Carry Your Heart (23 page)

He kisses me again.

“That’s not going to work,” I hiss at him, because it is dangerously close to working. He’s about to make me shut up if he doesn’t stop.

His hands are in my hair though and he’s walking me to the foot of the bed, and his kiss is harsh and biting, and desperate.
You’re here. You can’t disappear on me like that. You can’t do that.

He pushes me into the bed.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk,” he insists breathlessly, pulling off his shirt. He’s so strong and lean. There’s not an ounce of fat on him.

I run my hands down his arms, which are cool from having been outside and he holds my waist tightly in his winter-chilled fingers. He drives me absolutely wild, not staying still long enough for me to talk at him. Not giving me a second to catch my breath and scream.

“You are making me crazy,” I tell him.

“Me too,” he whispers, picking me up like I weigh nothing and dropping me down on the bed gently.

“You just disappeared.”

“I know.”

“I thought you broke up with me.”

“I know.”

“I was going to tell you I loved you too and then, you didn’t even give me the chance too. You just ran the fuck away. You can’t do that.”

He stops suddenly, and sits back on his heels. He looks down at me in surprise.

“Oh,
now
you want to talk?”

He smiles fragilely and reaches for my hands, which he holds together over my head. “You don’t have to say that. I said I’d let you go slow and then I tried to rush you…I shouldn’t have…”

“Would you let me go?” I struggle to get my hands away from him.

He laughs and let me up. I push him as I sit up. I say it clearly and slowly. “I said I love you.”

“Well, you don’t have to. I had to think about some things and you know, I always forget about the stuff you’re dealing with because you never talk about it. You don’t have to say it yet, I told you we could take it slow. I can wait…”

“I fucking love you,” I say. “Stop being an asshole and say thank you.”

He stares at me for a moment and smiles softly. He leans forward and kisses me. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I said it first,” he whispers.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been so far behind if you didn’t disappear.”

He kisses me again, smiling wider, pushing me back.

“I am still mad at you.”

“But you love me.”

“You’re an ass.” He pushes me back onto the bed, smiling. “If you ever do anything like that again, I will rip your throat out.”

He laughs loudly. “I knew you were a total psycho from the moment I lay eyes on you, Speedy.”

“I’m not joking…”

“Really? You’re not joking? Rip my throat out. You meant that literally?”

I growl.

“So, you’re kind of joking? Just a little?” He laughs.

“Hunter…”

“Why so serious?”

“I thought you were gone!”

He rolls his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. Can we…”

“Hunter.”

“I’m sorry. Alright. I’m sorry,” he breathes in deeply. “I’ve never been in this position before.”

He’s straddling me. He’s probably been in this exact position with a bunch of other girls.

“Doubt that.”

“I mean, I’ve never felt like this before,” he says, a smile on his face. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

I bite my lip.

“It freaks me out,” he admits, more seriously. “I was freaked out the whole time I was away, because it wasn’t just that I couldn’t sleep with other girls. I didn’t want to. And I wanted you there with me. And it felt like I had fucked up everything in my life, because nothing I did was as good as you.” He bites his lip. “And then, you know, then I come back, and it just felt like.” He gets off me and pulls me up, shifting to sit against the headboard on my unmade bed.

“It’s always kind of felt like…” he stops. “All of this stuff happened to you that I don’t know about. And. I get that you can’t talk about Danny and Ryan and the avalanche.” He swallows. “I get that. And I’m not asking you to do that. But, it just felt like I was something casual to distract you from this guy that you’d be married to if things hadn’t gotten so fucked up. I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything except for…” He runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I was planning to get up to Canada for a while and I thought…if I just took a few days, I could figure out a way to handle it. I had missed you so much in Europe. I thought maybe…” He shakes his head. “Look, it was an idiot move and I’m sorry.”

I nod. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Alright,” he breathes. “I won’t.” He closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the headboard. I look at his profile, noticing the curve of his lip, the slope of his nose, and the thickness of his long eyelashes, dark against his cheek.

He turns and looks at me after a second. “You still mad?”

I laugh a little and he grabs me playfully and roughly so I let out a half little shout, and I don’t care that it’s three in the morning the day before a final. I don’t care about anything except for the fact that he’s here.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“You look tired,” Mike declares flatly when we meet at the slope at 11, as planned.

I am tired. Worn out from talking with Hunter all night. Worn out from other activities, too. But, I’m happy. And that should be what matters.

Lottie looks at me suspiciously. If I don’t tell her, she’ll never trust me again. If I do tell her, there’s a good chance she tells Laurel.

I don’t think about being tired. I think about Hunter. How good he looked when I left him, sleepy and in bed this morning.

And somehow, I hardly notice that it’s my turn to race and I can’t get myself to care about the race. My time’s slow. Mediocre. Infuriating. I finish fourth. Lottie wins.

“
Fuck
,” I mutter. I should have won this race.

Mike studies me carefully afterwards. “You didn’t seem very focused up there.”

“Yeah, I know,” I mumble. He has every right to be confused and annoyed. I’ve somehow turned into the most inconsistent competitor in the history of fucking skiing. And it seems to happen whenever Hunter is around.

***

Hunter is dressing to do a few runs on the abandoned back slopes when I get back to the hotel room from the race.

“How’d it go?”

I shake my head.

He sighs. “Aw…babe.”

“No, it’s,” I shake my head, too annoyed to function properly. “I have to stop getting distracted.”

He bites his lip. “You want to come out with me?”

I look at him, at the hopeful look on his face. If I’m going to blow my career for a relationship, I might as well enjoy the relationship. I nod.

“Yeah, sure.”

He smiles almost sadly at me. “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Sorry. I’m pissed I didn’t win.” I can’t stop myself from thinking of the interested sponsors. They probably were after Penelope by now, ready for someone younger, fresher, less spastic.

***

It’s only the second time I’ve seen Hunter really snowboard. He moves down the mount like a fire through a drought-stricken forest. There’s nothing stopping or slowing him. He catches every bit of the slope as he goes.

There’s something freer and infinitely more graceful about snowboarding the way he does, swooping, leaping, and unworried about how quickly it gets done.

We take a run full of high moguls. I speed through them, enjoying the deep powder and watching Hunter fly over and over, flipping, spinning, and landing with precise jerks of the board.

I love watching him like this. As confident as he always seems in sneakers, he seems even stronger here. He’s less like an athlete and more like an artist, like a gymnast on a far more challenging and dangerous surface. It’s like watching an animal in its natural habitat—the power and purpose of each movement, the way he lands, with his knees bent, swooping, his shins almost touching the terrain.

He reaches me breathlessly. “Nice day, huh?” I smile at him.

“You’re good at that.”

He grins knowingly.

We run up and do it again. All day, not quite talking, just being together. I watch him never quite fall. I learn what he looks like, on the side of a mountain, doing what he loves.

This shouldn’t make so much sense. Me and him. But somehow it does.

***

I crash beside him exhausted from the endless runs. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

He smiles and lies back. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” I say.

He smiles at me. “It’s cold today.”

“I’m overheated,” I say, unzipping my coat and laying on my back next to him, staring at the sky through my goggles. “I think I burned a zillion calories.”

He cocks his head so it’s resting against mine and we listen to the sound of each other breathing, and watch the clouds. A plane passes over us, glinting in the sun, and I think fleetingly of Hunter alone in the airport and almost start to cry.

“Do you think you’re afraid of planes because of what happened when you were a kid?” I ask softly.

“That was an airport,” he says. He bites his lip.

“Yeah, but still,” I breathe in the clean air.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not afraid of airports.”

“Yeah, but you took a plane to get there…” I shrug. “I don’t know. Sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about this.”

“I don’t mind, actually,” he swallows. “You’re the only person I could ever talk to about it anyways. My dad pretended nothing really happened. And I never saw her again.” He shifts his helmet closer to mine and they click together gently. “I think he always thinks of me more as her kid that his kid.”

I’m quiet.

“Like, you know, she was a drug-addicted prostitute or whatever…” he tries to sound casual about it, but it’s not working. “And I’m just what happens when you fuck a drug-addicted prostitute without a condom. You get a fucked up kid. It’s like penance for a sin.” It sounds like he’s quoting his father when he repeats that.

“You’re not penance for anything, Hunter,” I say harshly.

“No, I know, but…that’s how he thinks.”

“Well, I think you’re like my favorite person,” I say.

He smiles softly and chuckles, but I’m not sure if he believes me.

“How did you quit skiing?” I ask.

Hunter sighs. “I used to refuse to go and, you know, he’d threaten to kick my ass, and he meant it, so I’d go. And then, in my free time, I’d snowboard. When I was fifteen, one night. We had a big fight. He was drunk and I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore. He hit me and I hit him back.” He bites his lip. “I hit him harder. He kicked me out for a few weeks, but…I figured it out. And he let me come home. It was too embarrassing to have me crashing at friends’ houses. The only reason I put up with him anymore is so I can see Shane,” Hunter says.

I make a small sound. “You’re the best thing in that kid’s life.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” I say simply. “He looks at you like you’re superman.”

Hunter chuckles. “I am
obsessed
with that kid.”

I laugh.

“Really, I am. He’s like…” he shakes his head. “There was nobody else I wanted to be anything for, you know. I mean, until I realized Shane was watching me, and then I wanted to be something for him.” His voice wavers: “And, then, you know…when you came along, I wanted to be something for you, too. My dad made me think I couldn’t ever be anything. Even when I won my first X-Games gold, I was seventeen, standing around, waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I was so sure he’d been right about me.”

“He wasn’t right. You know that.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a fucking idiot,” I whisper. “You’re my favorite person. And I want you to know I burned my Doug Cannon poster,” I tell him dryly.

He laughs loudly. “Good girl.”

“Yeah. Fucking marketing ploy that I ever bought that thing. I got a poster of this adorable snowboarder.”

“Oh really?”

“Oh, yeah? How’s that working out for you?”

“Mmm…well, Micah is pretty dreamy…”

“You fucking asshole,” he says, giggling, rolling on top of me.

“What? You really thought I was going to buy a poster of my boyfriend?”

“I don’t even know if they have posters of me.”

“Of course they do.”

“Well, I’ll get you one. Free. Even if I have to make it myself.”

I listen to the soothing rumble of his voice, and I roll over in the snow, until I’m on top of him. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, by the way.”

“What?”

“That you wanted to be something for me.”

“I do.”

“You already are.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

He insists on coming to the event barbeque that night. Insists.

“It’s not a victory circle,” he says. “Why would we skip it?”

“Just to be clear. We aren’t skipping it. I’m skipping it. You didn’t compete in this event. And I don’t want to see any of those people.”

“Why not?”

It’s not just about seeing people. Part of it is him. I don’t want him and Parker to get in some kind of fight. I don’t want Laurel to say anything to me.

Or to Hunter. Or to anyone.

It seems petty to bring her ex-boyfriend to a barbeque when she’s supposed to be celebrating her victories.

He rolls his eyes at me and slides a baseball hat on backwards. “Laurel?”

“Any of them.”

“I’m not fucking scared of fucking Laurel.”

“Plus, I don’t even think you’re invited.”

“Please. I’m your date. I’m as invited as fuck.”

The party’s off the mountain—a twenty-minute drive away, at a big Western-themed restaurant called Joe’s. Hunter’s been here before, calls it “shitshow central,” before yanking me through the door.

“You’re being crazy. You cannot be scared of Laurel. You’ve gone heli-skiing. That’s ,” he says.

“You’re afraid of planes.”

“Totally rational fear. Planes kill people. Laurel just tweets.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Okay, well, at least its more rational than your fear,” he says. “Like, Laurel has never killed a person.”

“She’s still scary.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Just because you slept with her doesn’t mean it’s ridiculous,” I say. “You saw those blogs.”