Chapter 2 #2
“Then why are you suddenly so glum on this lift?” Sergio knocks his shoulder against his brother’s.
“I’m not glum,” Adrien defends. “And I asked you to drop it.”
Sergio holds his hands up as if he’s ready to dodge a hit. “Okay, I’ll drop it. I only want what’s best for you.”
Adrien lets out a bitter laugh. “You’ve never wanted what was best for me. It’s always been about what’s best for you.”
“That’s not true! I have always looked out for you, and you have always been ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful?” This time, Adrien lets out a genuine laugh. “Full offense, Sergio, but you’re the ungrateful one!”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you!” Adrien looks ahead and adjusts himself for their approaching drop-off. “You walk around this world like it was made for you and you alone and completely take for granted all those around you, like myself, who make it that way.”
“Oh, come off it, Adrien. It’s not like I don’t work my ass off for everything we have.”
Adrien turns to look at him, stone-faced.
“Okay, you do help. A lot,” Sergio concedes. “And I couldn’t be where I am without you.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Of course I do!” His words echo over the treetops, creating a more dramatic effect for his attempt to get out of hot water.
“Look, Adrien,” he says gently as the chairlift deposits them at the top of the black diamond run.
“Ever since Mom and Dad died, I’ve taken it upon myself to keep you and me together. I can’t bear losing you as well.”
To Sergio’s credit, this is true. Adrien took the death of their parents hard, but Sergio took it way harder as he was the reason they were out on that country road late at night on a quest to hunt him down after he’d run off with a local politician’s daughter to their East Hampton home for a weekend of juvenile amusement.
“So, I’m sorry if I sometimes come across as overbearing. I like having you around.”
“Look, Sergio, I like being around you, too, and I don’t want anything to come between us …
” He pauses and looks at Sergio. Adrien’s eyes are dark under his lowered brows, and the corners of his mouth are turned down.
He takes a deep breath, and his exhalation sends a slow stream of condensation around him like smoke.
“Which is why I think I have to quit working for you. I’m sorry. ”
Sergio, stunned, says nothing. He’s left in silence to watch his brother head down the mountain, zooming away from him at an impressive clip. This isn’t the first time Adrien has quit. It is, however, the first time Sergio realizes he truly means it.
“Did you guys have fun?” Holden asks them once they find each other on the bunny hills.
Sergio doesn’t get a chance to answer as Henry is already calling his name.
“Uncle Sergio! Look!” He zooms past him down the hill in a perfect miniature replica of his father’s crouched skiing stance.
Perfect, that is, until he has to come to a stop that he hasn’t mastered yet.
His solution is to flip forward, doing a complete somersault that lands him on his rump. “Did you see?”
“Yeah, Henry! I saw,” Sergio says as he skis over to him and pulls him back up onto his feet. “That was very impressive. You’re gonna be an Olympian like your dad.”
“Do you think I can be?” Henry asks, looking up at Sergio, who’s still holding his hands.
“Definitely. It’s in your blood. It’s what you are destined to be. If that’s what you want, of course.”
“It is!”
“Then you will,” Sergio assures, crouching down to click Henry’s skis off.
He lifts him up with one arm, then grabs the skis with his free hand and starts skiing them to where Holden and Adrien are waiting, already unburdened of their skis by the lodge.
Their demeanor is casual yet serious, and Holden claps Adrien on the shoulder, as if assuring him he made the right decision.
Sergio doesn’t need to be there to know what they’re discussing.
He wonders how long Holden has known of Adrien’s intention.
By logic, he figures Adrien probably told Holden last night.
But it’s possible Adrien’s been wanting to do it for longer.
Feeling unsettled, Sergio squeezes Henry a little tighter. “Can I ask you something, buddy?”
“Yes,” Henry says and rests his head on Sergio’s shoulder.
“You like me, right?”
“Yes.” He lets out a little giggle as if the answer is obvious.
“Am I still your favorite?”
“Mommy says it’s not nice to have favorites.”
“Okay, she’s not wrong. But you have a favorite toy, right?”
“No,” Henry says solemnly, lifting his head away from Sergio’s shoulder to look him in the eyes. “I don’t want to hurt my toys’ feelings.”
“That’s fair.” Sergio nods his understanding. “But you have a favorite food, right? Pizza has to rank higher than, let’s say, something like broccoli.”
“Nobody’s favorite is broccoli.” Henry’s face twists in disgust.
“Right!” Sergio agrees. “Broccoli is awful! So you can be honest with me, I’m your favorite, right?”
But Sergio doesn’t get the answer he was expecting. Instead, he gets inner ear damage as Henry excitedly screams out another name, “Jeremy!” and begins squirming in Sergio’s arms in an apparent bid to get down. So much for being the kid’s favorite.
With Henry squirming in his arms, Sergio sees the apparent primary subject of Henry’s affection.
Jeremy is holding onto the guardrail as he ascends the steps towards the lodge, with Allison walking beside him and Rose leading the way.
He stops in his tracks and looks around, obviously trying to find Henry.
Eventually, his eyes locate him in Sergio’s arms. He lifts his free hand and gives a wave.
His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and his hair comes out in wisps from underneath his grey toque.
Sergio lets Henry down and watches him as he runs over to meet Jeremy. With the aid of Rose’s outstretched hand, he’s brought to a stop before he can barrel into his target. Apparently, preventing Henry’s inevitable collision course with Jeremy is a full-time job around here.
“Hungry?” Holden asks Sergio, clapping him on the shoulder.
Keeping his eyes on Jeremy instead of turning to look at Holden, Sergio says, “I didn’t know Jeremy was coming to lunch.”
“Oh yeah, he’s gonna take Henry back to the house after we eat for a nap so Rose can join us for more skiing.”
“Is he like your babysitter or something?” Sergio isn’t sure if he wants the answer to be yes or no, and he’s half tempted to offer to take Henry home himself and ensure his placement back on the top of Henry’s list of favorites, well above broccoli.
“No,” Holden says. “He helps out when he can. He’s really nice. You should make an effort to get to know him while you’re here. You two would really get along.”
“I have made an effort to get to know him. Years ago. And he rejected me.”
“Is that what this is all about? Your bruised ego?” Holden laughs.
“No,” Sergio mutters, trying to defend himself.
Though the truth is, the memory of Jeremy’s rejection has occasionally crossed his mind ever since he’d given Sergio the brush off at the games four years ago.
And each time he’s been confronted with the memory without Jeremy around, it has fueled his resentment.
It wasn’t until he saw him yesterday on the ice in person at the barn that he’d began to remember how well they’d originally hit it off instead of only remembering the rejection.
That the banter between them had been fun and stimulating.
That they’d laughed and enjoyed themselves and shared an impassioned kiss tucked away in an alcove beneath the stands of the ski slopes while waiting for Holden to make another aerial run.
The same alcove where Jeremy pulled away—his face flushed, his lips chapped, his hair askew—and told Sergio that he couldn’t risk losing his focus.
Because he was under so much pressure, and as fun as their flirtation was, he needed to put a pause on it until after the games.
Had Sergio been thinking with more than his dick, he would have seen it: the slight rigidity in the way Jeremy walked that was beginning to encroach on his natural grace, the way Jeremy would intermittently tug at the corner of his eye as if trying to clear something from it, the exhaustion that constantly painted his face.
To Sergio, like any other outsider looking in, it appeared to be the symptoms of someone succumbing to the pressure of the world watching their every move.
The pressure of being not only America’s darling, but America’s gay darling.
A good one, a poster boy, someone who could make little boys on figure skates—as opposed to hockey skates—an admirable thing to see.
So much was pinned on Jeremy at the time that of course, Sergio knew who he was.
Of course, Sergio wanted to be the bad boy attached to the good boy’s image.
Of course, Sergio wanted to add Jeremy’s name to the notches on his bedpost. And of course, when Jeremy turned him down, Sergio switched gears and chased after the entire Norwegian women’s snowboarding team instead.
“I think it’s curious that Jeremy is so firmly planted in your life, is all.”
Holden shrugs. “It’s the least we could do for him.”
Holden’s words eerily echoed the ones Holden’s parents had spoken in regard to Sergio and Adrien over a decade earlier.
When asked why they wanted to take the boys in, the answer was simple: “It’s the least we can do for them.
” But Jeremy Owens is no orphan; he’s a full-grown man.
The circumstances are entirely different.