Ride Page 16

  It’s more than anyone’s ever spent on a gift for me. It’s an insane amount of money. But as I sit in Mom’s car, it’s not the backpack I can’t stop looking at.

  In one hand I hold the key chain that was attached to the bag’s zipper. It’s only simple: a loop of gorgeous honey-hued leather, polished to a soft shine.

  It didn’t cost a thousand dollars. It’s not a big deal. But it’s beautiful, and my thumb runs over and over the engraving.

  Brooke.

  19

  “I’ll get them,” Mom says with a wave of her hand. “You girls go set up the board.”

  Christmas in Mammoth has been the same way since I was a kid. It’s so good to be back. Home is cozy and safe. Everyone I love is here—Pop-pop. Mom. Alex. We’re stuffed with food and wrapped up warm, and now it’s time for the hugely competitive game of Scrabble we’ve played ever since I was a kid.

  “I heard your cell go,” Alex hisses to me as soon as we’re out of earshot from the kitchen where Pop-pop clears up and Mom makes drinks. “You better check it.”

  I laugh. She hasn’t been able to let the Chase thing go.

  “I don’t think we’re at the Christmas messages stage.”

  Alex rolls her eyes as she digs into the cabinet for the board. “You wouldn’t know your own feelings if they hit you with a brick. I don’t trust you to read anyone else’s.”

  Alex isn’t crazy. Chase and I have been messaging. Work stuff—the occasional email or text about meeting up in Canada. All the information I’ve passed on to Mom and Pop-pop that’s made them hum with worry and exchange meaningful looks.

  Of course we message. We’re colleagues.

  “I don’t have to read his feelings when he tells me what they are.”

  For a moment I wonder what he’s up to. Hanne’s with her huge family back in Norway—she sends me regular pictures of a sauna filled with her Viking-esque brothers. JJ’s IG has been full of models and glasses of champagne, Chase laughing in the corner of a few shots. But today JJ’s picture was of him in a Christmas sweater, his arm around his tiny mother. And Chase … If Chase has a family, I’ve never heard of them.

  Maybe he’s just spending Christmas with the models.

  Alex sighs, finally turning back to look at me and pushing her hair from her eyes. Concern threads over her forehead. She’s not right—I can read expressions. I can see the hurt and the worry and the love all over her.

  “Hon, just because your dad—”

  “Please let’s not talk about Trent at Christmas.” It’s snappier than I mean it to be. I don’t know why. It’s not like after twenty-four years I’m not used to hearing nothing from my sperm donor at Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Or my birthday.

  Alex gives me a hug made clumsy by her tipsiness. The ridiculous poofy dress she’s shoehorned herself into crackles between us.

  “Okay. But you should check. Not everyone’s an asshole, you know?” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, squeezing tight at my arm. “He could be nice.”

  I don’t want to check. I’m about to tell Alex that when Mom nudges wine into each of our hands.

  “Who are you two talking about?”

  Alex doesn’t say who. She doesn’t have to. She looks so monumentally guilty that Mom already knows it’s a boy, just like she would when we were fifteen.

  “No one,” Alex lies terribly.

  I can see the struggle inside Mom. It’s been there since I was a little girl. Of course she doesn’t want to make me think all men are assholes. But given her experience …

  Her lips thin and she rubs her hands needlessly over her cooking-splashed apron.

  “Is this one of the snowboarders?”

  I tug on a smile and elbow Alex a little too hard. “Alex is being an idiot.”

  Mom just hums her disbelief. She manages a smile eventually, her arm sliding around my shoulder to give me a squeeze. “Well, anyone’s better than Peter, right?”

  I feel such a strong surge of love for her that it hurts. She wants me to be happy. Despite how afraid she is that I’ll get hurt, she wants me to find someone.

  “Exactly,” Alex gushes, obviously glad that she’s not in trouble. “Anyway—it’s early days yet. Right?” Her eyes tick between mine, asking different questions than the one that came from her mouth.

  “Nothing’s happening,” I say firmly. “I need way, way longer without a boyfriend.”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Pop-pop mutters. He has a whiskey in one hand, going over to his chair—but not without giving me a smile on the way. “Come on. Are you ladies ready to get destroyed? I’m sensing a repeat of the great victory of ’09.”

  It feels so good, sitting and relaxing with them. Over a few glasses of wine I begin to forget about my cell, innocently silent in my pocket.

  It’s hours later when I’m alone in the kitchen and get a chance to check, closing the fridge door with my heel as I open Chase’s message.

  Hey

  Merry xmas

  Hope you have a good one

  I hesitate with my fingers on the keys. What do I say? What’s the line between colleague and friend and not serious? Maybe I should wait. Maybe it looks weird if I reply as soon as I see the message.

  “You should reply.”

  Alex’s voice in the doorway makes me start, letting my phone fall with a guilty clatter on the countertop.

  “I mean it,” Alex continues, affecting an airy shrug as she waltzes past me for the new bottle of wine I’ve forgotten. “If you don’t reply that means you’re overthinking it. Which I would understand.” She flashes me a devilish look. “Because you totally, totally like him.”

  I aim an ineffectual swat to her ass, but Alex dodges it with a laugh.

  It definitely wouldn’t take me so long to write the message if I weren’t tipsy and stuffed with heavy food.

  Thanks—way too much turkey! Hope you’re having a good day too. Are you with JJ?

  I pause, nibbling at my lip before deleting the last sentence and clicking send.

  It’s none of my business who Chase is with.

  “Nnnngh.” I groan, fumbling toward my bedside table. The ringing is too loud. I just want to sleep. Outside my nest of blankets I swear there’s birdsong.

  I don’t need to check the screen before I pick up the call. Whoever it is, I’m not happy to be hearing the morning chorus.

  “Yeah?” I croak, rubbing the heel of my hand into my eyes.

  There’s a pause before Chase says, “Hey.”

  … Why is Chase calling me at nothing o’clock on the morning of New Year’s Eve?

  My heart has to find its beat again before I can speak. “Oh. Hi.” I lick my dry lips. “You … How are you?”

  Why is it so quiet wherever Chase is? I can hear the slow draw of his breath and I swear that’s the creak of bedsprings, as if he’s rolling over.

  “I’m okay. Happy New Year.”

  I crack open an eye to peek at the pale winter dawn creeping around my blinds. “Chase, it’s not New Year’s Eve for another billion hours.”

  There’s a pause before Chase laughs, the sound drained. “Oh. Shit. Yeah. Japan.”

  It takes me a while to put those disjointed fragments together and realize that Chase is calling me at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

  On opposite sides of the world, we breathe together.

  “Anyway.” Chase clears his throat. “I meant to call JJ. Sorry to wake you up.”

  I fumble around in my bed, trying to push myself up to a sitting position. “No. I mean, it’s fine. Are you … Are you having fun?”

  Chase snorts. “It was an experience.”

  My sleep-fogged brain tries to work out what he means. An experience. But he’s alone. In a hotel room? Now I focus on it, I think I can hear TV in the background. The bright sounds of a game show sound tinny over the line.

  New Year’s Eve, and Chase is alone.

  Not that it’s any of my business what he’s doing. />
  I don’t realize how long the silence has stretched until the sound of a shifting mattress interrupts the line.

  “Have a good night, anyway,” Chase says abruptly. “See you soon.”

  In the call’s ending beep I realize that JJ and Brooke aren’t things you can mistype on a phone. He must have just clicked recent numbers. Right?

  “How’s it going?” Mom’s face hovers around the edge of my door. “We need to leave for the airport in fifteen minutes.”

  I look up from where I’m kneeling over my suitcase, trying to force it shut. “You don’t have to drive me. I can call a cab.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You think I’m sending you off on your own?”

  I can see the worry lined on her face, even though she’s trying so hard to smile. Maybe my family wish I’d chosen a less dangerous career. Heli-skiing in backcountry Canada isn’t exactly the same as working a nice office job.

  But I know that no matter how much it worries them, they want me to follow my dreams.

  Once my bags are packed Mom insists on carrying them down to the car for me. Inside the beat-up old station wagon she cranks the heating up, just like always, and manages not to talk about the job for an entire three and a half minutes.

  “You think you’ll get a good photo in time for the Illuminations submission? You only have a few weeks.”

  “If I can’t get a photo like that while I’m filming in the backcountry, I don’t know where else I’ll get it.” I shrug. “Anyway, they’re amazing. I showed you the videos.”

  Mom hums thoughtfully as she switches lanes. “You did. That Hanne girl—she looks nice.”

  Mom’s omission is louder than what she actually says. She knows JJ and Chase are going along, too. It’s no accident she doesn’t ask about the men.

  I’m too excited to care that Mom’s being weird. I’m going to work on a film. When I sent my contract back last week my hand was shaking on the envelope. In the weeks since the edit came out I’ve made contacts I could only have dreamed of just a month ago. The journalists and editors who’ve emailed me, the women’s outdoor clothing company that sent me a promo pack of gear … before Laax, that would have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Now I’m going to Bella Coola with the crew, and the things I dreamed of before seem so small in comparison.

  “I’m really proud of you,” Mom says as she squeezes me by the departure gate. “Just be careful.”

  I hardly hear what she says. It’s been over a month since I last saw the rest of the crew, and I’m so excited to be with them again that my heart hammers in my throat.

  JJ’s directions were clear: a car would pick me up at Bella Coola airport after my third flight.

  Instead there’s a text from Chase waiting for me when I land.

  Change of plan

  Tell staff you’re here w/ me

  I feel embarrassed asking the lady at the desk, but she’s indifferent as she directs me through another door back into the cool February sun. This doesn’t look like the kind of place you’d pull up a car.

  Which makes sense, because instead I see a helicopter and Chase.

  He looks so good. My tummy scrunches as his stride eats up the distance between us, his eyes roaming hungrily over my body.

  I tilt my head toward the logo-plastered heli. “Are you serious?”

  Chase makes the most of my shock to take my board bag from my unresistant fingers. His grin is subtle, his eyes moving quickly between mine. “Last time I tried to pick you up at an airport you chose the bus instead.”

  “So you thought this would impress me?”

  Chase chuckles. “Does it?”

  I mean, obviously—but I’m not going to give him the pleasure of saying it. He can probably see it in my smile, anyway, even if it’s unsure. I’ve imagined this so many times. I was going to be cool. Instead I shiver in the freezing cold and stare up at those bright blue eyes. The dark of his stubble. The curve of his grin.

  Chase never hesitates. His reach for me is sure, the grip of his hands tight at my arms as he tugs me close. When he kisses me his tongue brushes over my lips, just for a moment, and my knees go weak like a stupid teenager.

  We’re still doing this. It’s really happening.

  “Headset’s on your seat,” Chase says. “Up front.”

  “Front …?”

  Chase laughs at the indecision on my face. “You want to play footsie so bad you’ll give up the view? I mean, I know I’m pretty good looking. But come on, Brooke.”

  I roll my eyes. “As if.”

  Chase laughs, and his hand strays over my ass as I pass him.

  I’ve never been in a helicopter before. It’s not rare for the job, I guess. But you need to reach a certain level of success for someone to pay for you to be flown around in such an expensive piece of hardware. I’m aware that I’m gawping as I settle myself in, largely because the heavily mustachioed pilot laughs as he helps me get my straps and headset sorted.

  “Haven’t ridden like this before?”

  Ridden. I try to hide my blush by turning my face, but I can see Chase’s grin reflected in the window as he slips into the seat behind me.

  “You okay?” His voice crackles oddly in my ear. “I assumed you’re fine with heights.”

  “Comes with the territory.” Thank god I sound about a hundred times cooler than I feel.

  I don’t get much time to wonder if I assumed means that Chase organized this himself. Just like he bought me the thousand-dollar Christmas present that’s now resting over my knees. Instead as we rise up between the mountains all my other thoughts are stolen by the beauty of the flight. Mammoth is beautiful, but Bella Coola … The snow. The pines. The perfect winter-blue sky. As we fly along the river valley the pilot points out the peaks: Big Snow. Nusatsum. The Horn. I press my face as close to the window as I can and stare out over the wilderness.

  My heart hammers in my chest, and I’m so happy I can taste it. My lips still tingle from Chase’s kiss.

  It’s not enough time before we arrive. We sink down toward the river, glistening like a mirror beneath the endless sky. The sight takes my breath away. I can hardly believe that we’re here—just us, in a luxury lodge so removed from the rest of the world that everything else seems like a dream.

  The building is unbelievable. Only as we land do I get a proper view of it. There are nods to old-school wilderness cabins, but this is something else: three stories of sheet windows, wooden decks and outdoor hot tubs nestled into a clearing. A few expensive trucks are parked outside, their wheels covered in snow chains. Everything screams money.

  I start a little when my door opens. I didn’t realize Chase had already got out. He stands before me, holding up a hand and offering a playful grin.

  “Not your best look.” He gently taps his fingertip beneath my chin, and I remember to close my mouth.

  I don’t need Chase to help me down, but I’m so struck by the lodge that I let him. Beneath the press of my hands his shoulders are packed solid with the muscle that arches up toward his neck. His hands at my ribs hold me easily, twirling me about to his other side before he lets me down.

  “May I present your new home.”

  I can’t stop the laugh that burbles up from inside of me. My new home. “It’s incredible. Have they seriously paid for this?”

  “One of the perks of being the best,” Chase says with a shrug. “You get—”

  “Brooke!”

  Hanne hits me with the strength of a cannonball and it’s all I can do not to go flying into the snow. I laugh as I hold her, accepting the force of her squeeze.

  “Thank god you’re here. There are way too many guys in this house. Can you suffocate in testosterone? I think I might be. It could be a world first.”

  Chase’s laugh is a low rumble. He’s already moving away, shaking the pilot’s hand before he takes my bags from him.

  The lodge is even crazier on the inside. It looks like it came out of a
high-end design magazine. Artworks that I don’t really understand are tastefully placed on the walls, and surfaces are accented with little glass sculptures that look like they came from half a world away. I reach out and touch one with my fingertip, wondering at the smoothness of it.

  “Underfloor heating,” Hanne purrs as she takes my coat. “And there’s an in-house chef. He can make whatever we want as long as we give him advance warning so they can fly it in …”

  For a moment I lose track of Hanne’s words. Chase brushes past me, my bags slung over his shoulders as he heads toward the stairs. Toward the bedrooms.

  Chase breaks my stare with a wink, tilting his head toward Hanne’s receding back. Go on, he mouths.

  At least Hanne isn’t there to see my guilty flush as I slip out of my shoes and rush after her.

  Beyond the entrance hall everything is open-plan and glistening, all chrome and marble and highly polished wood. Enormous windows look out over the main deck with its hot tub, fire pit and cozy wooden nook lined with blankets.

  At least the stuff in this amazing room is familiar. There’s overflow filming gear stacked everywhere, and huge amounts of cold-weather clothing. On the table are two helmets covered in the sponsorship logos I know so well.

  There’s also JJ. He stands as I enter, flashing me that easy grin and coming to give me a friendly hug.

  “Good to see you. Was your journey okay?”

  “Yeah. I mean, the helicopter …”

  “Everyone likes a helicopter,” Hanne comments wisely.

  JJ steps aside, revealing two men behind him. He catches their eyes with a grin. “Guys, this is Brooke.”

  For a moment I forget everything. Chase. The others. There are just these two men. The men who have the key to my dreams. Cinematographers. Photographers. Directors. I’ve been watching their films for years. They live the life that I’ve always dreamed of.