lip balm. It’s torture I tell you, pure torture for her to coat those lips and I have no idea what flavor it is.
The crowd roars with applause, screams, and cheers and when I look over at Mia, she's gone.
She's jump
ed the fence line, tackled Grady who is now on the ground with Mia's lips attached to his. Checking the board, I see he's seated in first place. Gold is his once again.
“The son of a bitch pulled it off.” Beckett comes up next to me, Brandon on the other side.
“Look at the happy couple,” Brandon jokes.
We’ll wait for Grady to be done talking to the press before we move over to congratulate him.
“See you guys later. We gotta run.” Skylar hugs Beckett goodbye and gives Brandon and I a wave. Demi waves and then scurries behind Skylar. “Tell Grady congratulations!”
I pull out my phone. “Shit, I gotta go, too. Practice run.” I fist bump the two guys. “Give him hell for making it so close.”
They both laugh. “Good luck,” Brandon says.
I nod and head out to prepare to win my own gold medal.
How I do today will prove whether Demi really is my good luck charm or not.
Chapter Six
“Your start was shit,” Coach Fitzgerald says, letting the timer fall to his chest.
I position my goggles on top of my helmet, not sure what the hell the problem is. It can’t be Demi. It can’t.
Damn Beckett for putting that shit in my head in the first place.
“You have one more practice run. Then I'm restricting you to inside practice.”
One more time to try the course before I have to be on it to win my medal. Fucking great.
I hop on the snowmobile without a word to coach. He's not going to be happy because I already feel like this run will be shit.
Getting to the top, I get on the board, mentally put Beckett's crappy opinion to the back of my mind and only think about the course, visualizing what I need to do to get down it the fastest.
The gate flips down, and I jet my hips so fast, I think it was a great start. By the time I reach the bottom, the truth is on Coach's face. The timer drops again to his chest, his head falling forward in defeat.
“What's happened? What's changed?” He approaches me and I unclip my board again, waiting for my breath to even out.
“It's because I didn't get laid again.”
“What?” He picks up his head, staring at me with drawn brows.
“Last Classics, I was messing around with this skier when I won gold. Before the last run, I nailed her in a bathroom the night before. She's my lucky charm and I might as well face not medaling because she'll never sleep with me again.” I toss my board a few feet away.
Coach laughs, his hands smoothing down his red beard. “You're shittin' me, right? You're telling me that you're fucked up in the head because you didn’t get laid? Go find someone else then.”
I shake my head. “It has to be her. She's the only one I slept with last Classics.”
“What about the other competitions leading up to this?”
I'm not sure what excuse I have other than I wasn't around her then. She's a skier, I'm a snowboarder. We weren't running in the same circles. Our only common friend is Skylar and it’s not like I see her much in the off-season.
“She wasn't around.” I shrug.
“So, she's in your head is what you’re saying.”
I flip off my helmet, tucking it under my arm. “Only since Beckett put the idea in there.”
He's still shaking his head. “Well, I'm Irish so I do believe there's something to be said for luck.”
“URGH!” I scream up the mountain. “She's going to crush my balls.”
Coach laughs, slaps me on the back. “If you want to medal, I suggest you do what you have to do. I'll see you in the gym tomorrow morning at eight.”
I nod. Fuck me. I look down between my legs. “I'll try to protect you guys.”
But I’m not sure I can. I’m pretty sure getting Demi to play nice might involve handing my balls over to her.
* * *
I raise my hand to knock on her door.
I drop my hand.
I blow out a breath.
I raise my hand again.
I blow out a breath.
I knock and tuck my hands into my pockets.
Footsteps echo from behind the door. My heart skips a beat, my stomach churning.
Demi opens the door, the welcoming smile falling from her lips. “Dax?”
I'm momentarily speechless because she's in a tank top that's so tight her erect nipples are practically yelling ‘tease me.’ I swallow down the extra saliva in my mouth.
She raises her arms, putting her hair in a high bun.
Not helping.
“I'm sorry, were you sleeping?” I ask and clear my throat.
She cocks her head. “An apology for waking me?” She reaches forward, the back of her hand resting on my forehead. “No fever. What gives?”
“Can I come in?”
She stands in front of the door, her expression telling me that she’s trying to figure out why I'm here. If she only knew.
“Okay.” She steps out of the way and I walk in.
“You sharing with Skylar?” I ask, finding pictures of Skylar’s family on one of the nightstands.
Skylar's parents are heavily involved in her career, which is completely foreign to me since I got here on my own.
“Um, yeah.” Her hesitant voice says she's still trying to figure out why I'm here.
“Can I sit?” I motion to the desk chair.
She nods.
“So.” I crack my knuckles, pulling on my fingers.
“Dax, why are you here?”
I look up at her. There's no judgment or seething anger, which says this might be okay.
“I want to apologize. I don't know what I did exactly, but I obviously upset you.”
She huffs, walking over to the cabinet to grab a sweatshirt, zipping it up and covering the eye candy I was enjoying. “Now you want to apologize? Four years later?”
I thought I said a good thing, but the anger in her eyes can’t be missed.
“What the hell did I do?”
She rolls her eyes, standing up and walking around the small room. I sit silently while she roams around and tightens her bun, fiddles with her phone, picks some lint off her sweatshirt, until I can’t take it anymore.
“What? Demi? Just tell me what I did.”
“You fucked me and left me,” she snaps, stopping all movement. “You just left.” Her angry tone fades and she fiddles with the strings of her hood.
“What? We were just messing around when the opportunity presented itself.”
She shakes her head. “Not to my knowledge.”
“We were having fun. You wouldn't want me as a boyfriend anyway. I'm not a relationship guy. Everyone knows that.”
What is she thinking? I’m not the guy who will buy her a ride on some horse-drawn carriage or order roses with some sappy love note on Valentine's Day. I'm the freewheeling, take life as it comes, non-committal but fun while you’re with him guy.
Still, I feel bad that we weren’t on the same page all those years ago and that she ended up hurt because of it. I may be a playboy, but there’s no enjoyment for me in making someone feel like a throwaway.
“I thought we were on our way to something.” She turns her head and walks over to sit on the bed facing away from me. “But don't worry, I'm over it now, so thanks for the half-assed apology. You can go now.”
I stand up from the chair, the squeakiness of the wheels making her turn in my direction to see me approaching. She sticks her hand out in the air and shakes her head.
“Shit. I'm a dick.” I sit down next to her, my hand on her shoulder. “Demi,” I say.
She's too busy shaking her head that I'm not even sure if she's listening to me. “It's fine Dax. I'm fine. It’s probably just bugging me more right now because of everything that went down with Julien.”
She turns her head and I catch the lone tear that falls with my thumb.
“I truly am sorry. I thought we were having fun for the Classics. I didn’t realize you thought differently. But trust me, you dodged
a bullet.” I knock her with my shoulder.
She lets a small laugh escape.
“I'm not joking, you would’ve dumped me a week into it. I'd make a shitty boyfriend.”
She smiles and rolls her eyes, though this time a little more playful.
“And why the sudden revelation?” She scoots back on the mattress and brings her knees up to her chest, effectively separating any closeness between us.
I shrug. “I really enjoyed the other night.”
“I assumed you would.”
“Did you not?” I ask. “The way your body responded, I think you enjoyed yourself as well.”
She rests her chin on her knees. “It was nice.”
“Nice? Nice is for middle-aged, married people.”
She laughs again. I forgot how much I missed the thrill that runs through me whenever I can make her laugh. “It was great, Dax. The best I've had in the last four years. Better?”
“How about hot, earth-shattering, and you put me on speed dial?”
“Put you on speed dial?”
I take my chances, sliding a little closer to her. “How about we try this again? No strings. An agreement that it's just for while we're here.”
“You're propositioning me?”
I raise my shoulders. “I'm not usually someone who goes back, but I have to say I kind of crave you.”
“Like a candy bar?” She tilts her head and I stop my hand from tucking the loose strand of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear.
“Like the most decadent chocolate in the entire world.”
“Dax Campbell, did you just sweet talk me?”
“I can be sweet.” I reach forward and tuck the piece of hair behind her ear.
Her gaze stays on me, deep in thought and I hope considering my offer.
“You can see other people, I don't care,” I say just to sweeten the pot.
She studies me again. “I can see other people?”
“Yeah.”
“And what about you?”
I shake my head. “Only you. I only want you.”
“Those are words a girl loves to hear but not necessarily in this capacity.” She smiles showing she doesn't mean it in a bad way.