I yanked her against my body because she was my missing piece.
“Why would you do that, though? Before we even came up here?”
My muscles tensed for a second before I spoke. “Because you believed in me. This whole time. You’ve poked me and pushed me—and provoked me—into healing the part of me that was broken—and I’m not talking about my knee. I turned them down because of my pride—because I couldn’t imagine being on this mountain and not being the best. But then you came along and reminded me about all of the good fucking things that happen when I give up being the best. You reminded me that my moments of greatest pride were when I gave my all for someone else.”
“Chance, I…” She shook her head. “You deserve this. And you are capable of it. And to me, you will always be the best—the king of the mountain. Not just because of how well you ride, but because of how well you take care of everyone else who comes here.”
I stood and extended my hand to her, hauling her up and against my chest.
“Thank you,” I whispered hoarsely.
“For what?” Her mouth parted, her face flushed with happiness.
“For believing in me.” My thumb brushed over her plump lower lip. “For telling me the truth. For always being the one to help me see past my pride.”
It happened so fast that I thought I might have imagined it—the shadow that passed over her face at my last words. The smile that followed quickly disguised whatever was lingering beneath the surface.
She couldn’t feel it through my layers, but my whole body tensed. It was that same feeling. The one I’d felt that night before I walked in on her fake-kissing Frost. The one where something is eating at her but she’s not telling me what it is. The one that I now know means something is going to come that will crush me.
It was the one that stopped the three little words that had been waiting patiently for eight years to come out.
“I think,” she began softly, “that you knew you could do this all along.” I raised an eyebrow at her assertion. “I think you were just trying to get back in my panties.”
It was an attempt to distract me. And it semi-worked. A smile broke on my face and I chuckled. I let myself taste her lips one more time, lingering on the sweet cotton-candy flavor that seemed perfectly matched to her hair.
“Not hard, J-bird, when you don’t wear any,” I rasped against her mouth, darting my tongue inside when her lips parted at my words. “Now, let’s go home. I don’t want that sweet ass of yours getting frostbite up here.” And then I leaned down next to her ear, “Because I plan on paying it a visit later.”
Unbridled desire flared in her eyes. Fucking fearless. That was my girl.
The Tower: A symbol of an experience that shakes the foundation of your current sense of security and forces you to question your strongly-held beliefs and perceptions—a loss that penetrates to the very core of your being.
With any destruction comes creation. Now that the Tower around you is broken, you are at rock bottom. The choice is yours where you go from here.
FOR SOME, THE MOUNTAIN IS a lifeline to the truest part of you, a reminder not to lose yourself in the mess that is life. To be strong and rise up.
As much as I loved the mountain and as much as I believed it was what had brought me back to Aspen, that afternoon I realized that what I believed was wrong.
Chance had brought me back here.
Chance was my mountain.
Hard, immovable. Standing proud amidst rain or shine or snow. Stable, yet always changing. All of his unforgiving peaks and angry edges that decorated what was strong and protective and undefeatable underneath.
“Chance…” I put my hand on his chest to stop him. Mistake. Every beat of his heart underneath my fingertips was one more link added to the chain that bound me to him.
“I need to talk to you…”
“J-bird, we can talk about the school later,” he growled as his hands cupped my face, continuing to plant kisses on every inch of skin that his lips could find, backing me farther into the house. Hats, gloves, scarves, jackets… our clothes littered the hallway like footprints in the snow. Gasping for air, his mouth took and took… and took… from mine. It had only been one day—but that was all it took. The mountain had brought Chance back to life and back to me.
And I didn’t want there to be anything left between us.
My heart raced faster than us flying down the slopes. My legs were wrapped around his waist, his arousal grinding into my core as I ended up with my back against some wall in the house. My eyes squeezed shut. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only feel him. Home. Wrapped around me like a vise.
I pushed again. “N-no. I need to talk to you about before.”
My legs slid to the floor so that I could step back, but all it did was give him the ability to start removing the layers between us. Shirts, snowpants, socks… couldn’t come off fast enough. And still I was burning up.
“I don’t care about fucking Frost or the kiss. I care about having you, J-bird. I care that now, you are mine.”
“No, that’s not—“ His lips cut me off again. I felt like I was being sedated—trying to grasp at reality that was quickly slipping from my grasp as desire flooded through my system.
We’d just made it down to the last layer of fabric when the banging on the front door shot through our desire like gunfire. Loudly. Incessantly. In perfectly timed clips. And with a complete disregard for casualties or common decency.
And that meant it could only be one person.
Frost.
“I’m going to kill that fucker,” Chance growled against my lips, his teeth sinking into my lower lip and sucking it hard into his mouth. “I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to fuck you.”
I pressed into the wall as Chance set me down on my feet far too quickly than my balance would have preferred. With an almost silent groan, my head fell back against the wall as I tried to reign in all my humming little cells that had been poised to be lit, flamed, and finally, smoked by Chance and every dirty thing I’d hoped he was going to do.
“What in the living—“ I heard Chance swear as the front door flew open, but his words then stopped short.
Was it not Frost? Was it someone else?
My eyes flew open, staring up at the lofted ceiling for a beat before I gave myself a quick once-over, hugged my arms around myself, and walked towards the hallway.
“Chance, what’s—“ It looked like he wasn’t the only one whose words were stolen from him.
I froze—harder, faster, and colder than if Queen Elsa herself had covered me with ice.
It was Nick Frost alright, but he wasn’t alone.
Lila was with him.
Why was Lila with him?
It was one of those moments where for some people a million reasons and ideas and explanations flash through your mind, your brain sifting through the minutia of data to assess and extricate the most probable scenario for what you saw before you.
I was not one of those people.
My mind was blank. Even my own name was questionable at this moment.
“W-what’s going on?” I managed to speak in spite of how dry my mouth was.
Even though my brain couldn’t process the scene, my body—my heart could—and it was sinking. The high that I’d been traveling towards came crashing to a halt and then plummeted. I didn’t know the explanation, but I dreaded it all the same.
I watched as Nick’s face darkened, his jaw ticking like it was connected directly to his heart. He wanted to lose it—but he couldn’t because of Lila.
Lila, whose face lit slightly with the dawn of recognition. She tugged on Nick’s jacket sleeve.
“What is Miss Jessa doing here, Daddy?”
Daddy.
What happens when you toss a hair-dryer (plugged in) into a bath full of water? This happens. Me. Right here. Right now. Electrified by the truth that just came crashing morbidly into my reality.
Nick Fr
ost had a daughter. A daughter that was a few years younger than mine would have been.
“What is she doing here?” he ground out, looking only at Chance.
Suffocating. Slowly. I wanted to tell him but I couldn’t, because there was no air.
“She lives here.”
“Well, that was fu—fast.” His eyes twinkled with bitterness and anger.
“It was also none of your business. My house. My life. Which brings me to what is really worth discussing right now and that is what you are doing here?”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “I needed to get Lila out of the house,” he replied tightly like he didn’t want me to hear.
There was a moment of silence before Chance shut the door behind our guests and ushered them inside.
Lila, bundled up in pink snowpants and snowjacket, left her father’s side and jogged over to me, wrapping her arms around my legs.
“Hi, Miss Jessa.” She grinned up at me and even though so many parts of me were breaking, I held onto what was left in order to smile back at her.
“Hi there, Miss Lila. Imagine seeing you here.” I tug white furry hat complete with little bear ears, off of her head and crouch down to her level. Her tiny little presence is the only thing keeping me sane at the moment.
“Is Miss Tammy here?” Her eyebrows raised in adorable expectation and my heart ached for the both of them.
“No, I’m sorry, honey, but she’s not here.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I miss her.”
Before I could respond, she was back over by Nick with her arms wrapped around his one leg. Both he and Chance looked down at the girl as though they were surprised to see such a show of affection. Her arrival had clearly interrupted Nick as he was explaining with a harsh quietness why he’d shown up here with his daughter.
Another bout of nausea rolled through me and I reached for the wall to steady myself as I stood back up.
It wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t feel this way. I’d barely been pregnant. I hadn’t lost a child, really, I’d only lost a cluster of cells; I shouldn’t be so affected.
But yet, my stomach wanted to revolt and my throat wanted to close because Chance should be standing here with a little girl of his own—our little girl. And the part that killed me was that he didn’t know—he didn’t even know because I was a coward who could confess to a lie, but not to the truth.
“Daddy, why can’t I see Miss Tammy anymore?” Lila whined into his leg and I heard the tears before they began to fall.
Everything cold and hard that was painted layer upon painstaking layer over Nick—both his person and his personality—melted in the instant he spoke to his daughter. I stood in awe, hardly recognizing the man who’d always been careless, callous, and cocky as he dropped to his knees and cupped his daughter’s rosy cheeks, quickly swiping away her tears. Strangely, though, I saw Lila flinch at his touch and an unhealthy mix of pain and anger flashed over Nick’s face—that slight movement infuriating and crucifying him at the same time.
“Shh, I told you, honey, it’s just for a little while.” He gave her a tight smile—the one adults could recognize as meaning that he wasn’t exactly sure how long ‘a little while’ actually meant.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Chance said gruffly before he turned back and came for me.
“Chance—“ I bit my cheek as his hands on my waist pushed me backwards into the living room, leaving Nick in peace to console his child.
“Frost has a kid,” he said—as though that explained everything.
“I see that…”
“Do you remember Eliza Blackman?”
My face scrunched. The name seemed familiar but at the same time I couldn’t place her.
“Don’t think too hard—just picturing her might get you some sort of STD.”
“I’m assuming that’s Lila’s mother?” I asked and Chance nodded in response.
“If she even fucking deserves to be called that,” he swore and then in a few curt sentences, informed me just exactly how Nick came to find out he had a daughter and why she still shied away men—including the one who looked like he’d fall on a sword if it would heal her.
“Why is he here?”
“Because Eliza is back in town.” He rubbed his brow. “And she’s looking for Lila—and a reason to take her away from Frost.”
“She can’t do that,” I gasped. “She abandoned her after letting her be abused.”
I knew I was crying now—the whole story was heart-breaking. All I could think about was Nick having to lose his daughter.
And then it wasn’t even a hop, skip, and a jump before I found my nineteen-year-old self again, wondering why my boobs felt bigger, but my period was five days late. Before I found the girl with the blue hair, crouched over a toilet in her dorm’s communal bathroom, staring at the pregnancy test that was in my hands. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t because of my watery eyes or my shaking hands that I saw two lines on the screen.
“Don’t cry, J-bird. It’s going to be ok—they’re going to be ok.” And just like Nick, Chance cupped my cheeks, wiping away the tears that fell in rapid succession. And just like Lila, I flinched at his touch and the change in his demeanor was instantaneous.
I shook my head because it wasn’t them I was worried about. Anyone with eyes could see that Nick Frost would burn down the whole fucking world to make sure his daughter stayed safe.
“Jessa…” I pulled away from him.
The memories were like punches—like Mohammed Ali was using my heart as a punching bag.
I saw the girl sitting numbly on her bed after there were no more tears to cry, scrolling through her phone aimlessly because in spite of all the people who loved her, she couldn’t think of anyone that she could call; she could only think of him.
I saw the girl digging her nails into her palms—kind of like I was doing now—as the first ring to Chance’s cell went through; her heart was beating in her throat.
“Helloooo?” A female voice answered, slurring her words; she sounded familiar—someone from our class. No, the class below us. Lexi, maybe?
“Uhh… hi. Umm, is Chance there?” The blue-haired girl squeaked out over the thickness in her throat, telling herself that it doesn’t matter if he’s with another girl—he has the right to know. Especially after how I left him.
There were noises that I pretended I didn’t hear. Words exchanged. The faint whisper of the tone of his voice.
“His tongue is a little too busy,” she gasps, “to talk right now—“
“Please, it’s important,” the blue-haired girl cut her off before she really says something to make me vomit.
Without hesitation, she responds, “He says you have the wrong number. He’d give you Frost’s but he’s sure you probably have that somewhere down your throat, too.”
The line beeped because the blue-haired girl was too broken to end the call. He knew, I realized. He saw that I was calling and let that girl answer on purpose to have this conversation.
For the second time in two weeks, the floor gave out from under me.
I was lost. Lost in myself. Lost in my memory of the last time I tried to tell him about my pregnancy. Now, thinking about Lila being taken away from Nick only made me think of how my child was taken from me; I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t fight for her. Burning down the world would have made no difference for me—except that I could have gone up in flames with it. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to live with the last piece of loneliness that had crushed my soul.
It had only taken one week of a broken heart for my body to realize that without a working heart, it couldn’t support a child.
I’d only been to my OBGYN once to confirm the pregnancy before I told Chance… Or tried to. I knew something wasn’t right—more than the usual everything not being right. And then there was blood. By the time I made it to the doctor’s, it was too late. (Not that she could have done anything about it anyway.)
The hospital was so white. So bright fo
r an event that was so dark.
I was fine. I was completely ok. Physically speaking. And that’s what my parents were concerned about when they showed up to my sterile, lifeless room. They cared about me.
I only cared about all the things that I’d lost.
There was a lot of blood, I thought, for something that had only been a few cells big.
On my way home from the doctor’s, I wondered if I should have been relieved. I’d only gotten up the courage to call Chance; I hadn’t even thought about telling anyone else. And now, I wouldn’t have to.
The next thing I knew, I was in my dorm, in my bed, sobbing silently with the covers clutched to my chest and wondering if my heart would ever be able to go on.
I tripped over something—maybe clothes, maybe myself; my eyes were too wet to see. I was sobbing and it was the worst kind of sobbing. It was the kind that hurts so badly that no noise comes out. My pain was so loud that no one but me could hear it.
“Jessa!” I heard Chance say my name. “What the hell is going on!”
I heard him coming for me just as the door to the garage opened and Ally’s panicked voice sounded from the doorway, “Oh my God, Jessa!”
Gasping in air, my heart pounded in my chest as Ally paused in shock for a second before storming into the room.
“What happened?” she asked me frantically, before her gaze shifted to her brother when I couldn’t find the words to explain. Everything was heavy and thick, my tongue immoveable. “What did you do?” Uncharacteristic anger laced through her words.
I was in a bubble of pain and suffering and I watched the conversation unfolding in front of me before there was a damn thing I could do about it.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Alice Daisy Ryder,” Chance bit out. He didn’t want to deal with his sister. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were locked on mine, trying to get inside, trying to figure out how to help me. “I didn’t do a goddamn thing. I’m trying to figure out why she lost it over the kid.”
Lila—the kid who Ally had no idea was here.
Her disgusted exhale echoed inside of my head.
“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Ally stepped in front of her brother, but she was too far away for me to reach her—to stop her. “Why she ‘lost it’ over the kid? Maybe because that kid was hers? Maybe because she lost her baby—your baby—all alone. In Texas. While you were up here doing God-knows-what.”
The Winter Games Page 103
