Chapter 45
Three Months Later
SHAY
I give Jackson’s ski helmet a tug, making sure it’s on tight. “How does that feel?’
He nods and shakes his head like a bobblehead doll. “Not moving!”
“Make sure it’s extra snug,” Kolton says from behind me. “Some women on these hills have no clue how to ski and ram into people out of nowhere.”
I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “Hilarious.”
He smirks. “Just speaking from experience.”
We’re at Whistler this weekend, not Aspen, but maybe I should ski into him. Knock that cocky smirk off his face. First, we need to get Jackson to his morning lesson.
Kolton maneuvers around me and goes through Jackson’s checklist: money and phone for emergencies, ski pass, the bright orange mitts he just had to have. “If you get separated from your group”—Kolton taps the pocket housing Jackson’s phone—“you press the buttons we practiced.”
“I know, Daddy. Can I go to the group now? Ally’s already there.”
“Sure, bud.”
Kolton gives him a little shove, and Jackson skates on his skies over to the class meeting spot.
We’ve driven up every weekend this winter, hoping Jackson would enjoy lessons, improve his technique.
Meet kids he clicked with. When Ally waves at him and accidentally knocks her fist into her goggles, pushing them off-angle, I smile.
Seeing Jackson making new friends and having fun warms my heart in ways I never expected.
Kolton smolders at me. “Guess this means we get the morning to ourselves.”
I grab my poles and push off toward the lift, calling back to him, “If you can catch me!”
He laughs and meets me in the line. Normally, chairlift lines at Whistler are painfully long, but the conditions haven’t been stellar yet this season. There’s no powder to have people racing to the hill first thing in the morning.
We get a chair to ourselves and sit right next to each other.
I nod to the poles tucked under his leg. “Remember when you fumbled your poles and dropped one off the lift?”
“You mean the time you grabbed the pole and let it fall?”
“Never happened,” I say. “But that was a hot ride.”
“Almost as hot as last night.”
Hot doesn’t begin to describe last night’s marathon between the sheets. I didn’t know I could come that many times and still move my limbs.
Kolton slings an arm around me, tugging me closer into his side. “By the way, Stella finalized our employee appreciation night. We’re going bowling.”
I groan dramatically. “Bowling and I do not get along. Every ball I throw ends up in the gutter.”
“You don’t have to join us.”
No, I don’t. But if there’s one thing being with Kolton has taught me is that it’s okay to do things you don’t like to support the people you love. “I’ll come, but maybe we can put those blow-up things in the gutters, so I at least get a score on the board.”
He chuckles. “Deal.” A light snow begins to fall, soft and gentle, the flakes dancing as they descend. Kolton tightens his hold around me. “I really fucking love you, Shay.”
We say those magic words often since I moved to Vancouver, but his tone this time is a bit more intense. “I love you, too. Like, big, huge, hard-to-breathe-sometimes love,” I admit.
He exhales heavily. “I still get scared sometimes, you know.”
I bite my lip and try to search his face, but he’s turned slightly away from me. “Scared of what?”
“That this thing with you—us, Jackson, this amazing life we’re building—that it’s too good. That something will happen and fuck it all up.”
My heart squeezes for him. I will hopefully never know the pain of losing my partner, but I’m so incredibly thankful Kolton took this risk on me.
I press my hand to the outside of his helmet and shift his face toward me. “Things can always go wrong. We can’t predict the future, but I’ve never been happier. I didn’t even know a person could be this happy. Whatever the future brings, being together now is worth it.”
Living with Kolton and Jackson this time around is even better.
I don’t contribute financially to our home yet, a fact that took me a while to accept, but I contribute plenty to our lives: helping Jackson with homework, shuttling him around, taking turns with Kolton cooking for our little family.
And my new design job is shaping up to be everything I could have wanted.
My work for Moondog and Hilary’s letter of recommendation paved my way in interviews.
One of my favorite firms hired someone over me, but the other top contender welcomed me with open arms. I’m working alongside friendly, creative co-workers, tackling a variety of projects, from custom homes to retail spaces.
Impostor syndrome still creeps up on me at times, but I talk through my worries with Kolton those days, and he always boosts my confidence.
“I mean, not everything in our lives is perfect,” I tell the love of my life. I’m not even mad anymore that he skied into me in Aspen. “These helmets we’re wearing are the worst. My dork factor is high, and your gorgeous hair is hidden.”
He grins and sneaks a kiss, knocking our goggles together. “So fucking dorky.”
We ride the rest of the way, chatting and laughing as the snow falls. Just another day in our amazing life, proving compromises and risks aren’t the path to becoming a snowball. With Kolton, I’m the best version of myself, and I think he feels that way about himself, too.