“I didn’t react.”
Chase gives me a look, and my protests die on my lips.
For a long moment he stares at me, his face full of all those things I can’t read, and then the air huffs from his lungs as he drops his head. One broad hand comes up to scrub through his hair.
“I haven’t …” The words trail, and again Chase grunts. It feels like the sentence hangs forever. He replaces it with: “I really didn’t want to fuck this up.”
This. That almost sounds like there is a thing between us. Like we’re—
I squash the stupid thought before it can rise too high in my chest. Deliberately I fix my eyes on my bedside table. It’s covered in trash. Empty water bottles. Tissues. Pill packets from all the Advil I’ve been taking for my ankle. If I fiddle with them I don’t have to look at Chase. But my hands aren’t working properly, and I’m knocking things to the floor, and god I must look like an idiot.
“You haven’t fucked anything up. Not serious, remember? It’s what we both want. It’s not like I’m some—”
“Brooke—”
“—Some lovesick, vulnerable victim of yours. Of anything. Of anyone.”
The pill packets bite into my skin as they crumple in my fist. There’s only their crunching left, and the heavy rasp of my breathing.
I realize that Chase is standing. That he was reaching for me. That his hand has now dropped to his side, and there’s a terrible empty look in his eyes before they return to an unreadable blank.
“I’ve been honest with you.” His voice is infuriatingly steady, as toneless as his eyes are impassive. “I’m not someone you can rely on.”
I make a horrible sound, a laugh that catches on something bloody and hurting.
“It’s not all about you.”
Chase was about to go, but now he stops. His hand drops from the door handle. He looks back to me, a question in the arch of his brow. “Then who?”
I take a breath and force a smile to cut across my face. “Trent’s my father.”
Chase looks baffled, his head tilting to one side as his eyes tick between mine. “Your last name is Larson.”
Of course he doesn’t know. Trent’s never mentioned me. Not when he was the world’s most famous pro snowboarder. Not in the years since.
I force myself to shrug, crouching to gather the things that I knocked from the bedside table and toss them into the trash basket. “He didn’t exactly stick around long enough to give me his name.” My hand scrubs furiously over my nose. “He was too busy fucking every woman under the sun. He was gone before I was old enough to remember him being there.”
Chase stares at me, and I don’t know what I want but I want it so much that I shake with it.
“So yeah.” I take a deep breath, fighting the tremor in my voice. “That’s why I’m upset. Because the last thing I want to hear is that my friends look up to that—to that piece of shit. Just because he used to be able to ride better than anyone. Just because he was the best before you were. Because he’s not the best. He’s an asshole who’s never been there for me. Not ever.”
How do I only realize I’m crying when I taste my tears? They curdle with embarrassment rather than salt, making me sick to my stomach.
I am so stupid.
“Brooke …”
The way Chase says my name hurts. I shove his arms away before he can take hold of me.
“Don’t pretend you care. Not when you’ve been so fucking careful to be honest all the time.”
Whatever glistened in the painful blue of Chase’s eyes is wiped away by my snarl.
“Yeah.” His voice is dull. “I have.”
The first slam is the door. The second might just be the pound of my heart.
22
Beside my bed the digital clock chews through the hours.
I don’t expect anyone to be awake when I give up and pad downstairs. We’re filming in only a few hours. In avalanche-prone backcountry, the riders need their sleep to be at their very best for the next day.
Someone is awake, though. JJ sits in the semidarkness of the main room, his laptop screen illuminating his face. He’s not aware of me for the second I stand in the doorway. I curl my toes over the heated floor and wonder why he’s looking so …
What?
“Hey.” My voice is a whisper, and I don’t know why.
JJ looks over with a guilty start, slamming the laptop lid down so I only have a second’s glimpse of the dark-haired woman he’s been looking at. He tries to cover his tumbler with his hand, but the whiskey bottle’s still right there on the table, its level far lower than it was after we all had our nightcaps earlier.
“Couldn’t sleep?” His voice isn’t any louder than mine, as if we’re both sharing secrets.
I put on a tight smile for him, letting myself wander over to pull out another chair. “Yeah. Today …”
JJ saw me quiet at dinner. I know that he knows something went on with Chase—he couldn’t stop looking between us. I’m grateful for the way he just smiles and nudges over the family-sized packet of potato chips that he’s obviously been grazing on.
“What a day. That reporter … Unbelievable.”
I huff something that isn’t quite a laugh, trying not to choke on chip crumbs. “Yeah. She was something.”
JJ’s smile is thin, his eyes covered by the rub of his fingers. He digs them deep into the sockets, as if there’s some image he wants to remove. “Tell me about it. I don’t think I’ve recovered. You know, I was …” He sighs and drops his hand, pulling back that same warm smile. “It’s stupid.”
Night is the time for secrets shared. To have someone being open, and honest, and … here.
Someone who doesn’t go.
I pull my feet up onto the chair, resting my shins against the table and propping my chin on one knee. “It’s not stupid.”
JJ chuckles, the sound faintly sad. “Yeah, it is.” But whatever the tick of his eyes looks for in mine, he must find it. After a slow breath he goes on. “I had this ex. You probably heard on Radio Hanne.”
I shrug, guilty as charged.
JJ drops his smile toward his laptop where his look turns absent. He strokes his fingers over the lid, careful, as lines fight over his face. The twist of something warm at the edge of his lips. A sadness wrinkled about his eyes.
All these hours I’ve only thought of how unhappy I feel. And JJ’s been down here all on his own, looking at pictures of his ex in the dark.
“That woman asked those questions today, and I thought—I should get back out there. You know. I want to get married. Have kids.” JJ flicks his eyes up at me to check my reaction, as if he feels somehow guilty about that. “That’s not very ‘high life,’ is it? But it’s true. And I want to have them before I’m forty.”
“You’ve got time.”
It’s a pointless platitude. JJ knows, but he doesn’t call me out on it. He just shrugs, his eyes wandering again. “So I think—I’ll date. I’ll find some girl. You know? And then instead I’m here looking at pictures of a woman who never wants to talk to me again.” His laugh is a dark, curling thing in the night. “God, it’s stupid.”
The words come without my conscious thought.
“Caring about someone’s not stupid.”
It hangs in the air, and in the darkness we look at each other. I can feel the time being counted out in the stuttering beat of my heart. My lungs are suddenly so sensitive they’re raw, every breath burning inside of me.
I didn’t mean that, I want to say. That wasn’t about who you think it was.
We’ve never discussed it. JJ, Hanne, even the film crew—they must know. But they’ve all looked the other way, and we’ve always pretended nothing was happening. All of us.
And now it’s here in the darkness between JJ and me, this secret that was never much of a secret.
JJ’s chair creaks as he leans back, his hand skimming forward to claim another fistful of chips. Perhaps he thinks eating them makes this seem casual. It doesn’t
.
“Chase told me. About Trent.”
I hope you can’t see blushes in the dark. Just in case I turn my face away, uncoiling my legs again and leaning instead with my forearms braced on the table. “Did he?”
“I’m sorry.”
It’s so simple it takes my breath away. Just that. I’m sorry. JJ meets my wide eyes with the steadiness of his own gaze.
His eyes are so open, after Chase’s. There’s no guard there.
I’m sorry. It’s only now that I realize that’s what I wanted Chase to say. Not any of the rest of it. But just to be there. To be present. To … share, and to care.
“He was pretty worked up about you guys fighting.” JJ speaks steadily, but I’m sure that he’s being careful about his words. I’m definitely sure once he pushes to his feet.
I know what he’s doing as he goes to take two glasses from the wet bar. I hide in motion, too.
“I haven’t seen him like that in a while. Years. You want water?”
It’s all I can do to nod.
JJ looks at the faucet rather than at me. “I know last time we spoke about this I was kind of an ass about it.”
“You weren’t an ass.” My voice is so quiet.
JJ shrugs as if we can agree to disagree. When he puts the glass down in front of me the click seems strangely loud. “I didn’t want him to fuck it up. I liked you. Hanne liked you. I knew what Chase was like with girls. Fucking and fucking off. I didn’t want him to ruin everything with his dick. And then …”
JJ lets the words fall as he settles back into his chair. With his forearms over his knees, his glass dangled between his hands, he doesn’t look at me. Seconds crawl by like hours before he speaks again, his voice low and rough.
“He hasn’t been with any other women.”
Something inside my chest flutters, and I squash it down. “Oh. Hasn’t he?” The words sound gratifyingly airy.
It doesn’t work. All of my evasions are water off a duck’s back. JJ’s nod is steady and sure, his eyes now fixed so tightly to mine that he brushes away all of my lies.
“It’s not like he hasn’t had the opportunity.” He shrugs, knowing I’ve seen what it’s like when they go out together. “But since he met you …”
My mouth is so dry that the water doesn’t help. Don’t think about it. I try to repeat it like a mantra. Because if I care about that—if I care about Chase, like that—then this isn’t not serious.
And then it isn’t safe.
“He never said that to me.”
JJ sighs, his free hand coming up to scrape over his stubble. “Chase and I have a few things in common.” He flashes me a rueful smile. “But Chase is even worse at talking about literally anything emotional than I am. He can’t even do it when he’s drunk.” He tilts his head toward the whiskey bottle to indicate his guilt. “And you’re not exactly losing the Ice Queen competition yourself.”
Emotional Kevlar.
The rise of JJ’s hand is flat palmed, a don’t attack. A wait. “I’m not trying to insinuate anything. It’s your business what you do. But I care about Chase. He’s a brother to me. And I like you—you’re one of the Kings, aren’t you?” There’s a hint of that affectionate smile back, though he’s too unsure for it to really hold. He’s looking for something in me, trying to read it in my face.
Why is honesty easier, in the dark?
“Does he even want me here? It wasn’t … It wasn’t you and Hanne forcing him to bring me?” I speak quickly over JJ before he can get words through his opening mouth. “That would be fine. I just want to know before I make an ass of my—”
“Listen.”
I stare at JJ’s hand where it rests over mine. It’s hard to drag my eyes up to his.
“He talks about you all the fucking time. I’m bored hearing about you, to be honest.” JJ flashes me a hint of a grin, the tease so weak it hardly registers. “He cares about you, Brooke. I know he does it in his own emotionally crippled way, but …” He shrugs. “Did he ever tell you what happened with Dinkler?”
I shake my head wordlessly.
“Dinkler wasn’t sure about you. Not that you’re not great,” JJ’s quick to add. “But you’re what, twenty-four? And he’d never heard of you. So Chase sent him all your stuff. He scraped together every last thing he could find, and he called Dinkler and went to bat for you. It’s why he was late to that edit showing in the club. They were on the phone for hours.”
I can’t speak a word. My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth, and it’s all I can do to breathe.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fight for anything that hard apart from snowboarding.” JJ’s hand presses a little harder on mine. “You deserve to be here. And Chase knows that. That’s why he fought like hell for you to be here, where you belong.”
Chase fought for me. Like when he got Hanne to let me stay with her instead of in that crappy hostel. Like when he came today. Even if it all went to shit. He came, and tried to be with me.
And I just pushed him away.
“I know Chase finds it hard to express the important shit,” JJ says. “He …”
I have the sudden sense that we are standing on the edge of something huge and scary. Some drop I can’t see the bottom of and don’t understand.
JJ must decide to show me how deep it goes. He withdraws his hand from mine, and crosses it instead to squeeze at his opposite bicep.
“Do you remember when Chase took all that time out of boarding?”
The blank year. The fighting that Chase talked about.
There’s a great gaping hollowness in my chest, and I can’t breathe. My nod is shaky.
“He had this like … “ JJ’s brow crumples. “Some shit happened. With his family. With his sister, Felicity.”
All that black ink, holding tight over Chase’s wrist. Warmed with every beat of his pulse. That one name, permanently etched onto his skin.
His sister. Not his ex. Not a woman he fell in love with. His sister.
“Chase fucking lost it. There wasn’t all this social media crap then. It was easier to keep it quiet. But it was …” JJ’s mouth curls unhappily, his gaze dropping to his hands. “It wasn’t good. And now …”
The moment hangs, trembling, before JJ looks back up to me. His gaze is so earnest that it aches. “I’ve never seen him like this. How excited he is to board with you every day. That stupid grin he has on his face when you beat him at poker.” A flicker of humor breaks through his seriousness, his smile warm. “The way you two can sit together for hours looking at fucking trees.”
Despite everything I smile, too. Mountains, I want to correct. But I can’t speak at all.
JJ shakes his head, and his smile looks like wonder. “I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
I feel like I’m falling. Like I’m plummeting from a heli over the mountains, the sheer drop beneath me offering no chance of safety.
JJ must see it. His grip on my shoulder is tender and firm at once. “Sorry for drunk-ing at you. I’m going to hit the sack.”
I sit there in the darkness on my own, thinking.
I’m still thinking when I push open the door to my room and find Chase inside.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, my copy of Pride and Prejudice open in his lap. The book is so small in his huge hands. Fragile. My reading light silhouettes his face when he turns his look up to me, his eyes full of things that I can’t name.
“You spoke with JJ.” It isn’t a question. In the half darkness the quiet of Chase’s voice sounds loud.
I nod, wordless.
Understandings blossom between us before Chase nods, too. Carefully he closes the book, his eyes dropping to follow his hand as he lays it on the bed. For a lingering moment he just looks at it, the place where his palm covers the words.
“I’ll go, if you want.”
I swallow. The word is only a whisper. “Don’t.”
I’ve seen Chase’s expression before, but
now for the first time I can read it. Now for the first time I understand. In his look, hope is fragile. An expectation of disappointment, ready to close the openness in his eyes.
The steps feel like miles. I come to stand between Chase’s legs, the brush of my hands at his knees sending a shiver over broad shoulders. Between us the air hums with potential. We can’t stop looking at each other, and yet the looking burns.
I stroke my hand over his arm. High, where a stylized sun flares over his bicep. Lower, to the black banding below his elbow. All the swirls and shapes I’ve touched so many times in the night.
There’s one I haven’t touched. One mark I’m not meant to acknowledge.
My fingers quiver as I reach for Chase’s wrist, and Chase’s breath catches as he lets me take it.
Felicity. I drop my face to read it. To appreciate the pain in each elegantly crafted letter. I trace them with my fingertip, learning the black ink warmed by the beat of Chase’s heart. Against my dropped forehead Chase’s breath begins to flow, stroking over my skin.
I don’t know what happened. But I see the little hairs rise over Chase’s arms, and see his chest hitch on broken breaths, and I know enough.
Chase drops his forehead to mine, and when I look his eyes are closed.
“I don’t want to talk.” His voice is hardly there. “We fuck things up when we speak. But we’re good when we’re silent, aren’t we? We’re good.”
I lick my lips, and when those achingly blue eyes open I nod.
He takes me from behind, laid out over my bed, and all the time he keeps his face pressed close to my ear so I can hear in the heave and catch of his breath all the words he doesn’t say.
23
After the silence, everything is perfect.
The clear weather comes back. My twisted ankle heals. We get back to long hours and dangerous work, and I love every moment of it.
Chase sleeps in my room now, and in the mornings I listen from bed as he and JJ exchange early-hour mumbles in the corridor. At meals Chase presses his leg to mine under the table, and at night in front of the TV his arm loops around my shoulders. Every day we steal as many moments as we can—to board. To walk in the woods. To look at the mountains.
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