“Raquel.” I try my best to sound as steady and confident and happy as ever. “We’ve jumped this a thousand times. It’s fine. The water’s more than deep enough.”
A tiny sound hums through her throat. It doesn’t sound like she’s convinced. She looks down again. She doesn’t change her grip on my own, but hers suddenly feels cool, though all of her body has been warmed by the sun.
“Maybe it’s not a good idea.”
I try to keep my voice cheerful despite the uncomfortable feeling that’s started eating away at my gut. “Well, I’m going to jump.”
Her fingers tighten at that, and she can’t hide the way she looks: a sudden drop of her glance to my back.
She can’t see the scar from that angle. I can’t see it at all. But we both know exactly what she’s looking for. And as her gaze comes back up to meet mine, I can see that she knows that I know, too.
“There are more important things than jumping off rocks.” There’s an edge of fray to her voice. “We can have a good time just swimming.”
Just anything has not ever been a great description of what I like doing. I’ve always liked more, higher, faster.
But looking at her has me shaken. She’s standing just as close as ever, and we’re still holding hands, but she feels further away. I get one whisper of that wall she once brought down between us. Like a sudden gust of colder air has come down from the mountains, making the hairs at the back of my arms stand up.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Raquel says in the space I’ve left silent. “Maybe…”
I catch her as she goes, pulling her back into my arms. There’s only a hint of resistance before she comes to me. I cup her cheek with my free hand, curling my knuckles under the line of her jaw to turn her face to mine.
She can only evade the lock of our eyes for so long, and then I find her again: those familiar dark depths, that intelligence and that care.
“Hey, Raquel.”
She shifts like a wild thing caged, but she looks at me.
I smile, just for her. I might not feel it. I might still have this sick edge in my stomach, like something bigger than I understand just happened. But I don’t show her that. It’s my job to keep her safe, and happy. And there’s nothing for her to worry about.
This is what I want to do, and I’m going to do it.
“It’s going to be just fine. Trust me.”
I don’t mean for it to come out as a question. Though I let go of her hand I keep my eyes on her, turning my head to the side as I square up for the jump.
“Trust me,” I repeat.
“I do trust you,” she says. “JJ, I’ve always trusted you—”
I don’t get to hear the rest. I’m already grinning, and I’ve already jumped.
I’m flying, blue sky and blue water and fresh air, and then I’m hitting water so cold that it takes my breath away, plunging into the depths, adrenaline pumping at the first strong kick of my legs.
Up. Back to the surface. To call Raquel in with me—
But she’s already here. The water around me pushes and pulls with the slam of her body through the surface. When I open my eyes everything is white bubbles and flailing limbs.
As I break up into the air I’m gasping and smiling, shaking my hair from my eyes. Raquel bobs up a moment after, and she’s on me instantly, wrapping her arms about my neck, pulling close.
“You’re okay?” she gasps.
It’s the cold. That’s what’s making her breathless. I grin and tug her in, holding her easily to me as beneath us my legs move. I can hold us up. Here, I’m just as strong as I ever was.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her wet lips before bumping our foreheads together. “I’m always going to be fine.”
She looks at me, wide-eyed and trembling with cold, and finally she smiles again. “Okay.”
She kisses me, and she tastes of clear water and the mountains and something else I can’t name.
Raquel
Early July is not a big time for snowboarding news. JJ and I don’t hear much of it, anyway—or if he does, he doesn’t tell me about it. Our life is focused here, on Jackson’s summer. On home. Whatever’s happening back in the rest of the industry hasn’t much interested me since I left my career with Vertex. What matters are the months of June and July JJ and I have been spending together.
What happened at the lake lingers in my mind, but we’re busy enough that I don’t have to think about it. The moment of panic as I realized JJ was going to jump. The twisting terror in my stomach when he leapt into the air. The sinking fear of watching him fall through the air.
But I got over it. He was okay.
Anyway, we’re busy: driving out of Jackson to hike the forests and swim the lakes that we love.
At least until the news about Hunter plasters our social media feeds.
The photo is a selfie. The pretty model who’s taking it beams at the camera. Behind her, Hunter’s also grinning the same devilish smirk he has on billboards and fashion magazines all over the world. So far, so normal.
This time, though, Hunter’s shoulders are draped in the stars and stripes, and the model is topless.
Over each of her breasts Hunter holds one of the two gold medals he just won at his last Olympics.
Hunter’s twenty-seven. He’s still young enough to do stupid things on the regular. The model looks a year or two younger, so also in prime stupid territory. Looking at the image, I can tell how it went: her excited to be sleeping with a pro athlete, him thinking entirely with his erection.
But still: no matter how much I know both people in that photo are using each other, I can’t ignore the optics. If you wanted to see the casually sexist side of pro-snowboarding—the narrative of badass men “winning” pretty girls like medals—then this is it.
Not that I have especially high opinions of the model, either. I’m allowed to be thirty and old and think they’re both stupid.
“What a fucking idiot,” JJ says about six times as he scrolls through endless internet comment boards.
Disrespecting the flag.
Shaming his country.
This is what is wrong with Millennials.
Do we want this to be the role model for our young boys???
We expect the deluge of texts. JJ coordinates with Hanne and Chase while I field away journalists. None of the False Kings are talking shit about their crewmate—however much I can hear Hanne cussing him out in private.
JJ doesn’t expect the call from Hunter himself.
“Hey—Hunter? Yeah? … Sure. Of course. Come on over.”
I raise my eyebrows as he hangs up.
JJ shrugs. “I guess he wants to escape the heat a bit.”
* * *
I’ve never seen Hunter like this. I might have my list of problems with him—which mostly come down to him being a twenty-seven-year-old born with a silver spoon in his mouth—but one good thing you can say about Hunter is that he’s always the life of the party. Bright, vivacious, one of those people who seems to glow with a natural spotlight no matter where they are. This is the man who seems to bring a ready-made good time with him wherever he goes, who rolls out of bed in the morning looking like he’s ready to walk into a Ralph Lauren advert.
Previously I would have said things like: I wish Hunter would calm down a bit, or Hunter’s friends need to stop doing coke in the bathroom, or it’s three a.m., I have to sleep.
Now I want to ask if he’s okay.
I’m used to seeing Hunter in bespoke suits or quietly classic tailoring. In a career where most men think changing the color of their beanie is a radical fashion statement, Hunter’s always stood out. Now though he’s wearing a sweat suit despite being nowhere near a gym. It’s like the Queen of England going out dressed in a neon pink jumpsuit. It’s just bewildering.
He’s pale, his hair actually unwashed, and instead of an insouciant sprawl over the couch he’s just… fallen there. Somehow misshapen.
I
’m trying not to stare, but I also can’t take my eyes off him.
“I think I’m going to go and hang out at the summer house,” he manages, staring into space. It takes him a moment to catch himself and refocus on us, pulling together a grin that’s a shadow of his former smirk. “Wait for it all to blow over.”
Somehow he reminds me of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, when he’s in his hangdog, down-on-his-luck stage. Boyish and miserable.
“The island?” JJ asks.
“The San Juans,” Hunter confirms. “Washington. Just up from Seattle.”
“Will your mom be there?”
JJ doesn’t think a huge amount of Hunter’s mom, but he manages not to show it—much—in his voice.
“I’ll be spared the pleasure,” Hunter remarks with an anemic grin. “She’s summering in Europe.”
I can feel JJ restraining himself from saying something about the whole idea of summering in Europe. It doesn’t bother me as much. Hunter has old money in a way my family certainly don’t—the English side of his family has been wealthy since they were the Norman invaders taking over England in 1066—but it’s not his fault the Harringtons are as WASPy as they come.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to be alone in the house?” I ask.
Hunter looks up at me blearily. “Me? I’ll be fine. I’ve spent a lot of time there alone. The Pacific Northwest invites it. It’s the sea. I’ll look after the dog.”
I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. He doesn’t look like a man who’s going to benefit from lots of time alone thinking about how he’s fucked up his career. I stand as the boys lean forward for their beers, crossing my arms low over my hips. JJ catches my eye and shrugs in a barely perceptible way before he turns back to Hunter.
“They’re gonna get over it, man.”
“That is not what they were shouting at me,” Hunter remarks dryly.
“You didn’t abuse anyone.” JJ and Hunter look at me, as if surprised I’m defending it, so I clarify: “It’s tasteless, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Already got that message loud and clear from my mother, thank you.”
“You’re not gonna attract the right woman behaving like that,” JJ agrees, more subdued.
Hunter rubs a hand over his face. “No shit.”
“They can’t take your sponsorship away forever,” I say. “Just make a statement apologizing and keep your head down. Show them you’re growing up.”
“Which ‘them’? My mother’s tennis partner? My agent? The people who gave me medals? My sponsors?” Hunter looks dejected.
“Hey.” JJ reaches out for his shoulder, punching it gently. “You’re gonna get back out there, man. We both are.”
The comment clearly makes Hunter feel like an ass for even bringing this up. To his credit, he doesn’t say it. He just smiles. “You’re right.”
I make my excuses and leave them to their beer and chatting while I go through to work. When we meet up for dinner, Hunter’s looking closer to his normal self: he’s too well-bred not to make good conversation over the dinner table. After I go up to bed early to read, leaving the boys downstairs to play pool and drink beer.
“He really screwed up this time,” JJ remarks when he’s back in the room, carefully pulling his Henley over his head.
I make a sound of agreement, and JJ looks at me.
“You okay?”
“I’ve just never seen him like this.”
“Like what—in trouble? That happens all the time.”
“No.” I look for the words as I find my bookmark on the nightstand and slip it between the pages. “This upset.” I pause to put the book down. “Like he might actually change.”
JJ throws back the cover before climbing into bed on hands and knees, leaning over to kiss at my shoulder where my camisole strap is thin over my skin.
“We all have to change sometime.”
The next morning when I get up, Hunter’s already gone. There’s a handwritten thank-you card left on the kitchen island. A couple hours later a delivery man arrives with a huge bouquet.
Raquel
“Thanks for your help,” the man on the screen says. “I always feel better after our sessions.”
“No problem.” I smile back to the computer. The tiny preview screen of my own face in the video chat shows that my expression is far more convincing than it should be. “Are we still good for this time next Monday?”
There are some more pleasantries before we hang up. I flow through them without really paying any attention. When I finally close the video chat window, I find my face in my hands before I’m aware of it, a slow breath creaking out of my lungs.
What is wrong with me?
I spend hours a week consulting with some of the most interesting people I can imagine—entrepreneurs and CEOs, inventors and up-and-coming political figures. I coach them for speeches and for pitches, for presentations and for awards ceremonies.
And yet I haven’t been able to focus on any of it.
Sure, I do the work. I’ve always been a diligent student. My report cards looked as if A was the only possible letter grade.
It can’t be boring. These are fascinating people in interesting areas of study. There’s nothing dull about it.
And yet I couldn’t wait for that call to end.
The fact that I really don’t want to analyze the feeling conflicts with my type A personality, leaving me feeling frustrated and unsettled. When I close my laptop I use too much force, the plastic complaining with a deeper click than usual.
What’s wrong with me? How come every time I sit down to do this, all I can think about is snowboarding and skiing, skydiving and mountaineering, caving and ice climbing…
“I’m not writing that book,” I say to the room.
The room doesn’t sound convinced.
I’ve always been so focused on my work, but now I find that I’m relieved when my eye catches the wall calendar I’ve put up, bright with stickers and carefully color-coded notes.
Date night ❤
Suddenly the work seems even less important than usual.
I check the garage to see that JJ’s truck is still missing, but it doesn’t worry me that he’s still out. It takes me a lot longer to prepare for dates than it does for him, anyway. We’re years past me expecting him to keep me company through washing my hair and styling it, plucking and trimming and putting on my makeup. Just choosing my clothes alone can take longer than he’s ever been able to believe possible.
He’ll still be out finishing his run, and that’s another thing that I don’t want to give too much thought to. If I don’t look closely at JJ’s improvement, I can just be grateful for his recovery—the way that now he comes back from exercise panting and exhausted and joyous with it, like a wild horse finally allowed to run as fast and free as it wants, to exhaust itself. He’s been holding back for so long that now he’s lifting actual weights and getting back to really challenging himself, I’m happy for him.
Even if it’s not a happiness I want to examine for fear of what I might find underneath it.
Upstairs I go through to the guest bathroom. It didn’t make sense to move my stuff through to the master suite when JJ and I started sleeping there together again. I have so many things—“lotions and potions,” JJ calls them—that it would have been a pain to move them across, and JJ was happy to have the sink relatively clear.
Not that I’m messy. I take pleasure in how neatly everything is stored away, the little glass jars with cotton pads and Q-Tips, the pretty wicker baskets that hold my neatly stacked hair things, the box with my makeup. I like the feeling of everything being in its right place, the bathroom an oasis of calm, with scented candles and soft lighting over the cool stone.
Getting ready is a ritual, and one that I savor. I take my time in the shower, and once I’m out and in my fluffy robe I can relax into getting ready. My hair needs blowing out, my eyebrows neatening. I went into town to have my nails done yesterday, and I
love the faint click they make over the bottles and tubes of my makeup.
I sit in front of the mirror, looking at my own smile, and allow myself to feel this one thing that is uncomplicated: I’m so excited to be going out with JJ tonight.
It’s August first, and after all these months JJ is well—and we’re well, too, the two of us. It feels so good to be back together. Despite all our history and all of the water under the bridge, being with him feels simply natural. Like I’ve found the place I’m supposed to be.
Maybe, if I have a funktionslust since ending my career, this is part of it: being with JJ, the thing that makes my soul sing.
It feels finally like the right time to acknowledge what’s going on, to say: let’s make this official.
Not an engagement, not yet. It’s far too early. But I want to be able to say my boyfriend again, even if the word is too small after everything that’s happened.
I want to tell everyone that I love JJ Schneider, and we’re making it work.
I’m too focused on my makeup to hear JJ come in and start getting ready himself. I’m focused instead on applying mascara and subtle fake lashes, a sweep of highlighter over my cheeks, leaving my eyes delicate so that I can instead focus on a bright, classic red for my lips.
Classic: that’s what I want for tonight. A little black dress, heels. I put on my favorite watch, and the dainty rose gold chain necklaces JJ bought me layering one over the other, each hanging to a different length over my chest.
When I stand finally before the mirror, wiggling the dress a little lower on my hips, I can’t help but smile at myself in the mirror.
I’m ready.
JJ should be too: it’s six forty-five, and we need to head out for our dinner reservation in town.
I knock on our bedroom door, smiling like a child with a surprise. My voice has a flutter like my heart.
Crash: The Wild Sequence, Book Two Page 21