CHAPTER TEN
Garrick
I park in the lot in front of Blue’s apartment building and text her to let her know I’ve arrived. I’m irrationally nervous about this whole thing, not least because I feel like I owe her a big apology.
From the passenger seat, Barry whines. I reach over and pet her fluffy head. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I won’t let Demon be mean to you.”
Shit, I should probably stop calling her Demon, but it’s going to be a hard habit to break.
I stare up at the apartment building and grip the wheel tighter. I don’t even want to think about what’s really making me nervous. It’s been two years since I’ve gone home for Christmas. Two years since I’ve seen my family all in one place.
The last time I saw them, they ganged up against me and told me I was letting them down by going out on my own instead of joining the family business.
Blue appears at the bottom of the stairs with a big bag over one shoulder and a rolling suitcase by her feet. I jump out of the truck and hurry over to grab her suitcase. “I’ll put it in the bed. It’ll be under a tarp.”
She’s not looking at me, but staring at the truck. I look over and see what she must be noticing. Barrington Evergreen is an Old English Sheepdog and on the larger side of the breed. She’s a rescue and I’m pretty sure there’s some Great Pyrenees in her makeup. Barry lifts her fluffy white head and her tongue lolls out of her mouth.
“Barry’s promised to be on her best behavior and not steamroll you again,” I say. “She really is well trained.”
“She’s going with us?” Blue asks.
“I can’t leave her home alone for four days.”
“She’s in my seat.”
“That’s her seat. There’s plenty of room for you to stretch out in the back.”
Blue gives me a look that makes it clear she believes this is another prank. It’s not, but I can hardly tell her the truth, that I dreamed about her in a very x-rated way again last night and I need some space if I have any hope of keeping things between us platonic. “Barry gets carsick in the back.”
“I wanted to discuss the festival on the trip to your parents’ house.”
“It’s a twenty-minute drive. They live in Sugar Valley.”
She gives me another, longer look.
“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you,” I say. “A very good reason. I’ll tell you everything on the way there.”
“I’m going to regret agreeing to this. I stared at the ceiling all night trying to come up with a way out, but you’d never believe I have the flu and I need you to help me plan this stupid festival.”
“I’m surprised you’re letting me help at all,” I say as I carry her bag to the truck. “You seem like a control freak who won’t trust me to do anything. I figured we’d just fake working together for the council.” At least, I hope that’s the case. I really, really don’t have time to help plan this thing.
She stops next to the door behind the driver’s seat and pulls it open. “Control freak or not, I’m busy, too. And you’ve been to past festivals. You know what the council is expecting. I’m going to need you to pull your weight.”
She gets into the back seat and I get in behind the wheel and start off. Oh, how I wish I didn’t buy a new truck last summer. My old beater would have definitely broken down and given me a way out of this mess.
What the hell was I thinking asking Blue, The Demon, Porter to be my fake date? She’s liable to take the side of my parents and reveal our plot.
“Okay, Evergreen. Explain to me why I’m just finding out now we’re headed to Sugar Valley for this family reunion? You told me we had a three-hour drive today. I packed car snacks.”
I pull out onto the highway and clear my throat. “Evergreen is my middle name. My last name is Riverton.”
“Okay. I don’t get…” But then she does. I hear the slight intake of air, even over the engine of the truck and the heat blowing out of the vents. “Your parents own the ski resort in Sugar Valley? Charles Rutherford said the Rivertons basically own the entire town.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but we, I mean, they own quite a bit of it.” The ski slopes, three hotels, all the ski-in chalets and condos, a spa, and all the ski shops on the main drag.
“Huh,” Blue says. “So you’re rich.”
“My family’s rich. I built my business from nothing all on my own.”
“Ah,” she says like she knows me. “They disinherited you.”
“They’re pushy, but they’re not assholes. I chose to build my business on my own.”
“I don’t get it. Why don’t you want anyone in Yuletide to know who your family is?”
“They already see me as an outsider. If they find out I’m from Sugar Valley, where all the tourists come from, and that I’m from a really wealthy family, they’ll hate me.”
“You think they’d hate you because you’re rich? That would just mean your business is more likely to succeed because you have help… Oh, that’s what it’s about.”
I glance over at her, lost and a little annoyed. She doesn’t know me. “What’s it about?”
“You don’t want anyone in town to think you had help building your business. You aren’t just proving something to your family. You're proving something to yourself and you want everyone else to see it.”
Her words sock me in the gut. Is she right? I don’t think she’s wrong. How has she seen me so clearly when I don’t know her at all? “Whatever, Demon. Just focus on being the best damn fake girlfriend I’ve never had.”
The road climbs upward into the mountains as we leave Yuletide and the valley beyond. I work my jaw to pop my ears at the change in elevation.
“I’m sorry, Blue.”
“You should be. I wouldn’t have taken my meds if I’d known this would be such a short trip.”
“For carsickness?”
“Driving anxiety. It’s worse when I’m the passenger.” She pauses. “It’s not something I’m embarrassed about, but I don’t tell everyone I meet. If you think you can use it to blackmail me, you’re wrong.”
“I’m not sorry about lying about the length of the trip.”
“Gee, thanks for being honest, I guess?”
I sigh. “I’m sorry you took your meds unnecessarily. But what I was apologizing for was assuming as soon as I met you that you were the enemy.”
“I wasn’t wrong to call you out for using city vehicles, Garrick. You were totally irrational about that.”
“It’s possible I overreacted. I’ve been stressed about my business lately, with Sugar Valley Guides opening up, and you’re this hotshot from the big city coming in here and thinking you know how to improve Yuletide without getting to know the town first.”
“If that was really your concern, you could have talked to me like a rational human being. You could have explained to me what you like and dislike about my plans and ideas. Instead, you, like half the town council, decided I must be the enemy and the only solution was to drive me out of town.”
I rub the back of my neck. I’m such an asshole. “I was wrong. The town council is wrong. Thank you for going to bat for me and trying to get them to give me those permits.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the town. Maybe if I’d opposed them, you would have gotten them.”
“I wish I could say I can help you by talking to council members or telling everyone in Yuletide what a great mayor you are, but I doubt it would be enough to change the council’s mind. None of them seem to like me very much.”
“Maybe they can sense you’re lying about who you are.”
I glance over to see she’s smiling. She’s teasing me. “Trust me, it would be worse if they knew.”
“Haven’t you lived there for five years? How are you not considered a local?”
“Xavier says ten years is the official ‘you’re one of us’ requirement.”
She groans. “Ten years? I don’t have ten years to get them on my side.”
“An amazing winter festival might help.” I’m just trying to make her feel better. I doubt anything will help. The look she sends my way suggests she knows I’m full of it.
“Okay,” she says. “What should I know about your family?”
“I never want to be in a room alone with any of them. The more you can talk about yourself, how much you love me, and how determined you are to settle permanently in Yuletide, the better. As far as they’re concerned, my business is doing better than ever. I’ve gotten every permit I’ve ever asked for, and I’m happy every moment of every day.”
“You want me to lie to them.” Her tone is flat. She’s not joking around.
“You’ll be doing them a favor. My parents want to retire. They need to know I’m succeeding as determined by their definition of success.”
She sighs. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, but if you want to have a relationship with your parents, you’re much better off establishing boundaries than lying to them.”
“I’ve established boundaries. I moved to another town and haven’t talked to them for two years. I want them to continue leaving me alone, and this is the way to get it.”
Around us, the mountains rise. I’ve only driven this route a handful of times, but I know it’s just a matter of minutes before we begin our descent and get our first view of Sugar Valley and the ski resort to the North.
My nerves ratchet up and a sense of foreboding and tightness fills me. I do not want to be here.
“Running away and avoiding your family isn’t establishing boundaries. You need to make it clear that if they want to be a part of your life, they need to allow you to live it on your own terms without their input or —”
“I don’t want them in my life.” That came out harsher than I intended. But I’ve worked hard to prove to myself and the world I’m not the spoiled, trouble-making, wild idiot my family thinks I am. I’m not going to let them pull me down again. I’m not going to be their puppet.
“You’re the boss,” Blue says, hands up. “I’ll tell them whatever you want.”
We emerge from the mountains and start down the hill. The town I grew up in spreads out before us, clean and snow-covered. So many people pay good money to come here and all I want to do is escape. “I understand you’re trying to help, Demon, and I appreciate it, but you need to trust me when I say I know how to handle my family to get through this.”
“Okay. I’m doing this for you,” Blue says. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Thank you.”
“This town is so pretty. I thought Yuletide looked like a Christmas snow globe the first time I saw it, but this place is like a luxury snow globe. Is that a full-service spa?” She points at the building on the edge of town with the Olympic-size outdoor pool.
“Spa and gym.”
“Very nice.” She folds her hands on her lap and I can feel her eyes on me. “So, how are we going to play this? I’m not going to have sex with you or put my tongue in your mouth, but I’m cool with being handsy and small, short kisses.”
The thought of touching her, of putting my hands on that perfect, sexy ass, makes my cock twitch in my jeans. “Let’s keep it as PG as possible. My parents are pretty traditional. Maybe some hand holding, an arm around the shoulders or waist. That should be enough.”
She blows out a breath. “That’s good news. I thought we might have to go hard to sell this and I’ve been psyching myself up for that all night.”
She doesn’t have to sound so relieved, does she? She must not be attracted to me at all. Which is great. I don’t want her to be attracted to me or to like me very much. That’s exactly why I picked her.
Blue spends the rest of the ride out to my parents’ house, which is a mile outside of town, oohing and ahhing over all the restaurants and shops Sugar Valley has to offer.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know all of this was here.”
“Why haven’t you ever driven over here? It’s not far.”
“I’ve been busy in Yuletide,” she says. “And when I get any vacation time, I visit friends in Vegas. I love the snow, but not the cold. I have to go out west to warm up every once in a while.”
“I’ve never been to Vegas,” I say as we leave town behind.
“Did your family travel a lot?” Her voice is tight, the only sign she might be nervous about getting closer to my parents’ house. I guess her meds don’t cover meeting-the-parents anxiety.
“My parents are workaholics. In the winter, they need to be at the resort and, in the summer, they plan for the winter and try to find new things to attract people in the summer.” I don’t tell her the rest. That my baby sister was sick for the first six years of her life. Really sick. Any free time was devoted to hospital visits and physical therapy.
“Really? You never went anywhere as a family?”
I turn down the drive to my parents’ house, under the wrought iron archway with the word Riverton spelled out in twisting metal vines. “It’s hard to travel when you’re a family of nine.” I did at least tell her about the size of my family before we left.
“That makes sense, I guess.”
My parents’ house comes into view and Blue gasps.
I guess to an outsider, it would seem impressive. It looks more like a small hotel than a home, all twenty-thousand square feet of it, plus two exterior cabins, at the base of the mountains. My parents wanted all of us to live here with them for as long as possible, so they built a home with eight master bedrooms, nine offices, a home gym, and a heated outdoor pool.
It probably looks like a dream come true to most people, but it feels claustrophobic to me, filled with expectations I can never live up to.
“Oh, my God,” Blue says. “Your parents are like real rich. Like old money, birthright wealthy people.”
“They’re just people.”
“Uh-huh.” She sounds breathless. “So your parents got this rich from ski resort money? I’ve met people with ski resort money before. They aren’t this level of rich unless they were born with a massive trust fund.”
“They both come from money, but they aren’t snooty. They’re—”
Her laugh verges on hysterical. “Garrick, you grew up with this money. You’re going to have to accept you have no concept of what it truly is to be poor or of how very different your family is from the rest of the world. I can impress just about anybody, but I don’t do well with old money people. I’m warning you now, they are not going to feel better seeing me dating you.”
I park next to Hudson’s Range Rover and twist in my seat to face her. “Breathe, Blue.”
Her eyes are wide, her cheeks are pink, and she looks like she wants to run as badly as I do.
“Take one long breath and let it out slowly.”
She nods and does as I say. Or she tries to. Her long breath is about two seconds. She is not calming down.
“Just keep breathing and listen to me, okay?” Next to me, Barry pants like she’s following my directions. She’s not. She feels the tension in the truck.
Blue nods.
“Close your eyes.”
She does and I notice the sparkles in her eye shadow and how her cheekbones angle upward. She is so damn beautiful. I hate myself for ever being mean to her.
“Good girl. Now, listen to me. You are a hardworking, determined, smart person and no one inside that house has anything you don’t have.”
“I can think of about one million things they have I don’t.”
“Sure. But little green pieces of paper they got just for being born to the right parents at the right time do not make them better than you. You are a fucking badass.”
She whimpers. I have never seen her so scared or so vulnerable. I reach between the seats and grab her hand, giving it a squeeze.
“Say it with me, Blue. You are a fucking badass.”
“I am a fucking badass,” she whispers.
“Louder.”
“I am a fucking badass,” she says in a clear, firm voice. Her breathing is evening out.
“Louder.”
“I am a fucking badass,” she yells, her eyes popping open like she’s surprised herself.
I laugh. “Fuck right you are. No one who’s not a fucking bad ass could become mayor of Yuletide and stick to it even when everyone is pushing you to quit.”
She nods. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. What did an ultra-rich person do to you?”
She shudders. “Boarding school. Sixth through tenth grade. I was beneath them and they knew it on sight. Until I figured out how to fight back, they made my life hell.”
I wish I could find those kids and show them how wrong they were about the woman in front of me. “Let’s get one thing straight, Blue Porter. You are beneath no one. I don’t go to war with anyone who’s less than my equal, and there is no one inside that house tougher than you.”
She nods. “I kicked your ass in that war, too.”
I snort. “You barely managed to prank me at all. I ended up having to rescue you.”
She shrugs. “I’m still mayor and you don’t have your permits. I’d say I came out ahead.”
“We can argue about that later. Are you ready to go inside?”
She looks at the house and frowns. Then she lifts her chin and determination takes over her features. “I am a fucking bad ass.” She turns to me. “But if it gets too bad, will you take me home?”
“Demon, I’ll be looking for any excuse to leave as soon as possible.”
“Then let’s do this.” She smiles, and it hits me how much I like being Blue Porter’s partner.