Sweet Victory

by Melanie Shawn

  In the past, she had employed a simple and effective three-step process when dealing with her response to Luke Reynolds. Deny, ignore, repress.

  Sure, it wasn't the healthiest of reactions, but it was clean. Elegant. She could handle it. She had always thought of Luke like a burning flame, and she didn't want to play with fire. However, now she felt that maybe she could handle getting a little bit closer to the heat of that fire, and if she got burned, well – so be it. What was life without risk?

  When it came to snowboarding, she took risks. Calculated risks, but risks all the same. Hell, when it came to snowboarding, she never held back, she went 100 miles per hour. She gave it everything she had. She went all in – mind, body, spirit. She wasn't scared to fail, in fact, she never let the thought of failure even enter her brain. She attributed a lot of her success to that very fact.

  So many athletes Sam knew, once they reached a certain level of success, would plateau. It was almost as if they thought, even subconsciously, that by reaching higher and going for more, they would risk what they had already achieved. Whether it was fear of injury or some other mental block, Sam was not sure, but the one thing she did know was that she never let any kind of reservations enter her mind when she was competing, when she was in the zone.

  When she wanted to accomplish something, she went after it with single-minded determination, and she did not let anything or anyone get in her way and slow her down. People always classified Sam as a fierce competitor, and she was – but that was only part of the story. The truth was, she considered herself to mainly be in competition with only one person – herself. She wanted to be the best, but moreover, she wanted to be HER best, and the only way to get there was to clear her mind of everything but the task at hand while she competed.

  When it came to her personal life, though? Wow. That was a whole different story. To say that she played it safe would be the understatement of the century. For someone to ‘play’ something a certain way, even safe, it would imply that they were actually in the game. Sam had never even set foot on the field.

  Well, she told herself determinedly, maybe it’s game time. Yep, maybe it is.

  Samantha was torn roughly from her musings by Amanda's insistent and slightly panicked voice saying, “OK, Sam?”

  Sam looked up and saw Amanda coming quickly out from behind her desk and looking at Sam expectantly.

  “Sorry, what?” Sam asked, trying to play catch up.

  “I said I just got a text that the vet is here to look at Buttercup, the mare that's expecting any day now,” Amanda explained hurriedly as she pulled on her coat, “He wasn't supposed to be out until tomorrow, but he was in the area. He just finished looking at her and needs to speak with me. So, if you could finish up with Michael and lock up on your way out, that would be great.”

  “Sure, yes, of course,” Sam replied, getting her bearings back.

  As Amanda was almost out the door, she turned and looked back at Sam, a twinkle in her eye. She said, “Oh, yeah, and don't forget – you're hosting Book Club tonight. See you at seven. We have a lot to discuss.”

  With that, she turned and was gone. Sam groaned inwardly. Somehow she didn't think that the “lots” Amanda referred to discussing had to do with Great Expectations, the book that Lauren and Amy had chosen as the book of the month. And Sam had gone to all the trouble of writing out discussion questions, too. But if the Book Club's historical track record of discussions was any indication, they were going to be far more interested in discussing Sam's Expectations Where Luke Was Concerned than anything by Dickens. Great.

  I especially feel bad for Amy, she told herself. Amy was Jake and Eric's sister, and this was only her second time joining them at book club. The first time she had participated, Amy had dutifully read the book, and conversation at that meeting had centered almost entirely on Karina and Ryan's burgeoning relationship. Now, at only her second visit, she was going to be treated to an hours-long dissection of Sam and Luke's interactions. Poor girl, she might NEVER get to talk about a book!

  Sam turned to Michael. She knew she probably wasn't giving him a fair shake, but there wasn't a whole lot she could do about that now.

  “Well,” Sam said, trying to wrap the meeting up as quickly as possible, “I guess if you don't have any questions for us, then...”

  “I do have one question,” Michael said, looking confused, “Why do they have horses at a ski resort?”

  Chapter Six

  Sam stood nervously in her kitchen and rearranged the canapés on their trays for the seventh or eighth time. She listened to the buzz of friendly, happy female voices in the next room and, instead of feeling satisfied that her friends were having a good time or proud of herself for successfully navigating the complex waters of hosting her very first social gathering ever, all she could feel was trepidation.

  Why? Because she knew that any minute, her doorbell was going to ring, and the final guest of the evening was going to arrive. Amanda. And that's when the entire book club would find out about Luke.

  She wasn't nervous because she felt like she had done anything wrong, or because she couldn't take a bit of friendly teasing as well as anyone. She could dish out the ribbing, and she could take it. That wasn't the problem.

  What she was nervous about was the fact that she knew her friends would be pressing her for answers. Answers about who Luke was to her. Answers about how she felt about him. Answers about how he might feel about her. Answers, in short, that she simply didn't have, and wasn't ready to go looking for. And THAT made her nervous.

  She knew these girls, her closest friends, better than she knew anyone in the world – maybe even herself. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that 'I don't know' was not going to be a sufficient response to any questions that were going to arise from Amanda's story. 'I don't want to talk about it' would be similarly ignored.

  She sighed. No, the best thing to do was just to steel herself for what was coming – a night discussing Luke Reynolds. She needed to be prepared. She didn't want to seem flustered when she was talking about him, which would only come off worse. She needed to seem cool, confident, uninterested...blasé. Yes. Blasé is what she needed to shoot for.

  She straightened her back, took a deep breath, and headed back into the living room with the tray of appetizers just as Amanda was walking in the front door.

  “Amanda! I didn't hear the doorbell!” Sam said, surprised.

  Amanda smiled broadly, “Oh, that's because I was on the phone with Lauren as I was driving here and walking up to the door.”

  Lauren joined Amanda in her mischievous grinning, “And I hear that YOU had quite the first day!”

  Sam had the urge to throw down the tray and flee upstairs, jump into her big soft bed, and bury her head under the covers until this whole Luke Reynolds thing just blew over. But, no, that wasn't her style. She had made a career out of forcing her body to do things that it didn't naturally want to do, so she employed that skill here. She forced her lips to curve into a casual smile, and forced her voice to sound measured and even.

  “It was a great first day,” she bluffed, “I can already tell I'm going to love it there.”

  “Oh, yes, it was a glorious first day, dahhhling,” Amanda teased in an affected accent, “Would you like to recap it or shall I?”

  Sam considered, “If I give it a shot, are you going to be constantly interjecting your observations and opinions?”

  “But of course!” Amanda shot back cheerfully.

  “OK, then, I guess I'll just leave you to it,” Sam concluded, resigned.

  “Perfect, I was hoping you'd say that. OK, here goes.”

  Amanda took a deep breath and looked at each person in the room, making meaningful eye contact with each of them to set the scene. She paused for a few seconds at Lauren, Karina, and Amy in turn – but Sam noticed that she didn't bother stopping and doing the eye contact thing with her. She probably figured that since Sam had been there during the original inciden
t, the scene was set enough for her.

  “Well, as you know by now, Sam's first day as one of Mountain Ridge's two resident ski pros was supposed to be spent helping me interview the applicants for the remaining position...”

  “And it was!” Sam defended.

  “Ha! We can discuss how effective your 'help' was during your first employee review, that's not the point of this story, though,” Amanda retorted.

  “Touché,” Sam conceded, and couldn't help chuckling at herself. She decided that the best way to get through this was just going to be to relax and try to ride it out, if not maybe even enjoy it a little bit.

  “So, I ran into the first applicant in the employee parking lot, as it happened, and offered to give him a little impromptu tour of the property. We were hitting it off, everything was going great, as we came down the hall toward my office. Through the crack in the door, which was slightly ajar, I saw Sam sitting on one of my visitor chairs, and I thought to myself – wow, this is really shaping up to be a smooth day. No surprises here!”

  “That's literally what you thought to yourself when you saw me sitting there? It seems a little on the nose,” Sam said incredulously.

  “You'll never know,” Amanda continued blithely, “At any rate, when the applicant and I walked into the room and I introduced him and Sam, she started actually choking on the coffee that she had been drinking! And when she tried to set the cup down, she missed the desk. It dropped straight onto the floor, and coffee spilled everywhere.”

  “Oh, my God, Sam! How embarrassing!” Karina exclaimed.

  “Thanks, Kar,” Sam replied dryly.

  “Not only that,” Amanda continued, “But when the choking went on...and on and on...and on and on and on...”

  “I think they get it, Mand” Sam interjected.

  “And on...” Amanda added one more for good measure before continuing, “The applicant pulled her upright and started patting her on the back. I think he would have done the Heimlich if there had been anything in there to expel!”

  “Wow, this story just took a disturbingly...biological...turn,” Lauren said, looking a little green, “Maybe we can save talk of 'expelling' until after snacks?”

  “Well,” Amanda continued, undaunted, “Needless to say, through the whole interview, Sam was a bundle of nerves. She jumped at the slightest sound, would barely say a word. And although she initially denied that any of this had anything to do with HIM, you will all be glad to know that later, when we were alone, I tricked her into admitting how SEXAY she found him.”

  “Ha!” Sam exclaimed, pointing a finger accusingly at Amanda, “So you admit you tricked me!”

  Amanda laughed, “I admitted it in the room!”

  “True,” Sam admitted, slightly deflated.

  “The best part, though...the absolute BEST part, was this – guess who the applicant was?”

  The girls all looked at each other, shaking their heads. None of them even had a guess to proffer.

  “Luke. Reynolds,” Amanda announced proudly.

  There was silence in the room. Sam could tell from Amanda's face that she interpreted the silence to indicate the depth to which she had shocked her friends with this revelation.

  After a moment, though, Karina said, “Who?”

  This caused Amanda's face to fall slightly, but she recovered quickly enough.

  “You know, you guys...remember all those POSTERS Sam had hanging on her walls in high school?”

  The girls stared at Amanda blankly for a moment more before finally Karina turned to Sam and said, “OH! Right. I remember. Gatorade Hottie. So, that's Luke Reynolds, huh? Dayum, girl. You done good!”

  “I didn't 'done' anything!” Sam protested.

  “Well,” Lauren pronounced matter-of-factly, “This sheds an entirely new light on events.”

  “Exactly,” Amanda agreed, pleased with herself.

  “No,” Sam said, in continuing protest. She recognized that her resolve to go with the flow was dissolving by the second, but she couldn't help herself as she pressed on, “There is no new light. There aren't even any events!”

  Amy looked confused, “Wait, who is Gatorade Hottie? Who's Luke Reynolds?”

  “Luke Reynolds is a fellow athlete. A colleague of mine,” Sam answered primly.

  “Bull dookie! He was your celebrity crush all through high school, and now he's going to be your fellow ski pro, working in close quarters, day in, day out....I'd imagine that he's soon to be your LOVAAAH!!!” Karina exclaimed delightedly.

  “Slow your roll there, rock star,” Sam said firmly, “No hiring decisions have been arrived at as of yet.”

  “Oh, Sammi,” Amanda faux-pouted, “Would you really make me not hire him? Would you really deprive Mountain Ridge of the by-FAR best applicant just because you have feelings for him?”

  “Hell!” Karina put in, “Not only should she not prevent you from hiring him because of her feelings, I think her feelings would be reason ENOUGH to hire the dude!”

  “Agreed,” said Amanda.

  “I don't have feelings for him,” Sam insisted.

  “You totally admitted to me in the office earlier that you did have feelings for him,” Amanda countered.

  “I admitted that I get butterflies and goosebumps,” Sam corrected.

  “What exactly do you think that 'feelings' are, then?” Amy interjected a bit timidly.

  Karina threw her head back and roared with laughter.

  “Girl,” she said to Amy, “You keep up remarks like that, and we may need to make it the fabulous five.”

  “I was actually being sincere,” Amy said apologetically, pushing her glasses further up her nose.

  “Even better,” Karina assured her.

  Amy looked at Sam, “So, is today the first time you've met him?”

  Sam shook her head, “We know each other. Somewhat, anyway. It's not like we're friends. We run in the same circle. We've been in the same place at the same time a lot over the years.”

  “Yes,” Amanda added, eyes sparkling, “And one of the times that you were in the same place, you were naked!”

  This got precisely the response from the group of girls that Sam was afraid that it would. They started whooping, whistling, hollering, and patting her on the back.

  “Oh, stop, I wasn't NAKED – I was just topless!” Sam yelled, but this only intensified their revelry.

  Sam laughed and flopped back on the couch, surrendering to the party atmosphere.

  “Fine, fine!” she conceded, “At least someone get me a glass of wine. If I'm going to tell the story of when Luke Reynolds saw me topless, I'm at least going to have a little alcoholic fortification first!”

  Never one to miss an opportunity to move a situation along by organizing or doing something practical, Lauren had a glass of Pinot Noir into Sam's hand before she had even finished her sentence. Sam took a long, grateful sip.

  “OK, so here's the deal on the toplessness,” she began regretfully, “Sadly, it's not nearly as sexy or scandalous as it sounds. Basically, I was doing this horrible photo shoot...you know, it's the one I told you about when I first came back to Hope Falls. They wanted me to pose with my snowboard in just this tiny little bikini bottom, and have my tatas be, I don't know, artfully obscured by the scenery, or the board, or my hands, or...something.”

  “She wore an itsy-bitsy, teeny weeny, bottom half of a bikini...” sang Karina, gleefully changing up the lyrics to more accurately mock Sam's uncomfortable situation. Sam stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Anyway, I obviously hated the idea. But the photographer and the wardrobe mistress were being so insistent about it, they were really pressuring me! Finally, they got me to agree to just try it on and see how I felt after that. Well, I'll tell you. How I felt was NAKED...vulnerable...exposed. I hated it!

  “I was just in the middle of yelling at the wardrobe mistress that there was no way on God's green earth I was letting ANYONE see me in that getup, let alone get my picture taken in it,
and that she should hand me my phone so that I could call Stephan. Somehow I did feel that my power position in the situation was mitigated somewhat by the fact that I was standing there in just my skivvies, nothing covering my chi-chis but my hands.”

  “Are you actually aware of the word breasts?” asked Lauren, “It's perfectly reasonable to call your breasts by their given anatomical name.”

  “Shut up, Lauren!” Karina jumped in, “She's got like, 45 more hilarious and uncomfortable euphemisms to get through before she has to start making up her own, and I'd really like to see where this goes!”

  “Anyway,” Sam continued, trying to ignore the interruptions and just power through the story, “This is the horrible part. All of a sudden, I hear this...like...hum behind me. Or a groan-ish sound. Like, 'hmmmmm....'

  “I turn my head around, and there is who else but Luke Freaking Reynolds, staring at my bootie!”

  “Get to the horrible part, sounds pretty good to me so far!” Karina said brightly, and the rest of the girls murmured in agreement – even Amy, Sam noted.

  “Well, I got so flustered when I saw him staring at my derriere, I unconsciously snapped my hands down to cover it. Not thinking about that fact that this would leave my....”

  “Breasts,” said Lauren firmly.

  “Hooters!” cried Karina gleefully.

  “...BOOBS uncovered,” Sam finished.

  “What did you do?” Amy asked breathlessly.

  “Hopefully she stood there for a good long minute and let him get a look at the merchandise!” Karina giggled,

  “Nope, the opposite, in fact. I ran behind a curtain and screamed at him to get out of there,” Sam said miserably.

  “That's one way to go,” Lauren said with a small smile.

  “And that was the last time I saw him. Until this morning, that is. When his first glimpse of me consisted of me, red-faced and bent over, hacking up a lung because I swallowed my coffee wrong.”

  “Oh, Sammi,” said Amanda affectionately, settling into the couch next to her and giving her a comforting squeeze around the shoulders, “You DO love to give a powerful impression, don't ya?”