Seduction on the Slopes

by Tamsen Parker

  “Nothing.” I know I sound like a surly teenager but I’m embarrassed. It’s bad enough Crash is blowing me off, but to have to tell my mother? That is a bridge too far.

  “It’s that Crash, isn’t it? Are you worried about him?”

  Truth is, yes, a little. Which is insulting to Crash. Guy’s made it on his own since he was sixteen. He doesn’t need life advice from a thirty-one-year-old trust fund baby who still lives with his parents and has no earthly idea what he’s going to do with himself after the SIGs are over. At least Crash has a goddamn clue what he’s doing with his life once he’s done here. No matter the outcome, the only way his fortunes could go is up, whereas mine will just be . . . over.

  I shrug. “Not really. He’s a resourceful guy.”

  “Something’s bothering you.”

  Why must she always be able to tell? The bangles on her wrist clank together as she rubs my shoulder, and she takes a sip of her wine while she waits for me to spit it out. Except I take too long, so she starts in on one of her other tried-and-true Yvonne Palmer methods to crack her reticent son wide open, same way she’d crack eggs over the skillet one-handed on Sunday mornings while she read the Arts & Leisure section of the paper: looking effortless and stylish.

  “Are your knees hurting?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Are you worried about your race?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Have you been getting enough iron?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Is Ted giving you a hard time?”

  I smirk in the face of her rapid-fire interrogation, and also because Ted turned when he heard his name. “No more than usual.”

  “So it’s this Crash boy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Fuck it all. She lulls me into a false sense of security and the easy rhythm of answering easy questions, and then bam.

  “What about him? Do you think he’s not ready?”

  “He’s as ready as I could get him in the time allotted.”

  She smiles, and because she’s my mom, tweaks my nose. “You’re as precise with your language as you are on your skis. A simple ‘no’ wouldn’t suffice. It sounds like he’s going to race fine. You said you’re not worried something happened to him. So it’s . . .”

  She narrows her eyes and examines my face. Like a petulant child, I shrug up my shoulders and turn my head, avoiding her like she’s going to give me a wet willy or something. Maybe it’s time for me to get my own place. I don’t think I can live with this all the time now that I won’t be living at training facilities for a good part of the year.

  “I’ve got all night, Miles.”

  I love my mom, and I have her to thank for my perseverance, but I could seriously do without her being this way with me. “Fine, okay? I give up. I can go head to head with the meanest people on skis, survive hours of below-freezing temperatures, endure hours of brutal conditioning, but you . . .” I cluck my tongue.

  My parents know I’m gay. They’ve never seemed to care much. They also know I’m far more dedicated to skiing than to finding someone to settle down with, so they don’t ask about my partners much. Probably because I don’t have much to say. One-night stands aren’t really something you want to chat about with your parents over Sunday dinner.

  I take a breath, and let it out through my nose. “He said he’d be here. He’s not here.”

  “Casper’s not here either.”

  That’s true. But he’d also never said he would be. In fact, he’d told me he couldn’t come because he and his wife—who’s a good bet for a medal in the half-pipe—were having a quiet night in before her event tomorrow. Also, while I like Casper . . . he’s not Crash. Not that skinny-assed, floppy-haired, positively maddening man who gives outstanding fellatio.

  “Do you maybe . . . like this boy?”

  “It would be easier to say yes if you stopped calling him a boy.”

  My mother’s eyebrows go up. “I see. So you do. Like this man.”

  “Maybe. Sometimes. When I don’t want to strangle him. It’s complicated.”

  I can tell that a whole heap of questions is about to flood out of her mouth, but deliverance comes in the form of my father clinking his wine glass with his knife and standing, because the man is physically incapable of not giving a toast at these things.

  “Thank you all so much for coming tonight. We’re so pleased to be able to host a dinner for the USA alpine team for the fourth time in a row.”

  Ted cups his hands around his mouth and shouts to me over the polite applause. “You know that’s why you keep making the team, right, old man?”

  Okay, that’s fine. This is the kind of teasing I can take. Far preferable to my mother’s meddling in my nonexistent love life. I toss a roll at Ted’s head, but end up beaning him in the shoulder. “As good a reason as any.”

  Crash

  The campground the cab lets me off at isn’t nice. Not that I was expecting it to be. They never are. But this one is worse than usual, the snow piled up in brownish-grey piles crowned with dog shit and yellow spots. Classy.

  I find my parents’ van in the back of what’s basically a parking lot, not really a campground at all. Same van they’ve had my whole life, and it doesn’t look much worse for wear from the last time I saw it. Hard to tell if there’s an extra dent here or there on something that old.

  When I get close, the side door pops open, and my mom sticks her head out, her long hair curling and grey as she beckons to me. “Come in, come in. It’s cold out there.”

  It is, but I’d almost rather stay out here because out here I can breathe. Yeah, the air is so frigid it stiffens the hair in my nostrils, but it’s clean, crisp. Inside it’s much warmer but there’s also the cloying, claustrophobic smells of weed, incense, and whatever weird-ass mung bean tea my mom’s decided has magical powers this week.

  The other thing is that it’s small. Really small. The place seems to get smaller every time I see my parents, even though I’m pretty sure I stopped growing like three years ago. How did the six of us ever fit in here? Speaking of . . . “Where’s Junie?”

  Easy to tell my younger sister’s not here, because I can see the whole place from my seat on the bench just inside the door. The cushion’s so old a spring is poking me in the ass on one side and seems to sag on the other.

  My dad’s sitting cross-legged on the mattress in the back that has tapestries tied back to open the space up the rest of the van. He also happens to have a giant glass bong in front of him, and holy shit would I love to take a toke off that, but I won’t because not only would Miles murder me with his bare hands, but I’d have to see that disappointed look on his face while he did it.

  He even offers it to me, which, what the fuck? Does he not realize why I’m here and that I could get disqualified from the games for smoking? “No, thanks, Dad. Where’s Junie?”

  My parents look at each other, their heads tilted like mirror images and they seem to communicate without words. Finally my mother’s mouth twitches. “Arcata? Or was it Mount Shasta last?”

  “Northern California though, definitely,” my dad concurs. “Last time we heard from Juniper anyway.”

  That’s cool. My baby sister’s nineteen and they don’t know where she is. I don’t know why I thought it would be different. I should find out. Make sure she’s okay. Last I knew Rain was in Eugene, and there’s a picture of what looks like her with a hipster-looking guy and a tow-headed baby in her arms tucked in the corkboard that’s attached to the back of the passenger’s seat.

  If Miles were here, I can imagine him counting the numerous safety violations in this vehicle, and probably passing out, because the thing is a deathtrap. It would be funny, but also crazy uncomfortable for everyone involved, except maybe my parents who would likely be too stoned to notice exactly how horrified Miles would be.

  “Your brother called a few weeks ago. He just took a job with the Google in Mountain View. Sounds like he’s
doing well, but we didn’t talk for long.” Yeah, Cedar left before I did and somehow made good for himself. Probably tried to get off the phone before my parents could hit him up for cash. I’m sure they’ll ask me if I have anything to spare before I leave. Which I do. Fifty dollars I’ve kept tucked in the back of my wallet just in case they showed up.

  We talk for a while about where they’ve been, where they’re going, and they ask me some about the SIGs, but they don’t even seem to know enough about the games to ask good questions. Sometimes I feel like they live on an alternate plane of reality.

  “So . . .” When I’ve got both of their attention, I take a quick breath before I can ask them a question I probably already know the answer to, but in case things have changed, I ask it with hope anyway. “You guys going to be around for a few days? I could get you tickets to my events.”

  Again they look at each other, and their silent communication riles me. Turning back, my mom gives me an apologetic smile. “We wish we could, sweetie. But the campgrounds around here are charging a fortune. The manager’s already stopped by to ask for money twice today.”

  Which means they didn’t have enough to pay and are probably planning to ditch out in the middle of the night. I try not to let my disappointment show that they can’t get their shit together even long enough to stay for the biggest thing that’s ever going to happen for me.

  “Actually,” my dad pipes up. “We were wondering if you might be able to help us out a little, now that you’re a famous skier and all. You must be rolling in the dough, right?”

  That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. My wealth is wrapped up in my equipment, and if I don’t do really freaking well in the races they don’t give a shit about, I won’t have anything else to show for it. But I pull my wallet out of my back pocket and extract the bills, don’t fail to notice that my dad looks disappointed when he takes the two twenties and a ten between his stained fingers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Miles

  Crash is back well before curfew. So much before that I kind of expect him to just be back to grab a hat or some other thing he forgot, because the guy is incapable of leaving someplace in one piece, but he doesn’t. He closes the door, locks it and then stands there, looking shell-shocked. What’s up with that?

  If I thought he wanted to talk to me, I’d ask, but I can’t imagine he doesn’t know I’m here and he’s not acknowledging me. That’s fine. He can have his space—as much of it as a person can get around here, anyway.

  He’d left in kind of a distracted hurry earlier and I thought it’d had to do with the phone call he got right after he finished fucking my brains out, but who knows with that guy. Also, my head was still kind of scrambled, and I feel like we’ve come to an understanding. He’s not going to do anything to jeopardize his career now, so I trust him not to do anything stupid. Well, epically stupid anyway.

  I wasn’t exactly happy that he missed the team dinner my parents hosted, but I’m not going to make a big deal out of that. Yes, I’d wanted him to come, be there, introduce him to my folks, but it wasn’t an official obligation. He didn’t have to come, so I’m not going to give him shit about not showing up. I would tell him it made me feel bad if we were dating or something, but we’re not, so I don’t particularly feel as though I’m allowed to have an opinion one way or another.

  But would it have killed him to text so I didn’t spend half the time with my eye on the door?

  Whatever.

  I must read the same page a dozen times while he stands there, and finally I can’t take it anymore. “Hey, you okay?”

  The way he looks at me, maybe he is surprised I’m here. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

  “Because you’ve been standing there for like an hour.”

  “I have?”

  I think he believes me. It’s been more like ten minutes which is disconcerting enough, but an hour? What is his deal? My irritation is momentarily overwhelmed by concern. He is really out of it. “No, I’m kidding, but it’s been a while. Come, sit.”

  I pat a space on my single bed, not expecting him to actually come over, but instead of sitting on his own bed across from me, he sits where I told him to. What else could I get the kid to do in this state? He’s hypnotized or something.

  Or something is right. As soon as he sits down, I smell it. That pungent, unmistakably earthy scent. Pot. As soon as my brain processes it, my emotions go into nuclear meltdown. Anger, disbelief, disgust, resentment, but worst of all, betrayal. They sour my stomach, make my heartrate go through the roof. He was smoking up instead of going to the team dinner with my parents? He’s jeopardizing his participation in the SIGs to get high? Which is of course the really important part. Not that he blew me off.

  “What the fuck, Crash?”

  His eyes go wide with shock, wounded, like I punched him. I want to. I’m clutching the book in my hands so hard I’ll probably crease the pages, which is a cardinal sin in my mind, but seriously?

  “How could you?”

  He blinks at me again, like he has no earthly idea what I’m so upset about. Crash might seem like he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but A, I know better, and B, even a fucking idiot should know what I’m talking about. He could at least have the good grace to look sheepish. Ashamed would be better. Squirming like a guilty worm on a hook would be best of all, because I’m feeling vindictive.

  “How could I what?”

  “Don’t screw with me. Maybe I haven’t had much of a life, and no, I don’t party like you, but I still know what pot smells like, and you reek. Did you think I wouldn’t know? That I wouldn’t realize? Or did you just not care?”

  Some people close in on themselves when they’re angry, some people yell. Some people throw shit and hit people, which as much as I understand the urge, I won’t do. But I can’t sit here pretending I don’t know. Because I do, and after all the help I’ve given him, after all the work we’ve done, after everything we’ve been through, he gets high? It has nothing to do with the fact that he was supposed to be with me and instead just wandered off. Nope, not a lick. But the rest of it? Betrayed is an understatement, but I can’t find another word that fits.

  I push off the bed, knocking his shoulder with mine and start to pace, hands gripping my head. How could you? How could you? How could you? That’s the drumbeat pounding in my head, that’s what I want to yell in his face while I shake him.

  If I’ve ever been this angry before in my life, I can’t remember it. Maybe it’s like pain. You remember the fact that it hurt, badly, but you can’t recall the exact sensation. Probably better that way, although it lets you forget. How badly you’ve been hurt, how you never want to feel that way again. I can’t stop pacing, and I can’t look at him.

  Maybe he’ll leave. Maybe I won’t even have to say anything. Can he tell how furious I am? I feel like I’ve made it embarrassingly clear, but he and I don’t understand people the same way.

  After I make the next turn at the edge of the room, I walk square into a wall. No, not a wall. A man. A man who wraps his arms around my ribcage and squeezes so hard I lose my breath. I take my hands away from my face, but look over his shoulder.

  “Let me go. I don’t want to look at you right now, never mind touch you.”

  My body makes me a liar, which infuriates me more. What I’d like to do is shove him down on the bed, drag his pants over his hips and fuck him raw. When I was done and he was sorry, so goddamn sorry, because he could feel in his body how much he hurt me in my soul, I’d leave him there and go cry my ugly stupid tears in our cramped shower.

  I don’t fuck angry though, no matter how tempting it is. Crash must be able to feel how furious I am. I’m practically vibrating with it, and my muscles feel oddly brittle. Like if he holds me any harder I’m going to shatter.

  But the jackass doesn’t let go. Just nudges me on one side of my ribcage and leans into me, his scruffy cheek a hair’s breadth from my smooth one. The urge to give
in and close the gap is almost unbearable, but this close I can smell his betrayal. His infidelity.

  “Let. Me. Go.”

  Can he hear the way my teeth grind together at the back of my jaw? I’m this close to breaking.

  “You know weed is legal here, right?”

  That’s it. My brain has gone supernova, blinding me from the inside. All my senses have malfunctioned and I’m now a seething mass of hatred. No one has ever made me feel as much as Crash, and I hate him for it. While at the same time I want all the best things for him, to help him succeed, to tease him and spoil him, to have him be mine from his mismatched socks all the way to the top of his sheepdog hair.

  “Earth to Miles? Have I lost radio contact?” His voice is soft, coaxing, as if he thinks we’re closer to having sex than me murdering him.

  Sane money’s on me completely losing my shit and going on a rampage. Trashing the place, including Crash’s unkempt person. But the thing is, I’ve never reacted sanely to him a day in my life. I should’ve told Ted to pass him over, I should’ve let Sully move on up, I should’ve, should’ve, should’ve . . . But I never did. In the face of his preposterousness, I react in the only way my brain can. Logic.

  “Weed is legal in the state of Colorado, yes, but it’s not—”

  “Chill, dude. I don’t need you to cite SIG regulations. I didn’t smoke.”

  “But—”

  He clutches me to him, his lean body pressed against my broader one, and finally lays his cheek against mine. A breath leaves my body entirely without my consent and I’m half-irritated, half-relieved.

  “I promise you, I didn’t smoke. Or hotbox a car or anything else. I know I’m a fuckup, but I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Part of me bristles that he’s worried about me and not himself—have you not listened to anything I’ve told you, you giant pain in my ass?—but the backs of my eyes sting with unshed tears, because the other part of me is just so touched. He wouldn’t hurt me that way. He wouldn’t do that to me. I mean something to him. He—