Chapter 15 #2
“I don’t know what it is about that shot, but holy fuck, whoever that is has some major aura,” he says, looking impressed as fuck.
“It has to be the t-shirt. I don’t know what it is, but apparently seeing someone do a move like that in a t-shirt is a kink of mine.
” His eyes widen comically, like he just realized what he said.
“So me skiing in a tee is a kink of yours?” I ask with a teasing grin.
“That was you?”
“That was me,” I confirm.
“I thought you said you couldn’t do flips and stuff,” he says, his neck flushing soft red with a blush.
“I said I can’t do what the twins do,” I correct. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve, I just know my limits.”
“You guys really are adrenaline junkies,” he says.
“Like the whole concept of throwing yourself down the side of a mountain with long planks of fiberglass or whatever they’re made of tied to your feet is crazy enough, but you were like, let’s add flips and twists and other acrobatics because why not? ”
“We’ve never claimed to be sane.”
“Can I see another one?” he asks, his voice timid all of a sudden.
Instead of answering, I open the next file.
He looks completely enthralled as he watches the opening sequence, and I’m not surprised when he lets out a loud gasp at a shot of Rath doing his signature move.
“What the actual fuck?” West looks between me and the screen a few times, his eyes wide with shock. “Did he just levitate?”
Chuckling, I move the counter back and replay the shot so he can see it again.
In it, Rath boards down the first half of the hill like it’s any other run, but just as he reaches the bench, or the flat part that cuts through the middle of the hill, he tips over and falls onto his side.
But instead of wiping out, he stays controlled and sort of skims over the bench so it looks like he doesn’t even touch the snow before clearing it. Then he finishes the move with a simple flip that makes the entire sequence of events look flawless and easy.
“It took him months to nail that,” I tell him and drag the counter back to play it again for him. “Now he won’t stop doing it because he’s the only one of us who can.”
“How many times have you wiped out?” he asks as the shot transitions to one of the twins going off-piste, or skiing down an unmarked and ungroomed part of the mountain.
“Too many to count.”
“How many bones have you broken?”
“None.”
“Ever?” He shoots me an incredulous look.
I shake my head.
“You played hockey, and you love things that go faster and don’t have brakes, and you’ve never broken anything?”
“Nope.”
“You’re either lucky as fuck, or you’re a freak.”
“I mean, I am a freak.” I lean closer like I’m sharing sleepover secrets with him. “But not because I have unbreakable bones or anything like that.” I lower my voice a bit more. “More like I’m into some things that most people would consider…unconventional.”
West clears his throat, and I sit back in my seat as more of that red flush creeps up his neck and he squirms in his seat.
“Oh yeah?” he says, his voice high and strained.
“Yeah, but the no breaking bones thing is definitely luck,” I tell him as he shifts in his seat again and not so subtly tries to hide the noticeable bulge in his sweats. “I’m honestly surprised I haven’t been hurt worse with some of the yard sales I’ve had.”
“Yard sales?”
“When you wipe out so bad you lose your gear,” I explain. “And it gets left scattered on the hill behind you, like a yard sale.”
“So what I’m hearing is that you’re reckless and crazy.”
“Guilty.” I shoot him a little smirk.
“You guys might be crazy, but you’re damn good at it.” He waves at the computer. “The editing and the boarding.”
“You liked the videos?”
“Oh yeah.” He nods emphatically. “They’re incredible. Better than half the movie trailers out there. You’re really talented.”
“You’re the first person who’s seen them,” I tell him casually.
“I am?” He shoots me a curious look as I cue up another video.
“Yup. I still have to do some final tweaks before I post them, and I usually don’t let anyone see them until they’re in their final form.”
“Not even your friends?”
“Not even them.” I start the next video and lean back in my chair.
“Post them?” he asks belatedly. “Like on social media?”
I nod.
“I’ve never seen these kinds of videos on your Insta,” he says distractedly, his eyes glued to the video playing on my screen. “And I don’t think I’ve seen a post of you skiing or doing anything ski-related, either.”
“I don’t post them on my personal socials. We have a separate account for that.”
“Really?” He shoots me a quick look. “Is it a secret, or can I know the at?”
“I’ll DM you the link.”
“Is posting a job for you guys?” he asks. “Like, are you doing it to make money or be influencers or whatever?”
“Nah. It’s just for fun,” I say. “It gives me a place to post my work and get feedback in real time, and it satisfies the twins’ vanity kinks.”
“What about Rath?” he asks.
“He just likes to show off.”
West laughs. “Sounds like you four are a match made in heaven.”
“Most of the time,” I agree. “Sometimes I want to strangle them, but they wouldn’t be family if I didn’t feel the urge to off them every once in a while.”
“How do you guys know each other?” he asks as the video ends. “Like, what’s your origin story? I know you’ve been besties since you were babies, but how did that happen?”
“Our fathers are best friends,” I tell him. “They met here at Silvercrest when they were freshmen and became family after they graduated. We were pretty much raised together, and we consider each other brothers, even if we don’t all share DNA.”
West smiles, but just as he opens his mouth to say something, his phone buzzes loudly on the couch, and keeps buzzing as someone presumably calls him.
The softness fades from his features, and he slumps in his chair, looking small and defeated by the time his phone finally goes quiet.
“Everything okay?” I ask when his phone starts vibrating again, only seconds after stopping.
He lets out a low, drawn-out groan. “Yes, but also no.”
“I take it you know who that is?” I ask when his phone finally stops.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s warding off a headache. “It’s probably my mom.” He drops his hand, and all traces of his earlier good mood are gone. “Her and my dad are the only people who call twice like that. Or call at all.”
“You don’t want to talk to her?”
I’m curious about West’s home life and the bizarre way his family seems to be handling his breakup, and I want to know more.
“Not yet.” He roughly scrubs one hand through his hair.
“You don’t think she’ll be understanding, considering McKenna cheated on you?”
He smiles sardonically. “She’ll probably ask what I did to deserve it.”
“Seriously?”
He nods and blows out a soft sigh. “And after she’s done telling me all the ways I screwed up, she’ll start bitching about the wedding deposits she and my dad have already paid and all the plans that need to be canceled.”
“No offense, but your family sounds awful.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor behind it. “They can be, but that’s what I get for being born wrong.”
“Born wrong?” I ask. What does he mean by that?
He sighs again. “Yeah, but I’ve already gone into overshare mode multiple times tonight. You don’t need to hear about my fucked-up family dynamics on top of everything else I’ve dumped on you.”
“Maybe not,” I tell him. “But I asked, remember?”
He toys with the strings of his hoodie and gently tugs them through the hood one direction, then the other. “You know my brothers are a lot older than me, right?”
I nod.
“My parents only wanted two kids, and my brothers are basically every parent’s wet dream when it comes to golden children,” he says in a faraway voice, twisting the string of his hoodie around his finger and pulling it so tight his skin goes bright red from the pressure.
“Did you know vasectomies can spontaneously reverse?” he asks as he unwinds the string from around his finger. “My parents found that out when Mom got pregnant with me at forty-one and over a decade after Dad got the snip.”
“They weren’t happy about having another child?” I ask when he doesn’t continue. Based on everything he’s said, I can already deduce that they weren’t, but I want to hear it from him.
He shakes his head and twists the string of his hoodie around his finger again, this time pulling it so tight his skin goes from red to purple in only a few seconds.
“It wasn’t part of the plan. Not with my brothers being in high school and so close to going off to college.
But that all changed when Mom had a sonogram and they told her she was having a girl.
That’s when everyone started getting excited about having a new baby. ”
I shoot him a confused look.
“I was either turned the wrong way or I had my legs crossed in all three of the sonograms she had during the last half of her pregnancy,” he explains.
“So they thought I was a girl right up until the moment I was born. Imagine everyone’s surprise when, instead of the baby girl they were excited for, they got stuck with another boy.
One who couldn’t even come close to measuring up to my older brothers, and who ruined everyone’s plans just by existing. ”
He lets out a little snort-laugh and drops his hands as he stops playing with his hoodie strings.
“Apparently my brothers used to get into fights over who would be the better big brother to their new baby sister. And my dad was going around telling everyone about how he always wanted a daughter, and my mom was over the moon at the idea of having a girl and getting to do all the mommy and me stuff she missed out on by having boys. Then I came out, and it’s like they never forgave me for not being the daughter they were promised or the sister they wanted. ”