Chapter 12 #2
We’ve planned a 1920s party to celebrate Jeff’s last day of being in his twenties.
My dress is amazing, I’m so excited to wear it.
But I wish Marco was going to be with me as a buffer from Nate.
That night in the kitchen at Copper Mountain still has me rattled.
It’s like my defenses completely crumble in his presence, and I don’t want to risk being alone with him again.
“I’m confident Sierra will overdo it on the photos and you’ll see them plastered all over social media.”
“Good. More people need to see and appreciate this beautiful face,” he says as he reaches over and cups my cheek with his full hand. I give his wrist a gentle kiss.
“You’re too good to me,” I tell him. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” he says. “And actually, I need to talk to you about an important decision I made a couple weeks ago. I wanted to wait and talk to you in person.”
My heart is now beating in my throat, making it almost impossible to swallow. This sounds serious. But the waiter approaches and takes our orders before Marco can get another word out. Once he’s gone, I take a gulp of my martini, and then I look at Marco. “You were saying?”
“I talked to my coaches and my agent already, and I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner, but I really wanted to have this conversation in person.”
“You mentioned.” I gesture that he should go on.
“This is my last season.”
“What?” My gasp is so loud the people at the table next to us glance over. I lower my voice when I ask, “Why?”
Marco is at the absolute pinnacle of his career.
He’s got years of racing ahead of him. He’s got career bests still to achieve, records to hold onto and defend.
“I’m going to attempt a Marcel Hirscher .
. . you know, go out while I’m on top. Hopefully this will be another crystal globe season for me,” he says, referencing the large glass trophy the overall World Cup winner receives at the end of the season.
So far he’s got five from the last seven years, plus countless numbers of small globes for winning each discipline within alpine racing over many years.
“But why, Marco? Don’t you still love racing?”
“I do, but I’ve been doing this for twelve years. It’s getting old. The nonstop travel, living out of hotels, training year-round. And it’s been hard for Christian.”
“Oh.” So this is about Christian. That makes more sense.
“I need to get out of the spotlight,” he says, and I wonder how it’s possible that he relishes the spotlight and wants to get out of it at the same time.
Love is complicated like that. “It’s time I started leading a more secluded life where the media isn’t all over me.
I need to put my energy where it really belongs.
Which means, we need to start talking about an end game strategy here. ”
I suck in a breath. I knew this day would come, knew it from the moment I agreed to this. But never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen this season, while I was working with Nate.
“Well, I have good news then.” I give him a weak smile. “I have an interview next week at Danforth.”
It’s Marco’s turn to look surprised. “You’re trying to be closer to your parents? That would be such a good move for you—you could be there for your mom’s treatments and you’d get to be back at Danforth. Congratulations!” His happiness is so genuine.
“Well, I have to actually get the job first. But if you retire and I leave the National Ski Team, it makes sense that this could die a natural death. No drama, no big breakup. Just two people moving in different directions.”
“We’ll make it the most understated breakup in history,” he assures me, reaching across the small table and clasping my fingers in his. “No drama. No news. No media. I promise.” He squeezes my hand in his, and it’s enough reassurance . . . for now.
One Year Ago
Hotel Bar, Sestrière, Italy
The whiskey burns less going down than the last glass did.
That’s probably not a good sign, but at this point anything that dulls the pain is worth trying.
I glance down into my Old Fashioned glass as I swirl the amber liquid around the ice cubes.
I don’t care what anyone says, whiskey is only tolerable when watered down.
The chair next to me, which has remained blessedly empty for the past hour, moves as someone shuffles into it. I hate everyone right now, so I certainly hope this poor soul doesn’t try talking to me.
“You trying to set that drink on fire with your glare?”
My head whips to the right because, despite the cheesy line, that voice belongs to the one person who I don’t hate at the moment. Could probably never hate.
“Marco,” I smile. “Thank God it’s you.”
“That’s what all the women say.” He wraps an arm around me and I rest my head on his shoulder. It’s half a hug, and exactly what I need at the moment.
“It’s really good to see you.”
“Anche tu, Bella.” He leans in for a kiss on each cheek. “Gorgeous as always.”
I pull back and roll my eyes. “Some things never change.”
Marco is a flirt through and through, and as long as I’ve known him he’s taken to flirting with me in both English and Italian. It’s harmless flirting though, he’d never act on it and ruin our friendship.
“Why change what God already made perfect?” He winks, but I’m pretty sure he’s serious. When I don’t respond, he asks, “Why do you look so angry?”
“You know who Alessandra Ricci is?”
Marco raises an eyebrow. “Am I a man?”
“Well,” I say, picking up my phone. I open to the text message Sierra sent about an hour before, and turn it so Marco can see the picture of my ex-boyfriend with a supermodel draped around him as they leave a restaurant.
“Apparently, she’s dating Nate. And my life is pathetic in comparison.
” I look back down at my glass, embarrassed by my honesty.
The alcohol must be affecting me more than I realized.
I mean, I trust Marco. I met him when we trained together for a summer in Switzerland eight or nine years ago.
Predictably, Nate hated our friendship. Maybe he’d even hate the fact that in leaving, he brought Marco and me closer together, allowed us to develop a rock-solid friendship.
“Want to make him jealous?” Marco asks, his accent taking on a sexy tone that would be activating the warning flags in my mind if it weren’t for the alcohol.
“Hell, yes.” I smile so hard it hurts. I take another sip of whiskey and finally enjoy the way the burn travels down my throat and warms my belly.
Marco signals the bartender. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The bartender slides the glass over to Marco, and he lifts it toward me with his left hand while grabbing his phone with his right.
“Cheers, and smile, Jackson,” he says as he clinks his glass to mine.
He looks over at me, his smile huge. I give him an equally big smile back, then turn toward the camera, but he’s already got his phone down in front of him.
“Aren’t you going to take a picture?”
“I just did. Look, it’s perfect.” He holds his phone toward me and I take it, zooming in on our faces. In my drunken state I think it captures the closeness of our friendship perfectly.
Marco takes his phone back and quickly types out Whiskey with my hottest best friend before posting it online.
“Oh, I’m your hottest best friend now?” My words are slightly slurred, but it doesn’t stop me from taking another sip of whiskey.
“Well since my other best friend is Christian . . .”
“Yep, I see your point. Okay, I’m the hottest.” I laugh. I mean, Christian is gorgeous, but that’s not the kind of thing Marco would likely notice about someone he’s been friends with since they were teenagers at boarding school together.
Marco smiles at me and takes a sip of his whiskey. I don’t know how he manages it without his eyes scrunching up and his face puckering, like when I’m drinking mine.
I glance down at the photo on his phone again. “What makes you think Nate will see that?”
“Because I have millions of followers, and he’s one of them.”
“Nate follows you?”
“We follow each other.” He shrugs.
I sit back in my seat, stunned. The sudden movement has the room spinning as the whiskey threatens to ignite the fire that is consuming my stomach at the thought of them being connected like this.
“I kind of feel betrayed. You said you’d punch him if you ever saw him again, yet you follow each other on social media like you’re friends? ”
“That was years ago,” he reminds me. When I woke up from my coma in a hospital in France, Marco was there and Nate was not.
And Marco’s been here for me ever since.
“And now he does that crazy heli-skiing off piste, which is fun to watch. I saw the video of him skiing the Cathedral in Alaska a couple days ago. It was . . . what’s the word you Americans use? Legit?”
“He . . . what now?” The Cathedral is only accessible by helicopter and skiing down it is equivalent to slinging yourself down the face of a cliff.
In the backcountry. With enough snow to cause an avalanche.
So essentially, insanely stupid. And Nate is not insanely stupid. Or at least, he didn’t use to be.
“You didn’t see it?” Marco seems surprised.
“I blocked him on social media, and everywhere for that matter, when he left.”
“Then why do you have that picture of him and Alessandra?”
“Sierra texted it to me. She knows I’m in Italy and that Alessandra is half Italian, so she was worried I might see it on the newsstands here.”
“Well I’m fairly confident he’ll see this,” he says, showing me the photo that has already garnered over a thousand likes since he posted it roughly two minutes ago.
I look down at my drink, wishing it was doing a better job of dulling my feelings. Instead, I seem to be feeling things even more deeply tonight. “I doubt he’ll care.”