Chapter 15 #3
Sergio stares back at her equally as hard.
It’s a good old-fashioned standoff of wills.
“I saw him yesterday working with Allison, remember?” he challenges, raising one of his eyebrows before she gets a chance to level him with hers.
“And Henry told me today how much he loves learning to skate from Jeremy.” It’s a half lie, as Henry hasn’t had a chance to tell him that yet on this version of the day.
But that’s irrelevant. Besides, Sergio does have first-hand knowledge about how good Jeremy really is when teaching Henry how to skate.
He’d like to experience it today, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that spending the afternoon with Jeremy is likely going to have the kibosh put on it by Rose, no matter what he does.
“Is that true, buddy?” Jeremy gently asks a near sleeping Henry in his lap.
Henry nods his head, mumbling something along the lines of, “You’re the best teacher.”
“Well, I guess we could talk about expanding our coaching program,” Rose concedes. She tightens her ponytail. “But that will have to wait until after the Olympics are over.”
“Please, though, whatever you do,” Allison says, her eyes flitting back and forth between Jeremy and Rose, “don’t team up with Chadwick Levinson. That man is such a creep.”
After lunch, outside the lodge, Sergio ignores every want, wish, and dream he’s come to have about afternoons spent alone with Jeremy.
He opts, instead, for continued time navigating the slopes.
He bids his farewells, gives one last lingering glance at Jeremy, who is looking at him back with warmth, then muscles his way in between Holden and Rose, pushing his best friend to the side.
“If you don’t mind, Holden, I’d like to steal your wife for this first run. ”
“It’s your funeral,” Holden says, then calls out to Adrien, “Hey, Adrien! You want to go hit that double black diamond?”
“Yeah, alright!” Adrien yells back.
“I’ll be on the bunny hills,” Allison says, and skis off with grace.
“You’re wasting your time, Sergio,” Rose says as they hop onto the chairlift.
Sergio resists the urge to laugh. What does she know about wasting time?
She hasn’t been reliving the same day over and over again, essentially wasting days upon days upon days of time.
Though that isn’t entirely true of Sergio either.
He is learning a little something on each of these repeated days.
“Listen,” he says as their skis leave the ground and dangle off their feet in the air.
“I’m sorry about this morning. We didn’t start off on the right foot today.
” But really, have they ever started off on the right foot at all?
He supposes they’ve come close once or twice but have never actually had success.
Rose takes a deep breath. She straightens out her legs, then bends them again, so they hang loose. “This trip didn’t start off on the right foot. It wasn’t only about this morning.”
He slumps in his seat. “Yeah, last night wasn’t a great showing for me either.”
“It’s not only last night.” She pauses and looks over her shoulder at Sergio. “Though that didn’t help,” she says and turns to look away again. “I tried to get Holden to cancel this week.”
“What? Why?” Sergio asks, incredulous. This is their tradition. And, furthermore, Holden is Sergio and Adrien’s family. Why would she want to keep them apart?
“There’s just so much going on,” she says, exhaustion clouding her voice. “There’s so much pressure with Jeremy and me making our coaching debut on a grand scale. And Henry is becoming a handful.”
“Yeah, but Adrien and I can help. Especially, with Henry. Let him wear us out for a change. Hell, I can stay longer if you want.”
Rose lets out a bitter laugh. “Have you not been paying attention? I didn’t want you to come in the first place. Why would I want you here for longer?”
Sergio starts to feel anger rising in him. He swallows it down as he recognizes it isn’t going to be helpful to explode. “Are you saying Adrien and I aren’t welcome anymore?”
“No. Absolutely not. You two are family, and you are always welcome,” Rose clarifies, twisting back to look at him.
“I only wanted Holden to postpone this until after the Olympics. The pressure would be off. Allison, Jeremy, and I would be on a break. And …” she pauses again, looking sheepish, “… maybe Jeremy wouldn’t be here for you to mess around with. ”
“What? Are you planning on kicking him to the curb when the Olympics are over?”
“Absolutely not!” Rose defends. “Jeremy is family. I would never.”
“Well, it kind of seems like you would. Especially since I’m family and you just said you didn’t want me here.”
“What I meant was maybe he’d go see his folks or take a vacation or do anything other than be here when you arrived.”
“Right.” Sergio scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Because being around me is the worst thing ever.”
“Well, you do have to admit, Sergio, that you don’t have the best track record.”
“Excuse you, but Jeremy dumped me four years ago, not the other way around. I don’t see you being all concerned about my feelings.”
Rose laughs again. “Jeremy asking for you to slow things down while he needed to focus is hardly dumping.”
“Alright, I’ll give you that,” Sergio concedes. “But I need you to know, I have nothing but the best intentions for something between me and Jeremy now. I really meant it when I said I’m in love with him.”
Rose studies him. Her gaze is penetrating, looking for any clue that Sergio is full of shit.
For once in their relationship, she’s not going to find evidence of that.
Sergio is going to make sure of it. He takes a breath and sits up taller, sets his shoulders back and stares at her with determination.
“You know,” she says and presses her lips together. The top of the mountain and the end of their ride come into view. “For some reason, I think I might actually believe you.”
“Really?” Sergio asks with a lift in his voice as the chairlift deposits them back on the ground.
“Yeah.” She turns to look up at him at the top of the slope. Her lips twist to the side as she considers him. “You’re too prideful to have been this vulnerable in front of me for you to be lying.”
“Rose, I’m not lying to you.”
She jabs him in the arm, and her ski pole knocks into his shin. “Did you not hear me? I said I can tell you’re not lying.”
He feels a rush of relief, but his conversation with her still isn’t quite sitting right. His eyes soften. “Did you really mean it when you said you wished we hadn’t come?”
“No.” Her shoulders slump. “I am glad you and Adrien are here. It’s all Holden and Henry could talk about for weeks, and you are helpful. Particularly with Henry.” She reaches and places a hand on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have taken my nerves out on you.”
“Better me than Holden,” Sergio says with a half-smile and raised eyebrows.
“Believe me.” She laughs. “He gets it, too.”
“But he still loves you.”
“He does.”
“And I love Jeremy. I could be his Holden.”
“Oh, God no. We do not need two of you.”
“I think you mean three.” Sergio waggles his eyebrows. “Have you met your son?”
Her lips pull into a tight smile, and she nods her head. She visibly swallows before she says, “They’re so much alike.”
Sergio gives her shoulder a slight push. “He’s a lot like you, too, you know. You have stiff competition as to who’s going to avenge Jeremy the hardest if I fuck this up.”
“Then I guess you better not fuck it up,” she says with a wink, then takes off like a bullet down the mountain, calling over her shoulder as she goes, “Race you to the bottom!”
“You’re on!” Sergio yells as he pushes off to chase after her. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.
Rose turns around, looking over the front seat into the back, when Holden pulls the car into the garage after their afternoon of skiing.
“Can you grab Henry from Jeremy?” she asks Sergio directly.
There’s a hint of warning in her eyes. A reminder to Sergio that he’s not entirely out of the woods with her yet.
He still needs to tread carefully. “I need to get cleaned up and start getting ready for tonight.”
“Sure thing,” Holden says.
Sergio claps Holden on the shoulder. “She was talking to me, man.”
“Oh!” Holden says, surprised. “Well, this is a turn of events.”
“You’re telling me,” Sergio says with a little laugh. He turns to look back at Rose and silently mouths, “Thank you” to her.
“You’re welcome,” she mouths back, then exits the car.
Sergio opens his car door. He pauses before getting out and looks at his brother. “Say hi to Daphne for me, would you? It’s almost midnight in Paris.”
Adrien nods his head and rushes to get out of the car. “Yeah! I will. She’ll like that.”
Feeling good about himself and surprisingly optimistic for a day that started off as complete shit, Sergio makes his way down to the barn.
At the door, he pauses and takes a deep, steadying breath to keep himself from bursting through the door like the Kool-Aid man and interrupting Jeremy’s skating.
He pulls the door open as he exhales and listens to the familiar song ring through the speakers, like a siren calling him to Jeremy each day.
After the intensity of today and all the vulnerability left out in the open, which has left him feeling quite raw, a level of contentment also settled over him, the like of which he’s never felt before.
He pauses at the rink’s half wall and watches Jeremy skate and glide through his moves.
Slowly, he makes his way over to where Henry is sitting.
Henry’s eyes are wide as he watches Jeremy loop around the ice.
Taking care not to startle Henry or pull Jeremy’s attention away from his skating, Sergio carefully sits beside Henry and pulls him into his lap. He lightly rests his chin on Henry’s head.
“He’s great out there, isn’t he?”
“The best,” Henry says, then adds, “After Mommy.”
Sergio lets out a light laugh. “Yeah, after Mommy. Of course.”
As Jeremy’s skating brings him closer to where Sergio and Henry are sitting, he catches Sergio in his view when his choreography loops him around.
Slowing in his tracks and gracefully dropping his arms to his sides, he comes to a stop a few feet away, blushing. “I thought Henry was my only audience.”
“Sorry,” Sergio says, taking care to hold Jeremy’s gaze. “I snuck in. I didn’t want to disturb you. You look good out there.”
“Don’t tease,” Jeremy scolds.
“I wasn’t teasing.”
Jeremy bites his lip, looking like he doesn’t believe him. “Where’s Holden? I figured he’d grab Henry.”
“Rose sent me instead.”
“Really?” Jeremy asks, surprise plain on his face and in his voice.
“Cross my heart,” Sergio says, making an X with his right hand.
“That looks a little more like cross Henry’s heart.” Jeremy laughs.
Sergio looks down at Henry, still in his lap, and laughs along with Jeremy. “That was me emphasizing how serious I am.”
“Swearing on a five-year-old now, huh?” Jeremy grins.
“I will swear on whatever I need to if it means I get to see you skate.”
Jeremy looks away from him and begins to put a blade guard on one of his blades. “I’m afraid I’m not too much to look at anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Sergio says, shifting Henry to sit on his hip while he rises to his feet. He extends a hand for Jeremy to grab as he steps off the ice. “No matter how many times I see you skate, you never stop amazing me.”
Jeremy places his other blade guard on. “You’re just saying that.”
“No.” Sergio continues to hold Jeremy’s hand even though he’s back to standing on two feet. “I could watch you every day for the rest of my life and never tire of seeing you on the ice. You look … free.”
Jeremy looks up at him, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. “I guess I am.”
Letting go of his hand, Sergio brings his palm to Jeremy’s cheek and uses his thumb to gently tug at the corner of Jeremy’s eye. He holds him steady there, and when Jeremy doesn’t pull away, Sergio dives in and places a gentle kiss onto his lips, suppressing a moan when Jeremy kisses him back.
After everything he’s been through today, whatever god is in charge of this wretched loop, he silently thanks them anyway. One kiss with Jeremy was worth all the fight.
“I hate to admit it,” Rose says to Sergio, surprising him as he places a tip on the bar. “He looks happy around you.”
“Was it really that hard to believe?” He hands her a glass of champagne.
She takes a sip and eyes him over the rim, but instead of her usual judgmental glare, she’s smirking at him. “No.” She laughs. “You might piss me off sometimes, but even I have to admit there’s a good guy in there somewhere.”
Sergio wraps her in a hug. “Thanks, Rose. I promise. I’ll be good to him.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Rose pushes him off and then takes another sip of her champagne. “Now go help your boy; he’s being tortured by that blowhard, Chadwick Levinson.”
Sergio grabs his whiskey neat and Jeremy’s sparkling water with a twist of lime. “On it!” he says and walks away, weaving through the crowd as Holden jumps onto the stage and says into the microphone, “Alright, everyone, grab a glass of champagne, the countdown starts in less than a minute.”
“Here you go,” Sergio says, handing Jeremy his drink and inserting himself in the space between Jeremy and Chadwick.
“Thank you,” Jeremy says, as his shoulders relax, and his lips lift into a smile of relief.
“Sorry, that took so long. Rose had some words for me.”
Jeremy, bringing his drink to his lips, says, “All good things, I hope.”
“She seems to be coming around.”
“I always told her you weren’t so bad.”
“Is that so?” Sergio asks as Holden starts the countdown from the stage with a “Ten!”
Jeremy leans in close. “It’s definitely so.”
“Nine!”
“Are you saying you were hoping we could start over this week?”
“Eight!”
“I’ll admit it was on my mind.”
“Seven!”
“What about the hereafter?”
“Six!”
“We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.”
“Five!”
“And what if there is no tomorrow?”
“Four!”
“Don’t be silly. There’s always a tomorrow.”
Three!”
“Well, in case there isn’t. I’m going to need another kiss.”
“Two!”
“I think I can give you that.”
“One! Happy …”