Chapter 2
Chapter two
Sergio always sleeps like the dead. Sleepless nights are for people who know shame.
A concept Sergio isn’t familiar with. It’s how he’s missed countless phone calls, roaring storms, and a robbery happening in his Paris hotel room.
It’s no wonder he doesn’t hear the fast-approaching footsteps and subsequent leap of a five-year-old mere seconds before said five-year-old lands on the bed, kneeing him directly in the balls.
“Uncle Sergio! Wake up!”
“Oof …” Sergio’s stomach lurches from the impact, causing him to cough.
“Morning, buddy,” he wheezes out as he tries to catch his breath from the worst wake-up of his life.
Gus hisses underneath the bed and then goes careening out of the room.
On the bright side, it would appear from Henry’s enthusiastic entrance that he’s no longer upset with Sergio for last night’s minor incident with Jeremy Owens.
“Dad said to come get you. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“Did your dad tell you to jump on the bed as well?” Sergio asks, figuring there’s a high probability that he did.
“No.” Henry giggles and looks away with flushed cheeks.
“Are both your mom and dad downstairs?”
“Yes.” Henry starts pulling on Sergio’s arm, trying, struggling, and failing to get him to sit up.
Sergio uses his strength and leverage to yank Henry down and into his hold, cuddling him close to his chest. “What about Jeremy? Is he here?”
“No,” Henry says. “You should go tell him you’re sorry.”
“Oh really? Is that what you think?”
“Yes.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Mom and Dad always tell me to say sorry when I do something bad.”
“Do you do bad things often?”
“No.”
“Me neither,” Sergio says and ignores the niggling sense in the back of his head that’s telling him maybe Henry’s right.
Besides, no one wants to take advice from someone who can’t tie their own shoelaces.
Especially when the advice is regarding a mishap that will eventually blow over.
This insignificant blip will be irrelevant in a matter of days, maybe even hours.
He gives Henry a firm squeeze. “Did you wake up your Uncle Adrien yet?”
“No.” Henry laughs as Sergio tickles his sides.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.” More laughing.
“Good.” Sergio lets go of him and finally sits up in bed, rubbing his face. “Go get him and make sure you wake him up the same way you did me, okay?”
“Okay!” Henry yells as he jumps off the bed, throws two enthusiastic thumbs up into the air over his head, and goes thundering out the door and down the hall.
Sergio waits until he hears the telltale oof of Adrien being woken up in Henry’s special manner before he rises and exits the room, smiling and laughing to himself, clad in the sweatpants and T-shirt he fell asleep in.
Once downstairs, the reception Sergio gets from Rose is best described as chilly. She moves around, refusing to look in his direction.
Holden, however, is his usual jovial self with his bright smile and exuberant greeting. “Good morning, shithead!”
Rose brushes past him to open a cabinet without a word, and he’s pretty sure Gus is trying to trip him by getting underfoot. He smiles and turns on his charm, an attribute of his personality that has never failed him.
“Lemme get that,” he says, sidling up to Rose and taking the plates she pulled from the cabinet out of her hands. “Sit. Get comfortable. I’ll set the table.”
“Thanks,” she says, her tone crisp. She avoids making eye contact, then spins around and whips him across the chin with her full red ponytail. It smells like orange blossoms.
Sergio looks to Holden for help. All he gets is a subtle, apologetic shrug that feels more like an indictment of Sergio than an apology for Rose’s well-aimed strike. Alright, she’s still pissed, Sergio figures, so he tries a new tactic.
“Where’s Jeremy?” he asks, purposely lifting his voice to exaggerate curiosity.
Rose, looking at him for the first time, glares. “Avoiding you, obviously.”
Sergio turns his back to her and winces, then takes a breath and tries to break through her defenses again. Taking a seat and leaving the dishes she handed him on the counter, he asks, “So your new skater, she’s really promising, huh?”
Rose looks across the table at him with her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. “Do you actually care?”
“Yeah,” Sergio says, stung. After all, Rose is family.
Of course, he’s interested in what she’s doing.
Same as he assumes she’s interested in what he has going on in his career.
Which, speaking of … “I could take some promotional pictures of her while I’m here if you’d like. Free of charge, of course.”
Rose tilts her head in thought. Her eyes are penetrating as she stares at him, and she appears to be at war with herself as she weighs her options as to what to do with Sergio’s offer.
Finally, her gaze softens slightly, and her head shifts upright.
“That actually would be nice. Since we’ve moved to the barn, we haven’t had the same press coverage or candid shots that we normally would.
Thanks, Sergio. We’ll figure something out for later in the week. ”
“Yeah, no problem,” he says, smiling as Holden drops off the dishes Sergio hadn’t bothered to bring over, along with a pot of coffee. Sergio pours himself a cup.
“But don’t think this means you can openly flirt with Allison while you shoot,” Rose says. She reaches and takes the cup of coffee Sergio poured for himself and enjoys a pointed sip. Her eyes focus intensely on him over the brim of the mug.
Without flinching under her intense, warning stare, he pours another cup. “I’ll be strictly professional,” he promises her.
“A strictly professional pain in the butt,” Adrien says as he enters the kitchen with Henry dangling upside down from his shoulders, laughing gleefully. “Did he volunteer us for work?”
“Only himself,” Rose assures and takes the second cup of coffee Sergio poured for himself and holds it out to Adrien as he places Henry back down on the ground.
“Thanks,” Adrien says as he takes it.
Sergio pours yet another cup.
“Breakfast is served!” Holden says, delivering plates of pancakes and bacon and sliced fresh fruit.
Rose takes Sergio’s latest mug of coffee and places it in front of where Holden takes a seat.
Sergio furrows his brow in frustration. He looks up at her, and she’s ignoring him again, pretending she hasn’t stolen three cups of coffee from him while she helps Henry pour syrup all over his food.
“Eat up! We’re gonna need all the calories we can get for the slopes today,” Holden says.
“Can’t wait!” Sergio says, shaking off Rose’s trick and pouring himself one more cup of coffee from the dregs of the pot. He senses her reaching for it before he gets a chance to take a sip and pulls it from her grasp. “Oh no. Not this time.”
“‘Not this time’ what?” She smiles, feigning innocence, as the rest of the table begins to eat their breakfast.
On the slopes, Sergio is back in his groove.
He’s enjoying himself, loving every run he makes down the mountain, breathing in the cool, fresh air laced with the soft flavor of the sugar pines.
It’s fun, even without Holden—who’s busy teaching Henry how to glide down the trails on the bunny hills—while Sergio and Adrien make the larger runs together.
For what feels like the first time in ages, there’s a lightness between the brothers as they chase each other and carve fresh lines through the powdery snow.
They challenge each other to races and toss snowballs at one another in the mountain basin before climbing aboard another chairlift.
Sometimes they slowly glide and meander down, taking wide arcs and turns to take in the sights while Sergio snaps pictures and brief video clips with his GoPro along the way, documenting the levity of their traditional New Year’s Eve activities.
Up here, in Lake Placid, it’s easy to reconnect.
Riding the chairlift for their last run before they’re set to meet Holden, Rose, and Henry for lunch and a warm-up by the local lodge’s fireplace, Sergio pulls his GoPro out again and snaps a few shots from high above the slopes.
It’s not one of his professional cameras, but it is good for capturing candid moments and action shots while on the go without the fear of destroying it with excessive goofing around.
He turns the lens towards Adrien, who flashes him a peace sign and sticks his tongue out.
“Is that the look you want people to see on your dating profile?” Sergio asks.
Adrien glares at Sergio. “In case you forgot, I’m in a relationship. I don’t have any dating profiles.”
“Yeah, but like, Daphne ditched you for New Year's. I think we should put you back out there.”
“She didn’t ditch me,” Adrien corrects. “She opted to spend the holiday with her family. Which is her right, by the way.”
“Still kind of seems like she ditched you.”
“Well, that’s your wrong opinion.”
Sergio shrugs and snaps another photo of his brother. “But I mean, if she was as serious about you as you are about her, don’t you think she’d want to be here with you?”
Adrien lets out a heavy sigh and turns his gaze to look wistfully over the tree line in the other direction. Sergio cranes around, the safety bar digging into his midsection, so he can snap a shot of Adrien’s contemplative profile.
“It’s not that she didn’t want to spend the holidays with me, Sergio.”
“That’s what it seems like.”
“Well, it’s not. Can we drop this, please?”
“Sure,” Sergio says and leans in closer to Adrien, holding the camera so he can capture them together. “It’s just, you know, I think Daphne is nice—”
“Pfft,” Adrien cuts him off. “Sure you do.”
“But you’re my younger brother, and I think you deserve better.”
“Better than an heiress to the largest name in millinery?”
“I’m not sure a lifetime’s supply of one-of-a-kind women’s hats is worth the effort or the heartache.”
“Daphne doesn’t cause me any heartache.”