Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
BEAU
I’m being watched.
I’m sitting on one of the large leather club chairs angled toward the two-story fieldstone fireplace in the lobby of the hotel when my neck starts tingling with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Maybe my sister is finally here, ten minutes late.
I glance to my left, toward the registration desk, and sure enough, the sweetest brown eyes stare back at me behind a piece of long blond hair that’s fallen over her forehead.
Definitely not my sister. She glances down at the key card in her hand, like she’s embarrassed I caught her staring, then she glances back up at me.
I’m surprised by what I see in that look and the shy smile she gives me.
It’s the look you give a guy across the bar when you want him to come talk to you, not the look you give someone you’ve known since they were in kindergarten.
She doesn’t recognize me, I think with an internal chuckle. It’s both a relief—given how things ended the last time I saw her—and some sort of poetic justice wrapped into one.
My lips curve into a smile, the one I’ve perfected.
My smile is my secret weapon—it gets me into exclusive clubs when I’m not on the VIP list, and into the underwear of more women than I can count.
She glances down at the suitcase that stands next to her, then lifts her eyes to look at me through her thick eyelashes.
Is she trying to decide whether she should head for the elevator or come talk to me?
I’m about to make the decision for her, because honestly, Sierra realizing she’s attracted to me before realizing who I am .
. . this could be the most fun I’ve had in a while.
But as I lean forward to stand, she turns and rushes toward the elevators.
I’m so stunned I don’t move, I just stay hunched forward and rest my elbows on my knees while I consider that she just ran away from me.
Because shit like that doesn’t happen—when I head toward women, they don’t head in the other direction.
Then again, Sierra has never been normal when it comes to my charms.
A few seconds later, Jackson rushes up, calling my name, and I’m forced to turn toward her. I stand and give her a quick, awkward hug over the back of the chair.
“Hi.” She exhales. “Did you get it?”
“I did.” I reach in my pocket and hand her the ring box I just retrieved at the jeweler thirty minutes away. “How did you manage to forget to pick this up?”
She shoves it in her jacket pocket as quickly as possible. “I’ve been a tad busy, Beau.”
Be nice to your sister, my mother’s words run through my brain as if she was standing right here speaking to me. “How’s it going?”
“The wedding planning? Or opening a new hotel?”
“Both,” I say, without mentioning how stupid I think she is for scheduling the two things so close together.
“It’s . . . well, it’s going. It’s way more stressful than I want it to be. I’m not really sure what we were thinking.”
“You could have picked a less busy weekend, or a different location,” I suggest.
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “New Year’s Eve is our anniversary,” she says, and it pulls at memories I’ve had no reason to think of in a long time.
Pretty sure they first got together on New Year’s Eve back in high school, and they definitely started dating again on the same date last year.
“And,” she continues, “it made sense to host it in the hotel and have you all stay here as a trial run before we open. But I wish someone else was in charge of all of it, you know?”
“Don’t you guys have a general manager for the hotel who’s handling all the details this weekend?” I mean, that’s what Mom has told me, anyway.
“Yes, but we still have to . . .” She sighs. “Never mind. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Don’t let her get to you. Jackson’s specialty is reminding me of all the ways I don’t measure up. She’s like a miniature version of my dad in that way. Instead of engaging, I look over my shoulder to see if Sierra is still in the lobby, but she’s disappeared.
“I thought I just saw Sierra,” I tell her. “How come she’s getting here so late?”
“She had to go visit her mom.” Jackson’s voice is low and grim.
“Oh,” I say, understanding immediately. From the time she was fourteen to eighteen, Sierra lived with us every weekend during the winters.
She and Jackson were on the ski team together, and it was part of the agreement my dad, who was then the president of the ski team’s Board of Directors, made with her mom—Sierra could ski if she paid for it herself and her mom didn’t have to bring her to practices or races.
I’ve had minimal interactions with Sierra’s mom, but from what I’ve heard from everyone who knows her, she’s quite a piece of work.
So different from her very sweet oldest daughter.
“Listen, I have a favor to ask,” I tell Jackson, eager to change the subject from Sierra.
I don’t know why I brought her up in the first place.
Sierra was my first and longest-lasting crush, and Jackson always teased me mercilessly when I was a kid.
Given that I was in middle school and she was in high school, it was stupidly optimistic of me to think our five-year age difference wasn’t going to matter.
And it still mattered, even when we were older, a painful lesson I learned before I even became an adult.
“Yeah?” she asks, glancing at her watch.
“You still have that condo in Park City?”
She eyes me suspiciously, then sweeps her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah, why?”
“Any chance I could stay in it for a few weeks in January?”
She assesses me with her bright green eyes. “You’re going to be in Park City?”
“We’re snowboarding there in preparation for the X Games, but my accommodations fell through.”
“Fell through? How?” Her dark eyebrows dip as she tries to read into this situation.
“I was supposed to be staying with this girl, but things got complicated . . .” I don’t bother finishing the sentence. She can make of it whatever she wants.
“Ohh,” she teases, “did she want more than a one-weekend commitment?”
“Not exactly,” I tell her.
“Well, as it turns out, you’re in luck. We had renters who just moved out, and we’re about to start remodeling the primary bathroom. You’re welcome to stay there if you can be the point of contact for the contractors. Let them in every morning, make sure they’re doing quality work.”
“Sure.” I shrug. “I can manage that.”
“All right,” she says, “I’ll text you the code for the keypad and let the condo association know you’ll be staying there. Just text me the dates when you have a minute.”
“You’re the best,” I say on autopilot. Jackson is the best at a lot of things, but being my big sister isn’t one of them.
She looks like she wants to say something in return, but she sighs instead. “I’ve got to go get ready for the cocktail reception. Thanks so much for picking up the ring for me. See you in a couple hours.”
With my one wedding-related responsibility complete, I head out to my car. I promised Mom that I’d come over for an early dinner before tonight’s party, and right now I will take every moment with her that I can have. Even if Dad is going to be there.
“So,” Dad says as soon as my mom is done serving up the lasagna, “how is snowboarding going?”
“It’s great,” I tell him.
“You actually competing, or just partying?”
Whereas Dad was never anything but supportive of Jackson’s skiing, he’s always been skeptical of my snowboarding. I try to remind myself that he just doesn’t understand the culture like he does skiing, but it’s also hard not to be frustrated by his lack of willingness to try.
“Here,” I say as I whip out my phone and open to a video a friend took of me four days ago, “watch.” I hand it to my dad, and my mom gets up and comes to stand behind him before he presses play.
As I take a few bites of lasagna, I study their faces as they watch me do what I love.
I can tell exactly what’s happening in the video by Mom’s face.
It’s full of worry as I approach the first jump, and she pulls her head back like she’s watching a car accident as I enter a backside rodeo, then breathes a sigh of relief when I complete the one and a half rotations and land.
It’s like Mom’s face is on a loop, repeating the same look each time I approach a jump and complete a trick. Dad’s face remains stonily impassive.
“Wow,” my mom says when the video ends. “I don’t know how you do that.”
“Lots of practice,” I tell her.
“Good,” my dad says before shoving a bite of lasagna in his mouth and chewing it aggressively.
“The X Games are coming up,” I tell them, and my mom smiles at me like the sun shines out my ass while my dad just grunts in response. At least Mom loves me enough for the both of them, or she tries anyway. “We’re training in Park City for a few weeks, then heading to Aspen.”
“Who’s we?” my dad asks. Does he really not know, or is he feigning ignorance?
“Same as always. Drew, Lance, and me.” They’ve been my best friends since college and we’ve traveled together ever since.
“What’s after the X Games?” Mom asks.
“We might be going up to Whistler. Not sure, though, we might head back to Switzerland. I have to be in Austria a few weeks after that.”
“You ever get tired of being a nomad?” Dad asks.
“Not really.” I shrug and take a bite of Mom’s lasagna. I chew for a second before I say, “It suits me.”
Mom laughs, her dark face lighting up in delight, the polar opposite of Dad’s scowl.
My mom is a first generation Italian American and has the dark Southern Italian complexion to prove it.
Until recently, her long hair was brown, so dark it was almost black.
Now it’s a soft gray. Dad, on the other hand, grew up in Ireland.
He’s fair-skinned with hair that was mostly red when I was younger but has deepened to an auburn.
Jackson is like a fairer version of Mom and I’m a darker version of Dad.
“You’ll get tired of it eventually,” Dad says, so sure that he knows me better than I do.
“We’ll see.” It’s an old argument, and there’s no point in engaging. In the end, it’s inevitable that he’ll be right—I’m sure I won’t want to do this forever. But I’d be stupid not to hold out as long as I can.
I glance around the cocktail reception, then give my mom a kiss on the cheek and tell her, “I’ll be back in a bit.
” Mom’s sister just sat down next to her, and I want to give them time to catch up.
Like the rest of her family, Aunt Marianna still lives in Brooklyn.
With Mom finally in remission after her second recurrence of cancer, they haven’t seen each other in person recently.
I mean, maybe I’m also giving them space because I want to do a lap around this room to see if I can spot Sierra. I want to see her reaction the moment she recognizes me, because I can promise it’s going to be priceless.
I’m walking toward the bar when a large hand reaches out of the crowd and grabs the back of my neck, pulling me toward him. “Asshole,” I mutter when I glance up, fists already formed, and see Nate grinning at me. “You don’t grab a guy from behind like that unless you want to get punched.”
“Someone’s a little high-strung tonight,” Nate says as we step aside to let a waitress with a tray full of empty glasses pass by.
She has some kick-ass legs, and the fact that Nate doesn’t even look at them makes me feel better about him marrying my sister.
Not that I ever had any doubts they’d end up married.
Even during the years they spent apart, when Jackson was sure Nate had left her for good, I figured there must be more to the story. Turns out I was right.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Not my favorite place, not my favorite people.”
“Don’t be a dick. This is your family, and this is my home.”
I don’t relish being the black sheep of my family, despite the fact that I play the role well.
“You really didn’t have anyone else who was willing to be your best man?”
“Don’t make this awkward,” Nate says, and shifts his weight while shoving his hands in the pockets of his expensively tailored pants.
“Awkward like having to wear a fucking tux?” I ask. Seriously, who invented those ridiculous monkey suits? There is just no need for a suit with a vest and a dress shirt with tiny buttons and a stiff collar, and don’t even get me started on the stupidity of a tie.
“No, I mean awkward, like having to tell you about the sexual seduction your sister engaged in to convince me to ask you.”
It’s a good thing I’m not taking a swig of my beer, because hearing those words would have had me spitting it out all over Nate. Somehow, he manages this with a straight face.
“Yeah, because when you asked me and she yelled ‘don’t fuck this up, Beau’ in the background, that really seemed like she wanted me standing up next to you at her wedding.”
Nate cracks a smile and reaches out to clasp my shoulder. “Let’s face it, you do kind of have a way of fucking things up.”
“Not everyone can be the perfect golden boy like you.” Even though Jackson and I have a tenuous relationship on a good day, and he’s been dating my sister most of my life, I’ve always liked Nate.
I guess in some ways, he’s been the supportive older brother I needed when my dad refused to be the father I wanted him to be.
“Hey,” Nate says, “I fucked things up once too. But I owned it and made up for it, and look where we are now.” I watch as his eyes immediately track Jackson as she moves across the room, talking to guests.
I’m tempted to ask him if the ball and chain ever hurts, but instead I just say, “Yeah, congrats.”
You could not pay me enough to trade places with him.
The guy walked away from his spot on the National Ski Team after a stellar first year back on the ski racing scene, all so he could move to Blackstone and marry Jackson.
Traveling the world doing what you love versus living in a tiny ski town in Nowhere, New Hampshire—not exactly the choice I would have made.
My boots are made for walking, and so far they’ve walked on four continents, and I’m determined to make it to all of them, eventually.
I mean, Nate did also buy a ski mountain, and they built this really beautiful hotel. So it’s business that brought him back here too, not just my sister. But still. I could not imagine being tied down like this. Under any circumstances. Ever.
Nate takes one look at my face and says, “You seem like maybe you could use something stronger than that beer.”
“You might be right about that. Have fun tonight,” I tell him as I head toward the bar.