Chapter 5 #3
“Finn—hear me out, okay, this is a little crazy, but I was thinking last night—when I couldn’t sleep.
And I have a plan.” Sam glanced around and leaned forward.
“We need to make them believe that we are the perfect athletes for their partnership. If we land deals with Salvaro and Montalier—without any help from my dad, or anyone else—it means that we don’t need them, that we can do things on our own. ”
“Now who’s not afraid of growing up.” Finn picked the tomato from his burger and ate it. “Seriously, Sam, what’s going on? What do you see happening?”
“This is more than just a partnership or a sponsorship deal. I feel it.” Sam paused. “Finn, you know how much I want to be free from my dad, but he pays for everything, controls everything.”
Finn nodded. “You know how well I understand that feeling.”
“Yeah, I know. Well, think about it—we’ve never considered striking out on our own, before now.”
“Sounds ridiculous now you say it.” Finn sat forward. “I had the odd thought, but I never really gave it serious consideration. It seemed sort of rude—like I was throwing it all back in my uncle’s face, you know.”
“I hear what you’re saying, and I want you to hear me out before you say no,” Sam said. “The reality is that we’re not kids anymore. I’m almost twenty-four for crying out loud. You already are, come to think of it. We should be standing on our own two feet. Well, four if we do it together.”
“Four feet.” Finn loved how serious she was looking.
“Finn. Be real, for one minute.” Sam frowned. “Think about it. If we play this right, we can start to manage ourselves, call the shots for once.”
“You really do think this is real—that there’s a chance for a big deal for both of us?” Finn leaned in. “This could change everything, Sam, everything.”
“I know!” Sam excitedly whispered. “Becky can keep Valestré. They’re not a patch on these guys. The whole world would look at us differently too.”
Finn nodded. It was a strange place to be, on the edge of huge success but still being treated as if his sport wasn’t his main career.
Sam carried on, almost echoing his thoughts. “I could show everyone that snowboarding isn’t my hobby—that it is a real career, and that women can have it all.”
“Wow. This is huge. The potential …” Finn grew quiet.
“It is, isn’t it?” Sam put her chicken down. “Like, Finn, if we get a medal we get a bonus payment—but imagine what would happen if we had endorsements.”
“I could fix up my mom’s house,” Finn said quietly.
“At the least,” Sam said. She reached over and wiped mayonnaise from his lips. “But it’s how we get the deal—how can we convince them that they should choose us? We’ve only the Olympics to convince them.”
Finn nodded. “Yeah, we need to make the most of this time frame. We have … what’s your timetable like?”
Sam looked down at her phone. “Well, tonight is the big air qualie, and the final for that is tomorrow—Monday.”
“You’ll walk it,” Finn said with conviction. “It’s your best game.”
Sam smiled. “Then I have the halfpipe qualie and final on Wednesday and Thursday. That’s the big one for me. What about you?”
Finn pulled out a creased and crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He reddened as he smoothed it out. “I’m not as organized digitally as you are.”
Sam shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
Sheepishly he pointed to some dates he’d highlighted. “My first final is this Tuesday.”
“I’ll be there.” Sam twisted the paper from his hands. “Oh! Your last competition isn’t until the 13th and 14th! That gives us … um, today is the 8th … oh crap! That gives us just under a week to make the best impression that we possibly can.”
Finn frowned. “Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.” Sam folded up his crumpled timetable. She smoothed it into equal folds. “We need a USP.”
“A what?”
“A unique selling point—that’s what Maya always says. We need an angle that gets their attention.”
Finn nodded. He picked up his phone and read the comments from the brands again.
The text seemed to jump out of the phone at him, but something niggled at him.
The brands seemed to think that he and Sam were a couple.
The fans too. His stomach twisted. Not in a bad way—more like the way it did right before a jump: tense, weightless, uncertain.
He focused on the words again—perfect couple …
chemistry … real couple … something in the air.
The emojis—love hearts, heart eyes … it was all there in front of him what the fans wanted.
What he wanted too. They needed to be a couple—even if it was just pretend.
But would she go for it? Was it too much? What if it ruined everything?
He looked up at Sam, who was fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve, her brows lowered in concentration. She seemed oblivious to the whole obvious answer.
He cleared his throat. What did he have to lose?
He didn’t have her now anyway. It was risky.
Blurring the lines between the friendship he treasured and playing at being her boyfriend …
so many things could go wrong. But so what?
The worst thing that could come out of pretending to be a couple would be what?
That they tried and failed to secure the deals—which was likely.
The best thing would be if she actually wanted him—or they got the deals they so badly both wanted. He nodded to the screen.
“This is very leading … Maya made it seem as if we are already a …” He hesitated.
“A couple!” Sam said. Her eyes widened. “Yes! That’s it, Finn, you got it—you found our USP! We need to be a couple.”
“Do we?” Finn’s heart pounded in his chest. Please say yes!
“Well yeah—or let everyone think that we are,” Sam said. She sat up dead straight. “And that’s how we should reply to the comments—as if we’re a couple.”
“A fake couple?” Finn watched as her fingers flew over the phone screen.
Sam nodded. “Sure—what else can we be? You know what we always said—our promise—don’t you?”
“Of course, yes, don’t mind me.” Finn bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying anything more. Sam was lit up with excitement at his idea, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled. She looked like she did that very first day they met. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
With a grin she held her phone out to him. “Pick one of those for you to post; I’ll send the other.”
Finn felt his neck warm up as he read what she’d written.
Guess you caught us—teammates on the slopes and off! Thanks, @Montalier and @Salvaro for the kind words. Let’s make some magic this season!
“It’s very suggestive, this one.” He kept his eyes on the phone, unwilling to look at Sam in case she could see how important this was to him. He read the second one, his mouth dry as Sam tapped the table with her fingers.
Perfect couple? You might be onto something. Thanks for the love, @Montalier and @Salvaro! We’re just here to break records and hearts.
“Break hearts?” He looked up at her.
“Well, we can change that, but I like it,” Sam said taking her phone back. “Maybe we should add in the hashtag MeltingPoint. It seems to have a following.”
Finn nodded. “Okay, I’m not sure which one to choose.”
“You take the second one,” Sam said. “It sounds more like you—the heart-breaking bit.”
Closing his mouth Finn nodded. It did sound like him, he supposed.
He’d had seven girlfriends in five years—well, seven that had been reported on.
Seven because not one of the women, fabulous and all as they had been, had made him stop thinking about Sam.
And not thinking about Sam had become his benchmark—if the woman of the moment could make him forget about her then she stood a chance.
And one or two of them had—for a while, but the amnesia never lasted for long and invariably he’d found himself back on the market again, single and Sam-less.
His phone pinged as Sam sent him the reply to post.
“We’re really doing this?” he asked. He gripped his phone tightly.
“Yes. We are. It’s a great plan. Let’s do it now,” Sam said without looking up. “Ready?”
Finn nodded, then copied and pasted the text she’d sent into the reply space on Instagram. He glanced up at Sam. She winked at him, and he felt a warmth spread across his body. He’d do anything for her, even pretend they were a couple, although it was going to annihilate him deep inside.
“Ready.”
“One, two … no wait!”
“What?”
“Press reply on three or after three?”
“On.”
“Okay, let’s do it. One, two …”
“Reply!” Finn pressed the screen and instantly his reply popped up alongside Sam’s.
The words #MeltingPoint jumped out at him and his chest buzzed with a strange mixture of adrenaline and dread.
There was no backing out now. They’d done it already.
All he could do was pray it worked, because he couldn’t bear to think of the disaster his life would be if it went wrong, and he lost Sam.