by Tracy Wolff
“Too late for that,” Luc says, coming up behind me and clapping me on the back. He’s just gotten off the lift and his phone is in his hand. “They’ve embedded that video into every major snowboarding site in the world. The pingbacks are coming in every few seconds.”
“Shit. Are you serious?”
He shoves his phone in my face, shows me the latest stats on the website we share—and they’re insane. Totally insane. Page hits, visitors, comments. And yeah, pingbacks. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of them, every hour.
What. The. Fuck.
“Is this really happening?” I ask. But before anyone can answer, my phone rings again, followed by a couple of beeps that mean I’ve gotten more text messages.
Shit. Who knew one little trip off a mountain could cause so much damn trouble? If I’d known, I would have smashed the damn GoPro to bits rather than let Ash have it.
“We need a plan, man.” Ash is all but rubbing his hands together with glee. “You need to call Mitch, figure out how you’re going to capitalize on this. I told you, going into the trials, this is going to be huge.”
“And I told you, I don’t give a shit about the trials.”
“We know, we know.” Cam punches me in the shoulder. “But let’s pretend just for a minute that you’re normal and you care about things like this, okay? You don’t have to be excited about it, but can you at least let us be excited about it for you? This is fucking awesome!”
It’s something. I’m not exactly sure awesome is the word I’d use to describe it. But it’s something.
My phone rings again, and I check the ID. It’s Mitch, the agent Ash, Luc, and I share. For what looks like the seventh or eighth time. “I think Mitch already knows.” I hold up my phone, shake it a little.
“Yes!” Ash punches the air. “I say we take the rest of the day off the slopes and start planning how we’re going to use this to get you more endorsements—and a shot at Olympic gold.”
I shake my head, start to argue with him about the fact that I want neither of those things. But it doesn’t matter. Ash is off and running, his vision for us—for me—even bigger than it’s ever been before. For now, I’ll just let him run, get the energy out. Then we can talk about what I want versus what he and the others want for me.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Luc agrees, nearly as hyped up as Ash. “Powwow at Ash’s and my place. We’ll start by calling Mitch, see what he has to say, and then go from there.”
Yay. I’m so fucking excited I can barely contain myself. “I’m stopping by the lodge first. I want to see Ophelia.”
“Seriously?” Cam asks. “You’re still going on about her? I thought you’d be over it by now.”
“Over it? He’s got his fucking Burton on the line. Of course he’s not over it,” Luc tells her. “He’s got to bang her before the competition starts on Friday or he loses his soon-to-be-legendary snowboard.”
If I thought it would shut him the fuck up about the stupid bet, I’d give him the thing now, even if it is my favorite. I wasn’t trying to be a disrespectful asshole when I made the bet, but now that I’m with Ophelia—or at least kind of with her—it seems fucking horrible.
Of course, I could end everything by telling them I won the bet, but that seems even worse. Which means, at least for now, I’m stuck taking all the shit Luc decides to dish out. But as he heads through the huge front doors into the main lodge, I promise myself that payback is going to be a bitch.
It’s late in the day, so the coffee bar is crowded when we get there. Ophelia’s working behind the counter with three other people, and the line is still out of control.
“Maybe this could wait,” Ash says. “We’ve got stuff to do.”
“You can go on,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off the beautiful girl I’ve spent the last two nights with. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. We’re not letting you out of our sight.”
He weaves through the crowded room, snags us a table in the back corner. “I just texted Mitch, and he’s got a meeting for the next two hours anyway. We’ve got some time to kill, and we might as well do it here.” He settles into the booth and kicks his feet out like he owns the thing. “I’ll take a large Power O.”
“Me too,” chimes in Cam as she slides in opposite Ash.
“Me three,” adds Luc, settling in next to Cam.
I think about telling them to get their own damn drinks, but who am I kidding? Getting up to that counter is the only reason I’m here.
“Think he’ll do any better than last time?” I hear Luc ask as I walk away.
“I don’t know,” Cam says. “Ophelia seems tough, but he is Z.”
I put my hands behind my back, flip them all off, then keep walking as their laughter sounds behind me. It’s a long line and I prepare myself for the wait, but I’m only standing there a couple of minutes before my phone dings out another text.
I almost ignore it, considering that the ones I’ve gotten so far have been all about shit that doesn’t interest me. But I’ve got nothing else to do, so I figure I might as well look at it. Turns out it’s from Ophelia.
My break’s in ten. I’ll bring your drinks out then. Three Power O’s and a …?
Have you made up your mind yet?
I know she’s referring to the whole give-me-something-sweet debacle that went down the last time I was here, and I laugh out loud. My girl’s a clever one.
Large coffee, black. It turns out I much prefer strong and bitter to sweet.
I send the text, then stay where I am because it gives me a good view of her face. She makes a few more drinks before she pulls out her phone and checks the text. When she does, she turns around to face me and sticks her tongue out at me.
I can’t help but laugh, then fire off one last text.
Promises, promises. Don’t think I won’t hold you to that.
I’m heading back to the table when her last text comes in.
I’m looking forward to it.
I stumble, nearly run into some poor woman carrying a tray of drinks. Shit. I’m never clumsy, but a couple of days with Ophelia and I’m practically tripping over my own feet. This doesn’t bode well for my snowboarding future, but considering how fucking happy I feel right now, I’d say it was an even trade.
When I get back to the table, my idiot best friends all look at me like I’m crazy.
“What? You gave up already?” Luc asks. “It’s like you’re just giving me the snowboard.”
“Chill out. The drinks are coming.”
Cam looks annoyed. “Which of the other girls did you talk into making our order?”
“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
That seems to placate Luc and Ash, though Cam still looks pissed as the guys go back to the website, continuing to check out the stats and trying to figure out if they need to change the home page around to get maximum exposure.
I spend the time barely listening—the web page has never really been of much interest to me—and glancing at the counter every ninety seconds or so, trying to see when Ophelia is coming. It seems forever before I see her walking toward us, a full tray of drinks balanced on one arm.
I can’t help grinning as I jump up to meet her halfway. “Hey, let me help with that.”
For a second she looks like she’s going to fight me for it, but then she lets go with a soft smile. “What do you say you give the drinks to your friends and then meet me around back? I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to be back on shift.”
“I can do a lot in twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m counting on.” She bites her lip, looks at me from under her lashes. And I nearly dump the whole damn tray on the ground.
Shit. I can barely function. Ophelia’s in front of me, her lush hips wiggling just a little extra, and I’m spellbound by this flirty, sexy side of her. Suddenly I can’t wait to find a little privacy and spend the next twenty minutes making her come.
When we get back to the table, I all but throw the drinks at my friends before reaching for Ophelia’s hand. But, after getting me all fucking worked up, she’s got other ideas. She actually wants to talk to my friends, which normally I’d be fine with. But I can feel her allotted twenty minutes slowly ticking away and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to wait to the end of her shift to get her alone.
For their parts, all of my friends look surprised to see Ophelia standing so close to me. “I didn’t know you guys had gotten to be friends,” Luc says, eyeing me suspiciously.
When I don’t say anything, Ophelia turns to frown at me. I merely shrug, not willing to get dragged into a discussion of why I didn’t tell my friends about her, but then it suddenly seems to dawn on her.
Instead of just going with it, she raises her brows at me and says, “You didn’t tell them you won the bet, did you?”
Fuck. “No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t.”
“You totally should have. You won it fairly spectacularly, after all.” She bats her eyelashes, all flirtatious teasing, and it’s all I can do not to kiss her right here in front of everyone.
The only thing stopping me is, “It’s nobody’s business what we do.”
Luc’s and Ash’s mouths actually drop open while Cam just sits there, staring broodingly into the depths of her drink.
“She knows about the bet?” Ash asks, incredulous.
“You won the bet and you didn’t tell me?” Luc adds. “When did it happen?”
“Again, none of your business.” I’ve never had any trouble when my friends talk about the other girls I’ve slept with, but I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I don’t like them even thinking about Ophelia sexually, let alone discussing when we did what.
“I beg to differ. If I’m giving up my Flow Darwin—” He breaks off as Ash elbows him. Hard.
“I don’t need your snowboard, man,” I tell him.
He whoops in relief, but Ophelia is having no part of it. “I’m sorry, but a bet’s a bet,” she says. “I’d like to think I was worth at least a snowboard.”
“So much more than that,” Lucas assures her. “I’m sure of it.”
I reach over and shove him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hey! What’d you do that for? I was complimenting Ophelia.”
“She doesn’t need your compliments.”
Now all four of them are looking at me like I’m crazy. Hell, maybe I am. I know I’ve never felt like this about anyone before—happy and protective and horny and scared out of my mind that I’m going to screw it up like I do everything else in my life. It’s not a good combination, and I can’t help wondering if we wouldn’t all do better if I just got off the ride. But that would mean walking away from Ophelia, and I’m not ready to do that. Not even close.
“Again, I beg to differ,” Ophelia says in her haughtiest voice. “I will take all the compliments I can get.” When I start to respond, she holds her hands up. “It’s a girl thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You could explain it to me outside,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and pulling her into my side.
“I could,” she agrees, lacing her fingers through mine.
Excellent. I start to tug her away, except my phone chooses to vibrate on the table where I dropped it, announcing that yet another text has arrived. I ignore it—I’ve got better things to do than to worry about who wants a piece of me—but Ash is having no part of it. He unlocks the phone and checks out the latest message. As he reads, the color drains from his face.
“What’s wrong?” I demand, pulling the phone from his hand.
“Mitch just texted. They want to put you on the cover of Sports Illustrated in February.”
“Seriously? That’s what you look so freaked out about?” I shove an annoyed hand through my hair. “I thought something was wrong.”
“It’s for the Olympics issue, Z. They want you to be the cover of the Winter Olympics Sports Illustrated.”
Before I can say anything else about it, Ophelia all but jumps up and down with joy. “Oh my God, Z! That’s amazing.”
Not as amazing as spending the next fifteen minutes making out with her. I start to say that, but she’s already reaching for my phone.
“I want to see,” she tells Ash.
He hands it over willingly, but as she goes to read it she must notice the zillion or other texts that have come in today, because she turns to me. “What happened? It looks like your phone went crazy today.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Luc squawks. “It’s everything. Check this out.”
Then he’s pulling up the video on his phone and handing it to Ophelia.
She watches in silence, but I can see the way her hands are shaking and how she’s jiggling her knee. The others have crowded around to watch it one more time—even Cam, though she stays as far from Ophelia as she can get and still see the phone—and I don’t think they notice, but I can’t pay attention to anything else.
When the video is over, Ophelia asks, “This is you?” Her green eyes are huge in her white face, and they’re that malachite color again. The one that means she’s holding on by her fingertips. “You did that?”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It was no big deal—”
“No big deal?” Luc again. “It was epic, man. You didn’t even look. You just took off the side of the mountain, no trail, no nothing, and you rode it!”
His voice rings with pride, and still I contemplate murdering him where he stands. I shoot him a look, one that tells him to shut the hell up because he’s not helping. I think he gets it because he closes his mouth, but the damage has already been done.
Ophelia’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Or broken her heart. “You threw yourself off a fucking mountain? You didn’t even check to see if there was a path? You just literally threw yourself off the mountain?” Her voice gets a little higher with every syllable.
I shrug. I’m totally out of my element here and don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to say.
“I can’t—” Her voice breaks, and suddenly she turns away. “I need to get back to work,” she calls over her shoulder, even though it’s only been ten minutes and she’s walking in the wrong direction.
“Hey, Ophelia, wait,” I tell her, hustling after her. The girl can really move when she wants to, those long legs of hers eating up the space between our table and the employee break room. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t,” she tells me, her voice sounding muffled even though she’s right in front of me. “Not right now. I just can’t.”
She swipes her passkey across the sensor, and the door to the break room unlocks. “I’ll see you later,” she tells me, pushing it open and stepping inside.
“Wait a minute.” I shove my foot in the door, catch it the same way I caught the door of her room the first night we ever went out. I’m not sure what it says that this girl is always trying to put barriers between us—any more than I know why I’m so determined not to let her. “That’s it? You’re just going to walk away without talking to me about why you’re upset? That’s bullshit!”
“Oh, no,” she whispers harshly, lowering her voice in an effort to keep this just between us. I could have told her it was too late for that—already I can see the other employees in the room straining to hear what we’re fighting about. “You don’t get to turn this around. You know exactly what’s got me so upset, so don’t pretend that you don’t.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, holding my arms out and spinning around as if that will get the truth through her thick head. “I’m absolutely fine.”
“This time,” she shoots back. “But what about the next time, or the time after that, or the time after that? One of these times you’re going to do something stupid, something reckless, and you’re not going to make it through it. You’re going to die and—”
“Goddamnit!” Fury swamps me as I figure out what t
his is really about. It takes me over, and I slam my fist into the wall next to her head, ignoring the pain that shoots out from my already bruised knuckles. “This isn’t about me at all. This is about Remi and that car accident.”
“No!”
“Yes. Fuck, yes, it is.” I pull my hand back, start to slam it into the wall again. But the look on her face is so pained, so upset, that I end up shoving it deep into my pocket instead.
“Just because something bad happened to him doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to me, too,” I tell her, because I have to make her understand.
“Just because you think you’re invincible doesn’t mean you really are,” she counters.
I search her face, try to figure out how to reach her. But she’s totally closed herself off from me. It panics me and pisses me off all at the same time.
“You knew I was a snowboarder when you slept with me. Nothing’s changed.”
She starts to say something, but seems to think better of it. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe nothing has changed—except my perception. I knew you did the half-pipe, knew you did the really advanced runs around here. But what I saw on that video—” She shakes her head. “That’s something totally different. I’m not sure I can deal with that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to. Because me boarding backcountry’s not going to change. I can’t not do that.”
“I know.” She nods, her hand coming up to cup my cheek. “I’m not asking you to stop. I’m just saying I don’t think I can be a part of it. Not if I want to stay sane.”
Then she’s pushing up onto her tiptoes, pressing a soft kiss against my mouth. “You need to go, Z.”
“Go?” This afternoon has turned out so differently than I expected it to that I’m dazed. Confused. “Now? But we’re not done talking.”
At least I don’t think we are. I’ve never actually done one of these relationship talks before, but it doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere close to finished.
“I’ve got to go back to work. And I need a few minutes to myself before I do.” She pushes me back gently, and I go because I don’t know what else to do. What else to say.