Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JACKSON
Big Sky, Montana
Nate nuzzles his face into the side of my neck. “How’s this going to work?”
“How’s what going to work?” I murmur, still too weak from my last orgasm to form any coherent thoughts.
“Us.”
“I think we’re working just fine,” I say, the innuendo heavy in my voice and the smile light on my lips.
I’m on a yoga mat on the floor of Nate’s former dining room, lying in a pool of our sweat—his from the workout I just put him through, and me from the two orgasms he just made me work for.
We are drenched and smell terrible, and we’re both the best kind of exhausted. I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier.
“I mean what’s it going to be like when we leave Big Sky. Do we have to hide this from our team? From our parents and friends?”
“I don’t want to hide this any more than you do,” I tell him, turning my head and kissing his forehead.
I find his insecurity adorable because he’s so confident in every other aspect of his life.
But I never again want to give him a reason to feel insecure about my feelings for him.
There was too much of that in our past, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I was at least fifty percent responsible for how our relationship ended.
“Good.”
“But,” I start, and he’s flipped himself up and on top of me before I can get the next word out, his mouth claiming mine again.
“No buts,” he says when he pulls back.
“Nate, I don’t want to hide this. But I don’t know what my contract says about fraternization.
I could be fired for getting involved with an athlete I’m training.
It goes against everything I was taught in grad school and it’s probably a violation of the oath I took when I became a physical therapist.”
“We’ll figure it out. Maybe the team can switch things up.” I can practically hear the wheels turning in his head. “Maybe you can move over to working with Jeff, and his physical therapist can work with me.”
“That would entail us telling the team what’s going on.
What if we tell them and they fire me? Nate, if I get fired because I’m involved with an athlete I’m training, I will literally never be able to find another physical therapy job.
No one will hire me if they know I’ve crossed that line. I think we’re better off waiting.”
“Waiting for what, exactly?” he says. He’s got his elbows propped on either said of my shoulders, but I’m able to reach my hand up and stroke his face.
“Maybe until the season ends?”
Tell him about Danforth, a little voice inside my head insists. But I swallow that information down. It’s too soon.
“You think we can keep this a secret for months?” The way his face has rearranged itself into a mask of doubt leaves no room to wonder whether he thinks it’s possible or not.
“I don’t think we have a choice. My entire career is at stake here.”
His face softens and he leans down, stroking the bridge of my nose with soft kisses. “What will change at the end of the season?”
“When the season is over, I can find a different job.” There’s no point in pretending like this could work out any other way.
“Then I’ll leave too.”
“Nate, no. You are finally back to racing. It took you so long to get here, and you’re doing so well. Why would you walk away from that?”
“I told you in Italy that I’m not interested in racing if you’re not there with me.”
“I’d see you all the time in the off-season, and I could visit a lot while you’re racing.
” Maybe Danforth isn’t the right fit for me anymore.
If I get that job, I’ll be working with and traveling with the collegiate team during the season.
I wouldn’t be able to get away to go visit Nate while he’s over in Europe.
But Mom, that voice nags, you need to be closer to Mom. Danforth offers that.
Nate must see the war that’s going on in my head as I try to figure out a way for us to be together without either of us having to give up our plans, because he asks, “What’s going on? You have your thinking face on.”
“I’m just trying to figure out how our relationship can work without you having to give up racing.”
“The simplest solution is usually the right one,” he says. “We just need to be honest. You can talk to TJ and I can talk to Matt, then we’ll work with HR to find a way for us to be together without you losing your job.”
I let that sink in. “Nate, I have to be honest about something. But you have to swear not to say a word of this to anyone.”
His eyes crinkle as his hand strokes the hair above my ear. “Go on.”
“I was already thinking about this being my last season with the team before you arrived.” Tell him the whole truth, that little voice is screaming at me inside my head.
Tell him you’re looking for jobs in New England.
Tell him you’re leaving. “But I don’t think that means you should give up your dreams. You’ve come so far already this season. This is just the beginning for you.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. This is just the beginning for us. I’m not making the same mistakes we made years ago, putting skiing before our relationship.
” What he doesn’t say, but I hear anyway, is that it was me who put skiing before our relationship, not him.
“Making this team has absolutely been a dream for me, but it’s not my only dream, and I’m willing to give it up to get other things I want even more, like a lifetime with you. ”
His eyes are so vibrant, the color of the water in the Mediterranean on a sunny day.
He’s so alive right now, so sure of what he wants.
But I’m not sure I can be the reason he gives this particular dream up.
“I don’t want you to walk away from skiing for me.
And I’m afraid that if you do, it’ll always be a wedge between us. ”
“How so?” he asks, and I can see the confusion in his eyes.
“I’m afraid that every time things are hard, you’ll wonder if it was worth giving racing up for me. I’m afraid that years down the road, you might come to resent me for this.”
He rolls off me so he’s lying on his back next to me, and he reaches for my hand, lacing our fingers together. “If you had finished your last season and won that crystal globe, then retired like you’d planned, would you have resented me for it?”
“That’s different, Nate,” I say, giving his hand a little squeeze as I stare up at the vaulted ceiling.
“I would have been retiring after achieving everything I’d ever set out to accomplish.
Sure, I would have still potentially had some good years of racing left in me, but I’d have walked away with my gold medal and my crystal globe.
” Career goals—achieved. If only it had gone that way.
“But you won’t be in the same position if you walk away at the end of this season. ”
“Which is fine, Jax, because those were your dreams, not mine.” I glance over at him and he continues.
“I’ve honestly never had any goal in my adult life that didn’t include you by my side.
And I’m not willing to forsake our relationship to achieve my ski goals.
In order of importance, those goals just don’t rank as high as us being together. ”
“Nate.” I sigh, and he looks over at me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that we’ll make this work, whatever the cost.”
“We will,” I assure him. “We’ll figure it out as we go. But I’m nowhere near ready to tell TJ and Matt what’s going on here. I need to look into my contract and figure some stuff out. And I need you to give me time to do that, okay?”
“No problem,” he says, but I can see it there in his eyes that it is a problem. He doesn’t want to wait, and after all the waiting he’s already done, I understand why.
I wish I could give him a different answer, but there’s no other choice right now.
“The sun is setting,” Nate says a few minutes later. We’re still lying on the floor with our fingers loosely intertwined. “Want to watch it from the hot tub?”
“Outside?”
“Yeah, the hot tub is under the deck. The sun sets on the other side of the mountain so it’s a pretty view of it from here.”
“You’ve watched a lot of sunsets from your hot tub, Romeo?” I elbow him and try to pretend like I’m not envisioning Nate in this hot tub with another woman. Or several other women, for all I know.
“Not a lot,” he says and sits up. “I’m going to go grab you a robe.” He slides his shorts back on.
I lie there on the floor while I wait for him to return, racking my mind for a solution. Two people with very different goals. How can we both get what we want without either of us having to sacrifice so much?
He doesn’t even see it as a sacrifice. Stop projecting your feelings onto him, that little voice inside my head insists.
“Here,” Nate says as he holds open a long plush robe by the shoulders. I stand and slide my arms in, and he pulls the sides around me, wrapping his arms across my front and pulling me back to his chest. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop looking for different solutions. I’m telling you that the simplest option is the best one.
We need to tell TJ and Matt what’s going on and let them figure out how this can work within the confines of our careers.
Or, we can do it your way and keep it a secret until the season’s over, and then both walk away from the team.
But that seems much more risky because I think people will see what’s going on between us. ”
“We have time to figure this out,” I tell him as I turn my head and kiss his neck.
He lowers his head and captures my mouth with his, and as he deepens the kiss, he lets the robe go so it drapes open.
His hands run along my sides, from my hips to my breasts and back down, but he’s teasing me again and never touches me where I need him to, so I wrap the robe back around me as I pull away.
“I’ve never had hot tub sex,” I say as I tie the belt around my waist, take his hand, and lead him toward the stairs to the finished lower level.