Ride Page 2

  Trent’s money would be enough. But I don’t need a thing from people who leave.

  Alex must know she’s getting close to persuading me. Her voice is softer, that brash exterior fading away to show the warmhearted core I know is there.

  “Come on, sweetheart. One week, just to relax and get away from it all. You’ve been working so hard.”

  It does sound good. I do the math in my head. Mom and Pop-pop have refused to let me buy more than the occasional grocery haul while I’ve been here. I’ve never been a big spender, not beyond gear. Yeah, I haven’t had a salary, but some of my photos have done pretty well.

  And if I got a category-winning Illuminations shot at Laax, the trip would pay for itself about a hundred times over.

  “I really, really need to find work, Alex.”

  It’s a last-ditch attempt and Alex knows it. There’s victory in her voice. “I told you, you can work here. The slopes are full of pros. You’ll get all the photos you want. How could you not get an award-winning shot when you’re working with the world’s best? Really,” she adds with exaggerated wisdom, “you would be stupid not to come. It’s just the boost your career needs.”

  I want it. I want it so badly I can taste the cocktails I’ll share with Alex when I arrive.

  Travel. To Europe. It’s a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. It’s why I’ve always wanted this job. Globe-trotting, and taking the most amazing photos everywhere I go.

  Of course, when I was a little girl I didn’t worry about things like financial stability.

  “I don’t know. It’s just so irresponsible. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”

  “Coming to Laax,” Alex says angelically.

  2

  I shouldn’t have worried about telling Mom and Pop-pop.

  “Just so long as you get back in time,” Mom says. “If you miss Christmas I’ll have to chase you to Europe and embarrass you in front of all your friends.” She says it lightly, but she squeezes my shoulders a little too tight as her gaze ticks between my eyes. “Be careful.”

  “Don’t let any boys muck you about.” Trust Pop-pop to be more direct.

  “I’m not looking for boys,” I reassure him. “I’m going there to see Alex and to work. A boy is the last thing I want.”

  Pop-pop grunts, flicking a look to Mom over his paper. “A woman in this family has told me that before.”

  Mom’s lips thin, but she holds her smile. “Well, Brooke’s smarter than I was at her age.”

  “Praise God,” Pop-pop mutters, but he can’t hide the playful smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

  Mom shoots him a look before pressing a kiss to my hair. “I know you’ll be smart. Remember we love you.”

  I didn’t hear Pop-pop get up from his chair, but I’d know the feel of his hand anywhere. His grip at my shoulder is just as strong as it was when I was a little girl and he seemed as big as a mountain, as endless as time itself. He’s looking older now, and for a moment it’s all I can do not to bury myself into his arms and hold on to him forever.

  “Just have fun. You never know, you might meet someone. A handsome European stranger.” His bushy eyebrows rise up. “But not an Italian. I don’t think I would survive an Italian grandson-in-law.”

  Mom laughs. “Dad …”

  “I don’t want an Italian or anything else,” I say over her. “You’re the only worthwhile man I’ve ever met.”

  I don’t really realize how true it is until I say it. Something tightens inside of my chest.

  My face must betray me. Pop-pop’s dark eyes chase an expression on my lips. For a moment he looks earnest, and then he covers it with the biggest beam I’ve ever seen. “Me?” He indicates his chest with overacted disbelief. “Oh, I’m a scoundrel.”

  Before I can correct him he ruffles my hair. “Don’t you worry about it, Bumble. It’ll be okay.”

  Our arrival in Zurich is announced in about fifty different languages. Pop-pop dug out a thirty-year-old German phrase book for me back home, but I don’t need to use it. Zurich airport is plastered in tastefully designed signs in every language I could possibly need. And it’s so … classy. There’s money everywhere in sleek design and gleaming surfaces.

  If I weren’t sure I’d look like a lunatic, I’d pinch myself to make sure that this is real.

  The baggage hall is huge. I find the right carousel and dump my carry-on bag down, crouching beside it and unpacking my books and phone so that I can tug out my sweater.

  It’s then that I notice the whispering of the girls behind me. At first I think it’s to do with me. I surreptitiously slip my hand around to the small of my back, checking my panties aren’t showing above the waistband of my jeans. They’re not. Anyway, when I stand up the girls keep going on in a language I don’t understand. French?

  I sneak a look behind me, pretending to be really interested in a billboard-sized Cartier advert.

  They’re exactly the kind of girls I would have been intimidated by in high school. They don’t-really-hide their whispers behind perfectly manicured hands. One keeps tossing her sleek blonde hair. The other has pulled out a tube of lip gloss, and somehow she’s managing to put it on in such a way that the bracket of her upper arm works like a Wonderbra.

  I follow their hungry stares, and realize I don’t need to speak whatever language it is to know what they’re gossiping about.

  I’m sure that I know him. It’s that feeling you get when you can’t quite place someone’s face. With the man so engrossed in his phone, at least I don’t need to feel bad about looking. It’s not like I’m staring. I’m just trying to work out who he is.

  He’s a few years older than me, perhaps in his early thirties. I can’t see his eyes with his face downturned, but I can’t miss his height, or the bulk of his toned body accentuated by his slim-fit T-shirt. A tattoo sleeve emerges from under one cuff, curling about the bulge of his bicep and wrapping down over his muscled forearm to his thick wrist. The five o’clock shadow over his strong jaw matches the dark flop of his hair.

  I can’t know him. It’s ridiculous. What are the odds of meeting someone I know when I’m standing half a planet away in an airport I’ve never been to, at who-knows-what time of the day?

  … Then again, he was on my flight, I guess. So he’s probably American. Certainly he stands out from the rest of the crowd in his jeans and sneakers. For a moment I feel stupid about my own. How does he make them look good? Like he’s stepped out of a magazine. My boyfriend jeans are scruffy and torn, my sneakers dirty. This sweater’s comfortable, but it’s not nice.

  The phone looks tiny in his huge hands, but his thumbs dance deftly over the screen.

  Whisper whisper whisper. Even across the language barrier I can tell that the girls are urging each other on. It’s him they stopped for, all right—they already have their bags with them. They must have come into Zurich on another flight.

  Maybe he’s famous? He has that kind of effortless style plastered over celebrity magazines and Instagram feeds. Like he just fell out of bed with that perfectly tousled hair, while the rest of us mortals stumbled out like zombies after an eleven-hour flight.

  I guess the girls look pretty flawless, too. Maybe I’m the only one representing the troll-just-out-from-under-a-bridge crowd.

  Whatever. I have things to do. I pull my cell out from my bag and begin to type to Alex, trying not to think about roaming charges.

  Landed. Should be with you in 2 hours.

  “Okay,” one of the girl says, making it sound like it’s a foreign word.

  It’s at that moment that the man slides his cell into the back pocket of his jeans, leans forward, and with a smooth surge of strength tugs my extra-heavy bag from the carousel.

  I guess it’s pretty nondescript. Lots of people own plain black bags. But I know it. I spent hours packing it. I know the way it frays down in one corner, and how one zip gets stuck unless you give it a jiggle.

  “Hi,” says one of the gir
ls in the sexiest French accent I’ve ever heard. “Chase?”

  The man looks up, one brow raised, and I get a glimpse of the most achingly blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Of course I know him. Chase Austin’s poster hung above my bed for years.

  When I was a teenager I would watch him killing slopestyle competitions, gasping over his death-defying tricks while a bored Alex painted her nails beside me. She never appreciated the corks and grabs like I did. At most she’d pretend to be impressed when he took first place on the podium and accepted his gold medals. Only the Olympics really got it into her head that he was a big deal.

  Since he stopped riding in competitions and moved to full-time sponsorship, I’ve spent more hours than is healthy watching his edits and feature-length films. He’s been in all of the top snowboarding movies of the last ten years. Usually he does the most prestigious ending shot, too. He’s a legend of freeriding, the greatest big-mountain rider there’s ever been—the world’s most famous adrenaline junkie. In a sport where fewer and fewer athletes make a decent wage through sponsorship, it’s rumored Chase clears tens of millions a year, easy.

  And he’s right there.

  My heart is making a funny pitter-patter in my chest.

  If I have any chance of winning the Illuminations contest, Chase Austin is my best shot. I can’t even process what the girls are saying to him as they sashay over to twiddle their hair and laugh too loudly. I’m in the middle of the world’s glossiest airport, but I’m busy having an out-of-body experience.

  I’m on the mountain, getting world-class shots of a world-class athlete. I’m winning the Illuminations competition with a photograph of him. I’m accepting a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. I’m getting called by all the film houses I worship. I’m turning down offers to work on projects with Olympians left, right, and center because I have too many amazing opportunities on my plate. I’m in all the magazines, but not only for photo credits. I’m a double-page splash. Brooke Larson—the world’s best extreme photographer. The journalist is asking how it all began.

  Well, it’s a funny story …

  Then I’m pulled back to earth with a crash, because Chase is signing the French girl’s boobs.

  “I’m so happy to meet you,” she simpers, holding open the neck of her shirt and thrusting her chest up toward his Sharpie.

  Chase’s chuckle is deep and rough, his drawl lazy. “Oh yeah?” He cups her breast with easy self-assurance, like this is something normal for him. Being offered access to strangers’ boobs in airports.

  “Yeah,” the girl whispers. It sounds like take me.

  Chase’s grin twists crooked as he finishes his signature with a flourish. “Looking good. Where are you ladies headed?”

  So he’s a player. It’s not like that’s a surprise. I’ve seen the Instagram photos of him and his crew surrounded by underwear models at one party after another. Why wouldn’t he take advantage of all the panties dropping around him? I know what pro athletes are like. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m not trying to find out if he’s husband material. What’s important are the medals, Olympic and otherwise, I know he has back home.

  I have the perfect opportunity to talk with Chase Austin, and him being a ladies’ man isn’t going to stop me.

  I take a breath to steady myself before swinging my backpack over my shoulder and stepping toward him.

  “Maybe I’ll see you there,” Chase is saying to the girls. His shrug is a dismissal, though it looks like the girls might fight it. For a moment his hand tightens on the strap of my suitcase, the muscles under his tattoo shifting with fluid strength.

  Then he sees me, and he stops, and like an idiot I’m starstruck and my mouth won’t work.

  Smooth, Brooke. Smooth.

  “You too?” The edge of Chase’s mouth twists again into something that isn’t quite a proper grin. He’s already easing the Sharpie back out of his pocket. “You’re gonna need to take off your sweater.”

  Apparently I’m stupid when he stares at me. “My sweater?”

  Chase chuckles. His gaze drops down my body, a lingering once-over before he raises his face toward mine. “I’ll sign somewhere else, if you want. I’m easy.”

  This is not how it’s meant to go. He’s meant to be interested in me for my work. He’s not meant to be looking at me like that—predatory and distant at once, a cool reserve in his eyes as if I’m just another groupie to him. Snowboarding is a macho culture. It’s not like I can’t take care of myself. But somehow it stings more than usual now that it’s Chase Austin seeing me as just a piece of ass.

  I don’t realize I’ve crossed my arms over my chest until I feel them tight as I talk. So much for being smooth. “Oh. No. I’m fine. I mean—you have my suitcase.”

  “Your suitcase.” That twisted smile tugs at the edge of his lips again. “Now there’s one I haven’t heard before.”

  This is not how it’s meant to be. I wish I could scrub the blush off my cheeks.

  “I mean it.” I gather myself straighter. “You have mine. Look.”

  I lean forward and tug open the zip before Chase can protest. Thank god I didn’t put my panties in last. Instead I tug out the corner of …

  My bikini. Great.

  There’s a beat before Chase deadpans, “I look surprisingly good in pink.”

  I should have a witty retort. Instead my mouth says, “Haha.”

  It’s not even a laugh. This is why you don’t meet your heroes.

  Or your teenage crushes.

  The edge of Chase’s jaw shifts as if he presses his teeth together, but he doesn’t comment. His grin is gone, replaced with a stony-faced impassivity as he holds the bag’s strap out toward me.

  “There you go. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” I say. “Thanks.”

  I’m hoping I’ll get to escape as I shoulder my bag and head for the oversize luggage desk. I need to collect my board … and get over the twisted feeling in my stomach.

  I should have expected it. A pro snowboarder—of course he was going to be a player. Why would Chase Austin be any different just because he’s been my hero since I was a teenager? And anyway, how was I imagining it would go? This is Chase Austin. He’ll be here with his own pro photographer, someone with years of experience and a résumé I could only dream of. What was I meant to say? Hi, I graduated two years ago and I’ve had a few internships. You should totally give up hours of your time to let me photograph you.

  I’ve almost convinced myself that it’s fine, whatever, when Chase joins me at the oversize luggage desk.

  I shouldn’t be surprised. What pro would travel without his own gear? It makes me embarrassingly awkward, hyperconscious of myself as I chat with the staffer and hand her my luggage tag. I swear I can feel Chase standing behind me, my skin prickling with the closeness of his.

  He doesn’t say a thing. He doesn’t even look at me. I know because I peek at him when I crouch to grab my board bag’s straps, tilting my head sideways to snatch a glance. He’s leaning over the desk now, his forearms braced before him, and closer I can see the details of his tattoos.

  Including the woman’s name at his wrist. Felicity.

  Great. That makes the boob signing extra classy.

  His voice makes me start. “You board? Where are you headed?”

  Fuck. I hope Chase hasn’t noticed me staring. I try to look nonchalant as I straighten and blow the curls from my face. How am I going to carry a backpack, my suitcase and the board bag out of the airport? I had enough trouble at LAX. More importantly, how am I going to do it without looking like a clumsy idiot in front of him?

  “Yeah,” I say as casually as I can. “I’m going to Laax.”

  I’m so surprised that I don’t react as Chase reaches out for me. His huge hand curls neatly about the strap of my suitcase, his fingers brushing mine.

  “Me too. I’ll carry that for you.”

  Teenage me would be swooning right about n
ow. Any straight woman would be swooning. A gorgeous, world-famous athlete wanting to carry your bags? It’s perfect. It should be perfect. But all I can think about is how Chase looked at me before.

  I don’t want Chase Austin to want to fuck me. I want him to want to work with me.

  Also, the other woman’s name on his wrist is really not a good look.

  It’s only at the last minute that I dip my shoulder away from him. “I can carry my bags myself. Thanks.”

  Chase’s fingers remain curled at the strap. It must only be a moment. So why does it feel so much longer? I watch the surprise blossom over his face before he wipes his expression to a moody blank.

  I swear there’s a question in those bright blue eyes, just for a moment.

  And then he lets go.

  “Sure,” is all he drawls.

  God, I have to get out of here. My tummy is tingling as I get my bag over my shoulder and grip the wheeled board bag’s handle. Somehow the way Chase is watching me makes me fumble the holds.

  Chase just watches until I’m ready, and then he shoulders his own bag as effortlessly as if it weighed nothing. “Let’s go.”

  He doesn’t really give me a chance to say no. We are walking the same way, after all. It would be weirder to stay behind.

  I don’t know what I expect. More flirting, probably. A comment about the bikini. Instead Chase walks in silence, looking impassively ahead. I would think he’s forgotten I’m here, except that with such long legs he must be moving deliberately slowly to keep pace beside me.

  That, and he holds the door for me when we arrive. The nod of his head is almost absent as he gestures me through into the frigid alpine winter. I would swear that when he catches back up with me he walks a little closer.

  “I’m Chase.”

  “I know.”

  He gives me a look, but I ignore it. Once the silence has lingered for an awkward moment I add: “I’m Brooke.”

  Chase rolls his shoulders as if to indicate that with a suitcase and a board bag he can’t reach out for a shake. “Pleasure.”

  What is going on? I’m walking with Chase Austin out of the airport. Chase Austin. He stared at my boobs and now he’s just … here, accompanying me over the paving stones in silence. The suggestiveness is gone, but I can’t read what’s left at all.