She smiled again. “I’m sure. I should probably quit while I’m ahead. There’s still the danger of me breaking something if I get too cocky.”
He lingered—probably for too long—then headed toward the lift. While he was with Quinn, Jaden had come around more than once, updating him on his progress. Hinting that he wanted him to come back to slopes that weren’t made for children. Grady had a suspicion Quinn was feeling bad for monopolizing him when her nephew’s happiness was so important to her.
He liked the way she looked out for the kid.
A few hours later, after several trips down the most challenging slope Avalanche Mountain had to offer, Jaden and Grady walked toward the lodge. Jaden was replaying their entire day, as if it were a distant memory he wanted to relive over and over again.
They spotted Carly and Quinn at a table in the Avalanche Café. Quinn had surprised him, the way she’d eventually let herself enjoy her trips down the hill.
“It’s like second nature to you—and the way you move, ” Jaden was saying when they came up on the table, “it’s not like anyone else. I can’t believe your coaches tried to get you to change your form.”
Grady met Quinn’s eyes. He should probably give Jaden some sort of safe advice about listening to his coaches, but he didn’t regret his choice to buck the system, and he wouldn’t tell the kid otherwise.
“And then the way you smoked those idiots up there.” Jaden’s voice grew louder, his eyes wider, replaying the incident. The same kids he and Quinn had seen on the chair lift seemed intent on provoking him, but it only took one run to shut them up. “You guys should’ve seen it—these guys were giving Grady a hard time, saying he didn’t have a shot at the Olympics this year, and Grady was awesome. They looked so stupid, like kids on the bunny hill trying to keep up with him. No offense, Aunt Quinn.”
She was looking at Grady incredulously, the slightest trace of a smirk on her face.
“Hey, at least I didn’t punch the guy,” Grady said.
“Yeah, at least there’s that, or you’d never get out of Harbor Pointe.” Quinn shook her head. “What happened to not having to prove yourself to guys like that?”
Grady shrugged. She may never understand it, but he knew as soon as that guy mouthed off to him again, he wasn’t going to be able to let it go. But yeah, up here he could put him in his place without putting him on the ground. It was a good trade-off, he thought, though Quinn seemed unimpressed by the whole thing.
“Can we get dinner?” Jaden asked. “I’m starving.”
“Did you stop for food at all today?” Carly asked.
Jaden shook his head.
“Why don’t we all go out?” Grady asked. “We can celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” Jaden asked.
“Quinn trying something new for the first time in decades,” Carly said.
Quinn stiffened, annoyance on her face.
“I was going to say, ‘Quinn learning how to ski.’”
“Yeah,” Jaden said. “And we can talk about that competition I want to enter next month.”
Carly shot him a look.
“You said we could talk about it. And I’ve kept my grades up.”
“What competition?” Quinn asked.
“Some competition Jaden’s been talking about for a month,” Carly said, putting her phone and her sunglasses in her purse.
“It’s at a ski club up north. They have way better runs,” Jaden said, that trademark excitement on his face. “We should go up there—maybe Grady can come up and give me some pointers before the race.”
Quinn frowned. “I’m sure Grady has other things to do, Jaden.”
“Not really,” Grady said. “I’ll go. If the judge will let me.”
Instinctively, all eyes found Quinn. She bristled. “Why are you looking at me?”
“You’ve got an in with Judge, Aunt Q,” Jaden said. “He loves you like you’re his own kid.”
“He loves Carly, too,” Quinn said.
“Not like he loves you.” Carly was very matter-of-fact. “You’ve never faced him in the courtroom.”
Grady felt his eyes widen.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Carly said with a wave.
“Will you talk to him, Aunt Quinn? Grady needs to ski somewhere other than here to get ready for his race anyway.”
“Wait.” That wrinkled line was back in her forehead. “Did you put him up to this?”
“No, we didn’t even talk about any of this,” Jaden said. “I wanted him to see me ski, then ask him if he thought I was ready.” The kid almost looked embarrassed.
Quinn’s eyebrows drew together in a familiar motion. “What kind of skiing is this?”
“Alpine skiing. Like what Grady does.”
Quinn’s head moved back and forth, as if the action were involuntary. “No way, Jaden. You’re not ready for that.”
“I am so. Ask Grady.”
Uh-oh.
She shot him a look and his hands went up in surrender—that action was involuntary. “Let’s go grab some food and we can talk more about it.”
“It’s too dangerous, Jaden,” Quinn said. “Carly, you’re not on board with this, are you?”
Concern washed over Quinn’s sister’s face. “How dangerous are we talking here? Jaden skis all the time.”
“Have you seen the way Grady skis?”
“Have you seen the way I ski?”
Quinn looked caught.
He tried—really hard—not to smile. Had she looked him up?
“I’m ready, Aunt Quinn. I swear.”
“I need to head back to the shop,” Quinn said.
“Aren’t they redoing your floor?” Carly asked. “You won’t even be able to get in.”
“There’s still a lot I can do.” Quinn grabbed her bag and stood.
“Well, I’m starving.” Grady purposely blocked her way, and she didn’t look happy about it.
“You can drop me off and go grab something to eat.” Quinn planted herself right in front of where he stood and glared up at him. “Hazel’s is right down the street.”
“I don’t really want diner food tonight. Do you have another suggestion?” He was just being difficult and he knew it. She knew it too, but he didn’t mind making her squirm.
“We can go get pizza at Dockside,” Jaden said.
“Sounds great,” Grady said, eyes still fixed on Quinn.
“Dockside is in Summers Bay, Jaden,” Quinn said.
“So?”
“Grady isn’t allowed to go anywhere but the ski slope.” She was just being difficult now, and she knew it. She locked her eyes on his in an intoxicating battle of wills.
She had no idea whom she was challenging. Grady didn’t back down from anything.
“I’ll call Dad, Quinn,” Carly said. “I haven’t had pizza in weeks. I might eat a whole one by myself.”
Grady opened his mouth as if to challenge her back, and Carly and Jaden walked off.
“I really need to get back,” Quinn said.
“As soon as we’re done eating, I’ll take you home.”
He could see the irritation work its way through her as she straightened her shoulders and glared at him.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.” He grinned at her, but she continued to glare. “I was so hopeful I wasn’t going to see that anymore after today.” He pointed at her forehead, but before he touched her, she swatted his hand away.
“Just because I agreed to go skiing doesn’t mean I’m going to shirk all my responsibilities to eat pizza with you.”
“It’s Saturday night, Q.” Grady picked up his bag. “And we haven’t eaten any real food all day. Give yourself a break.”
She groaned. “Fine. But we aren’t staying out late.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She stormed past him and he turned to follow her, catching the eye of a blonde sitting at the next table. Grady couldn’t be sure, but he thought maybe he’d taken a picture with her earlier. Sh
e lifted a hand and waved at him. He waved back and started toward the door. Time was, he would’ve slid into that booth across from her and let nature take its course, but as he caught sight of Quinn, Carly, and Jaden waiting for him, he found he had no desire to waste time on a casual acquaintance who would never be anything more.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” Grady said when they pulled up in front of the restaurant. “It really is a hole-in-the-wall.”
On the drive to Summers Bay, Quinn had listened to her sister and nephew go on and on about Dockside, the tiny pizza joint they’d adopted as the Collins family favorite. With a single father, she and Carly had grown up eating pizza at least once—sometimes twice—a week, and after they’d tried every restaurant within a twenty-mile radius, Dockside had won out.
“You’re setting the bar a little too high, you guys,” Quinn said from the backseat. “The lower the expectations, the better it will be.”
Carly elbowed her in reprimand.
Quinn was grumpy, and it showed. It was all she could do not to call a cab to come get her and take her back to the flower shop.
Facing the lake, Dockside Pizza was a nondescript gray building with a hand-painted sign out front. There was a closed-up window with a red awning on the side of the building.
“In the summer, you can get pizza by the slice at the window, so lots of people come up from the beach,” Jaden said.
Grady parked and looked out over the water.
“It’s usually nicer here. Winter isn’t the greatest weather,” Jaden said.
“I disagree,” Grady said. “I live for winter.”
Jaden grinned. “Right. I live for winter too.”
Quinn shot Carly a look. Her sister smiled. Had Carly forgotten? Grady was not a good role model for her son.
Grady’s phone buzzed.
“You need to take that?” Quinn asked.
He stared at the image of a man’s face on the screen, then quickly hit the Decline button. “Nah, I’ll call him back.”
They walked into Dockside, and Terrance, a round man with a sliver of a mustache, greeted them. He stood behind a small podium next to a rack of menus. Behind him, the wood slats on the walls were painted white. The red, white, and gray theme carried throughout the small space. Not a traditional pizza joint, for sure, yet it fit here on the beach. The smell of tomato sauce and baking dough wafted through the small space, and Quinn’s stomach growled.
Fine. She was hungry, but she wasn’t about to admit that to any of them.
“Ah, the Collins family is back,” Terrance said. “It’s been too long.”
“It’s gotten busy, but we needed our Dockside fix,” Carly said. “Terrance, this is Grady Benson.”
Terrance’s eyes widened. “The skier?”
Great. A fan.
Grady flashed him that trademark smile—she’d seen it online in nearly every single posed photo that had popped up when she made the mistake of googling Grady Benson.
It wasn’t like she wanted to dig up every little bit of information on the man. She was simply trying to figure out what he was like—for Jaden’s sake.
Still, she’d closed the door of her office at the flower shop and looked over her shoulder—twice—before actually typing in his name.
Hundreds of thousands of pages popped up.
Her eyes scanned the top results. A Wikipedia page, a Twitter account—she clicked on that one but quickly learned someone else was likely managing it for him—a link to his profile on the US Alpine Ski Team website.
She clicked on each one, then on an article titled “Grady Benson’s Olympic Dreams Slip through His Fingers.”
As her eyes danced across the screen, the picture of what was at stake for Grady came into focus.
She had no idea—and was almost a little embarrassed by it—that he was such a big deal. He wasn’t just a skier, or even just an Olympian. He was supposedly some kind of legend in his sport. If he didn’t make it back on the team, it would be a huge upset.
This whole time she’d been so focused on his faults, she hadn’t given a single thought to the pain he could possibly be feeling over his current situation.
She clicked on a video embedded in the article. Then another and another. Races, interviews, profiles—she watched it all, even found herself getting caught up in the excitement as he keenly maneuvered his way down impossibly challenging slopes.
At one point she’d let out an audible gasp as he tumbled, head over feet, then slid humiliatingly down the side of the mountain. She’d checked the shop again after that, for fear of someone—Grady—walking in on her. He seemed to have a way of showing up unannounced.
This pro athlete business was beyond the realm of anything she could imagine. Understanding that made a lot of what he did make a little more sense, yet so many things about him remained a mystery.
Why he didn’t get along with his coaches, for instance. Why they all said he had more natural talent than anyone they’d ever seen, but when it came to working through the stuff that didn’t come easily to him, he faltered. Why he hadn’t been back home in over fifteen years.
The Internet gave her only so much information. If she wanted the details to fill in those blanks, she knew she’d have to go straight to the source.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
Terrance was flat-out gushing by this point, so much so that even Grady had started to look uncomfortable.
“Terrance, is it okay if we sit at our usual table?” She interrupted him, but her tone was kind.
Terrance’s bushy eyebrows lifted, and his eyes widened with excitement. “Of course. Head back there, and I’ll send someone over.”
He walked away, muttering, “Grady Benson, as I live and breathe . . .”
Grady glanced at her. “Thanks for that.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” she said. “I’m starving.” It slipped out before she could catch herself.
His face lit up. “Huh. I guess it’s a good thing we stopped, then.”
She ignored him and led the way to a table near a window that faced the beach. She’d always loved this spot at Dockside, even when she was a kid and even in the winter. It was as if sitting there, in this little hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, the rest of the world faded away and all she could see for miles was the beach, the lake, and endless possibilities.
A familiar leggy blonde showed up at their table with a pitcher of water.
“Well, look who it is.” Ashley Perkins was eyeing Grady unashamedly. When he met her eyes, surprise registered on his face.
“Hey.” He shifted in his seat as if it were suddenly covered with bristles.
Ashley filled their glasses with water, moving around the table but focusing solely on Grady as though the rest of them weren’t there. She stopped when she reached his glass. “You never called me.”
Quinn had the distinct impression he did not remember Ashley’s name—and she wasn’t about to help him.
If Ashley lingered too long, Quinn’s memory would betray her, flashing images of the two of them exiting the Lucky Lady that night.
More than once she’d wondered how that night had ended, though she’d tried and tried not to fill in the blanks.
There it was again—that sense of inferiority, which, if she was honest, felt a lot like jealousy.
“Sorry,” Grady mumbled.
Ashley let her hand rest on his shoulder. “You’re forgiven.” She laughed. “You look good, Grady.”
She sauntered off.
“Man,” Jaden said. “Is that what it’s always like for you?”
Quinn could see admiration in Jaden’s face, and it twisted her stomach in a knot. The Internet had also been quite forthcoming with information about Grady’s many, many romantic entanglements. At one point, he’d even had to get a restraining order against someone who kept breaking into his condo because she was convinced they were married.
What kind of world did he live in that something like that was nor
mal?
“Jaden,” Carly scolded him.
“What? It’s awesome.” Jaden laughed and Quinn drew in a deep breath to keep herself from exploding.
“This is just what I said would happen,” Quinn said.
Carly glared at her.
“What did you say would happen?” Grady sat there, looking a little too comfortable, as if he was perfectly fine with all of it. But Quinn wasn’t fine.
“Nothing,” Carly said.
“This. You and Jaden.” Quinn should stop talking. She heard a tiny voice inside her tell her so, but she swatted it away. “The way he idolizes you. You are not the kind of man a fifteen-year-old boy should be looking up to.”
Grady’s face fell.
“Quinn, stop,” Carly said.
Quinn pressed her lips together, as if that could keep the words from spilling out.
“No, don’t stop,” Grady said. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
“One who takes drunk girls he hardly knows home with him and then doesn’t call them the next day,” Quinn said, her voice a loud whisper. “I’m betting you don’t even remember her name.”
Grady started to respond but quickly snapped his jaw shut.
She made sure her expression appropriately conveyed her satisfaction.
Grady leaned across the table, toward her. “I didn’t sleep with her if that’s what you think.”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Why wouldn’t you believe that? It’s the truth.”
“Because I read all about your love life, Grady. You’ve got a new girl on your arm in almost every non-skiing photo there is of you on the Internet.”
Did I just say that out loud?
“So what? That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with all of them,” he said.
“Aren’t you?”
“No!” He straightened, something like anger flashing across his face.
His response took her aback. Wasn’t he? That’s the way every website made it sound—Grady Benson was a playboy, a womanizer, and he’d left a trail of lovers in his wake.
“Why do you care anyway?” he asked.
“I don’t.” But even she knew it was a lie.
And the fact that she did care was every bit as maddening as the man himself.
Just Let Go Page 19
