But now I’m back, and it all feels . . . surreal. This trip. My runs on the mountain. The medal that is even now burning a hole in my pocket.
Surreal, because I’m here.
Surreal, because she isn’t.
I’ve never been in Taos without her next to me, and the need to call her, to reach out, is a wild agony within me. I reach for my phone, for the name and contact info I’ve transferred from phone to phone numerous times in the last three years. I start to hit call, so desperate for the sound of her voice that I no longer care that doing so will mess up her life—and my own.
But in the end, I don’t do it. I can’t. Too much time and too much history stretches between us. Instead, I blank the screen, shove the stupid thing into my back pocket, and try to focus on something else. Anything else.
I pick up a handful of snow, mold it into a snowball, and pitch it over the edge of the cliff right in front of me. I watch it tumble into the abyss, waiting for that moment when it disappears. That one moment when I know it’s still there even thought I can’t see it anymore. It’s that moment that’s kept me going these last three years, that moment that let me come back here even though, on leaving, I’d sworn never to step foot in this town again.
For three long years, I’d kept that promise to myself. But when my sponsors put on the pressure for me to appear at this competition, it wasn’t like I could really say no. Not if I wanted to keep them. And not if I wanted to keep competing on the professional circuit. The Olympic trials are coming up next month and I need all the exposure—all the points-—I can get.
So here I am. With a gold medal in superpipe from one of the top snowboarding competitions in the world. It’s been two hours since they hung it around my neck and still I can’t wrap my mind around it.
The medal is heavy where it lies against my leg, but I know that has more to do with what it means than its actual weight. Part of me wants to take it out, to look at it in the moonlight. To just savor the fact that I did it. That after five years of boarding professionally, I finally got my first first-place medal.
I hope it won’t be my last.
My sponsors are psyched. Already they’re talking about bumping up my visibility in their ad campaigns, really getting my face out there before the next big competition. If things go according to their plans, a lot of people will know my name by the time the Dew Tour rolls around next month. And after that, the X Games.
This is the second year in a row that I’ve gotten an invite to compete on superpipe, but the first where anyone thinks I might actually be able to make a showing. Any other time I’d be beyond stoked, beyond wired. This is what I’ve been working for all along and it’s finally here.
But right now that doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing does, because right now, all I feel is empty.
It pisses me off. I’ve worked too hard to get to this point to not give a shit about what happens next. But—
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I stiffen at the voice, certain that my need for her has pushed me over the edge into aural hallucinations. But when I turn to look over my shoulder, there she is. She’s in a bright red ski jacket and beanie that do amazing things for her jet-black hair and dark, Native American complexion.
She’s beautiful, so beautiful, and for long seconds I can’t do anything but stare at her.
“Dyani.”
“Gage.” She smirks at me, but I can see the temper simmering in her eyes. Then again, it’s always been like that. No matter what expression she plasters on her face, I’ve always been able to tell how she really feels by staring into her jet-black gaze.
“What are you doing here?” I scramble up from the boulder where I’ve been sitting.
“I think that’s my line, isn’t it?” She crosses the area between us, her well-worn boots crunching on the snow. “I looked for you in town. Thought you’d be celebrating your first big win.”
“How’d you know?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy, and maybe I am. Right now I can’t say anything for certain except that seeing her again has turned me inside out. “I was there.”
“You were?”
“You thought you would come back to compete in Taos and I wouldn’t be there?” She shakes her head like she’s disappointed in me. Or worse, like she doesn’t know me anymore. Which I can understand. Most days, I don’t even know myself. “Where else would I be, Gage?”
“I didn’t think—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? You never think!” She’s in my face now, and even the appearance of tranquillity is gone. Her eyes are blazing, her cheeks flushed pink, and her breathing—her breathing is all over the place. And I am going to burn in hell because, even though it’s been three years since I walked away, all I can think about is touching her rapidly rising and falling breasts.
I want to pull her into my arms, to kiss her and hold her and lick her and touch her until the last three years disappear. Until everything disappears but her and me and how it feels when we’re together.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I am. So fucking sorry. I didn’t want to leave you—”
“Don’t.” She lays her gloved fingers on my lips, stops me mid-sentence. Even after all this time, sparks of electricity shoot through me at the touch.
“But—”
“Is that why you never called? Why you didn’t come see me when you got into town two days ago? Because you thought I was mad at you for leaving?”
I pull her hand away from my mouth, then squeeze it tightly in my own. “Aren’t you?”
“Why? You left because he would have killed you if you stayed. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve been grateful, every day, that you got out? That you’re alive? That you’re safe? That your father will never be able to hurt you again?”
I can’t take it anymore. Not being with her has been killing me, and now that she’s here, in front of me, all I want is to feel her against me one more time.
Reaching out, I pull Dyani into my arms. Her wicked, wonderful body curls against me like it’s been three minutes instead of three years, and she holds me at least as tightly as I’m holding her.
“I missed you,” I tell her, my face buried in her long, silky hair. She still smells like ginger and snow and freshly cut pine trees. The scent, combined with the sweet relief of holding her again, nearly brings me to my knees. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too.”
She presses kisses—soft as the snowflakes that are even now coming down around us—to my jaw, my eyes, my chapped and burning lips. It feels so good—she feels so good—that when she starts to step away, I can’t let her go. Instead, I lock her to me and slowly, oh so slowly, lower my mouth to hers.
Part of me expects her to reject me even now. To fight my kiss and all the memories burning between us. God knows I deserve it. But she doesn’t. Not even close.
Instead, her arms lock around my neck and she presses herself even more tightly against me. And then we’re kissing, kissing, kissing, and it’s just like it always was—flash and fire and pleasure so extreme it’s like a kind of pain.
I run my tongue over her lips, desperate to taste her again. Even more desperate to be inside her any way that I can. She opens right away, and then I’m pulling her lower lip between my teeth, nibbling on it in the way that used to drive her crazy.
She moans, her fingers clenching in the blond hair peeking out the bottom of my own beanie. I dart inside her then, my tongue stroking over and around and under her own. She tastes just like she smells, like fresh, clean powder and sharply sweet ginger. I want more, so much more. I want everything.
I delve deeper, running my tongue over the roof of her mouth and across her teeth before pausing to toy with her delicate frenulum. She gasps, then, her teeth closing on my lower lip this time. It’s my turn to groan, my turn to bury my hands in her hair and hold her face to mine as I take and t
ake and take. I take everything she has to give me, give her everything I can in return.
And still it’s not enough. Still I want more.
Except she’s pulling away, her breath coming in spurts and gasps as she sinks down onto the huge boulder that has always been “our spot.”
I start to apologize again, but the truth is, while there are a million things I regret about us—the way we ended, the way I was too much of a pussy to call her and beg for her forgiveness, the fact that in two days I’ll be leaving Taos, and her, behind again—that kiss is not one of them. If I could, I’d spend the next twenty-four hours doing nothing but loving her.
I sit next to her, and for the first time realize that she’s trembling. “You’re cold.” I pull the scarf out of my pocket, wrap it around her neck. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
“It’s not because of the weather,” she says with a smile. But she doesn’t give the scarf back. Instead she buries her nose in it and breathes deeply, like she’s pulling my very essence inside of her.
Whatever little bit of resistance I have to her—whatever small distance I’ve managed to create over the last three years—disappears like so much smoke. This is what I’ve missed. This is what I want. And it kills me that I can’t have it. Can’t have her.
I’d give up snowboarding if I could, would walk away from the sport and the glory, the rush and the money, if it meant that we could be together forever. But she has to stay here in Taos, taking care of her younger brother and sisters, and I—I can’t be here. I’m not seventeen anymore, no longer at the mercy of an abusive father. But here, in this town, the memories are as real as they’ve ever been. They’re there in every street I walk down, every place I visit, every mountain I board down. And ignoring them, as I’ve been doing from the second I hit town, isn’t enough. I can feel them dragging at me, pulling me under. Making me panic. Making me hate.
Besides, even if I didn’t have a decade and a half of abuse to get past, there’s no way for me to build a life here. No real jobs, no chance to do anything but make minimum wage working at one of the resorts. And even if there were, I can’t do anything but board. It’s all I’ve ever been good at, all I’ve ever wanted to do. All I’ve ever wanted, at all, except Dyani.
I take a deep breath, try to quell the longing deep inside of me. “How’s your family?” I ask her when I can trust my voice.
“Good. My brother’s playing varsity football this year—”
“As a freshman?”
“Yeah.” She smiles proudly. “He’s good.”
“And your sisters?”
“They’re doing fine. I think middle school is rough for anyone, but they’re getting through. Shanda loves biology, thinks she wants to be a doctor.” She shakes her head. “Can you believe it?”
“Absolutely. You’re doing such a great job with them. They’re lucky to have you.” I want her to know I understand that her family has to come first. That she has to be there for them, even if it means we can’t be together.
“You never blamed me.”
I know I look at her like she’s crazy, but how can I not? Blaming her for her circumstances would be like blaming me for mine. Ridiculous. Not to mention completely useless. “How could I?”
“Other people would. Have. You don’t know how many of my friends’ boyfriends think they should be the only thing in their lives—”
“They should dump those assholes.”
She smiles. “That’s what I tell them.”
“But they don’t listen?”
“They tell me that I don’t have a boyfriend, so I have no room to talk.”
It’s exactly what I want to hear. “You’re not dating anyone right now?”
Dyani looks at me steadily. “I haven’t been dating anyone for three years, two months and seventeen days, Gage.”
I close my eyes as the relief washes over me. I feel like a total prick, a douche of the first order, but I can’t help being happy that she hasn’t moved on any more than I have. Even if it makes me a terrible person.
There hasn’t been anyone for me since I walked away from her, and if you’d asked me an hour ago I would have said that I wouldn’t wish that loneliness on anyone. But now that I’ve held her again, now that I’ve kissed her and touched her and imagined doing so much more, I can’t stand the idea of some other guy doing the same.
Dyani is mine. She’s been mine from the moment I set eyes on her, and there’s a part of me that insists she’ll be mine until the day I die.
When I don’t say anything—because there is nothing I can say that won’t make me sound like a complete asshole—she puts her head on my shoulder, cuddles in. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and for long, quiet minutes we just sit there watching night chase the sunset across the sky.
Finally, when it’s dark—so dark that I can no longer see more than the shadow of her next to me—Dyani whispers, “Take me with you.”
My heart stops. I swear, it actually stops, then restarts heavier, bumpier, more erratic than it was before. It feels like I’ve just barged a run, just done a trick that was totally front. At the same time, it feels like more. Like the whole world hangs in the balance.
“You want to come . . . with me?”
“To your hotel room. I want to be with you tonight.”
And the balance tips, just not the way I want it to. I brush my lips over her temple, pull her more tightly into my arms. “Are you sure?”
She pulls away, stares at me with those deep, obsidian eyes of hers. “It’s the one thing I regret about our time together. The fact that I was stupid and thought I wasn’t ready—”
“You weren’t ready. I never blamed you for that.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve blamed myself every day since you left town.” Her hands clutch at mine. “Please, Gage, love me. Even if it is just for tonight. I need you. I need you so much.”
“Like I could ever tell you no?” I pull out my phone, activate the flashlight app. Then wrap my arm around Dyani and guide her gently down the hill.
I’M NERVOUS. SO nervous that my hands are shaking and my teeth are chattering. Gage looks at me with concern, then turns the heat up in the car. I don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t help. That I’ve been imagining this moment for so long that now that it’s here it feels like a wish. Or worse, a dream that will disappear the moment I try to reach for it.
I’ve missed him, so much that it’s been like a sickness inside of me for years. I didn’t pine for him—I didn’t have time, not with three kids and a sick grandmother to take care of. But he’s been there all along, in the back of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, every time I had a few moments of down time, I would think of him. And imagine what my life would be like if I could have left Taos with him.
I’ve watched him snowboard for years, have seen him get better and better even as I watched him grow from the boy I loved into the man who is sitting beside me now. Oh, he’s only twenty and a snowboarder, so most people think he’s got the maturity level of a five-year-old. But Gage is an old soul. He always has been. When I look into this eyes I can see everything he’s been through, everything he is, and I know that he is perfect.
Or at least, perfect for me.
My people believe in the splitting of a soul, just like they believe in the mending of that soul when its two parts find each other again. I met Gage when I was fifteen and he was seventeen, and from the moment he smiled at me, I knew that he was the piece of myself I had barely realized was missing. When we touched, I could see the past and the future, and though I knew it wouldn’t end happily, I couldn’t turn him away.
Not then, and not now.
And still I’m shaking. Still I can’t believe that this is really it.
Gage pulls the car up to the valet parking stand at the resort where he’s staying—the same resort where I work, as fate would have it—then comes around and helps me from the car.
“Are you hungry?” he asks as we
walk into the lobby that I have scrubbed more times than I can count.
“No.” I haven’t eaten since breakfast—I’ve been too busy waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for Gage to call. When he didn’t, I thought about climbing into bed and crying for the rest of the night. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad I took a chance and went to find him, am even more glad that he hasn’t forgotten me.
I think that’s what I was most afraid of. That I would walk up to him and he wouldn’t know who I was. We were together for such a short time and it was so long ago. There’ve probably been dozens of girls since then, maybe hundreds. I live in one of the biggest snow resort towns in the country. I know exactly how these things go.
But none of that matters now. Because he did remember me and I am here with him right now.
I close my eyes when we step on the elevator, send up a prayer that this moment is real. That he is real.
And then we’re getting off on the sixth floor and Gage is guiding me down the hallway, his hand in the center of my back. I’m wearing four layers of clothing and I can still feel his touch like a brand. That’s how attuned I am to him.
We stop in front of room 671 and I nearly laugh. I took today off, but I cleaned this room yesterday. I made his bed, took out his towels, emptied his trash. All the time I’d wondered at the familiar scent of the place, at how it had reminded me of Gage. But I’d never imagined, when I was smoothing the sheets back into place—when I was plumping the pillows—that I was doing it for him.
He slides his key card through the lock, pushes the door open. And then we’re inside.
I want him to take me in his arms.
I want him to lower me to the bed and take my clothes off.
I want him to kiss and touch every part of me and let me do the same to him.
And then I want him to slip inside me so that I can hold him, hold every part of him, even if it’s for a night. Even if it’s for an hour. I don’t care. I want to love him more than I want my next breath.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asks, indicating the mini bar under the TV.
Fifty First Times Page 47