Chapter Thirty-Five
Did the women get a special head start? JT couldn’t believe that Kyle’d had the audacity to ask if she was going to get special treatment. She stood, staring a hole in the back of his head, visualizing all the ways she was going to crush him.
“You okay?” Ali asked, tucking her arm into JT’s and giving a gentle tug.
JT looked down at her. She was so cute with snow dusted on her hair.
“I’m fine. Just imagining all the ways I am going to kick the ever-loving shit out of your ex-husband.
” Ali looked surprised and a little alarmed.
“On the course, obviously. I don’t want to actually kick his ass.
I just want to beat him so badly he considers moving to the woods, becoming a hermit and never showing his face in public again. ”
Ali’s laugh erupted with a cackle and JT loved the sound so much she wanted to make Ali laugh that hard all the time. “Well, if that’s all.”
JT felt herself blush. “I’ll settle for winning. But if I manage to crush his spirit in the process, would that be such a bad thing?”
“No. Especially after that bullshit question.” Ali pulled JT to the side to inspect the sleds. “Okay, how can I help you with this? I know you’re doing most of the work, but there has to be something I can do, or not do, to make this easier to pull.”
JT pulled one of the sleds toward them. “Climb in.” Ali sat in the back of the sled while JT pulled. “Hmm, hold the sides.” JT walked backward to pull and then turned to walk forward. She leaned forward into the rope. “Okay, do they give us a harness or anything for this?”
Ali blinked and then a sly, sexy smile spread across her lips. “You want a what?”
JT held up the rope. “A harness. It would be much easier to do this with the proper equipment.” When she saw Ali’s face, she realized that Ali was not thinking about a harness for pulling a sled.
JT blushed bright red, her face so hot she wanted to lay it against the snow.
“Oh my god! I was talking about the competition…not, whatever filthy thing is going on in your brain.”
Ali laughed, her head tipping back with a giant whoop. “Come on, you’re talking about harnesses and the right equipment, what’s a girl supposed to think?”
JT walked toward her, wrapping the rope around itself. “I’m thinking that teachers are much more…multifaceted than I could have ever imagined.”
Ali shrugged. “Teachers are people, JT. And some of us like to have sex with hot Olympians. We can’t be blamed for our vivid imaginations.”
“Can you be a reasonable adult for a moment?”
Ali shrugged. “I doubt it.”
JT held up the rope. “Do they have some kind of mechanism for me to pull this rope that won’t cause it to chafe all my skin off, or is this also some kind of puritanical masochistic thing?”
Ali pointed to the table. “I think they do have vests you can wear and attach the rope to instead of destroying your incredibly hot skin.”
“Ali.” JT looked down at her, her voice a low warning growl. “If you keep flirting with me it will be much harder for me to crush the competition, including your misogynistic ex. So, leave the flirting for when we win?”
Ali rolled her eyes in the cutest way possible. “Fine, but if you look cute in that thing, I’m going to steal it.”
JT had no idea what had gotten into Ali, but she liked it.
She liked feeling wanted, not just liked or tolerated but having this woman who she was obsessed with as a teenager look at her and think she looked hot enough in snow pants and a parka to flirt with on a freezing-cold morning.
Her brain kept telling her to question it, but she kept telling her brain to shut up and leave her alone.
There were obstacles in their future. JT could see them clearly, but she could also pretend they weren’t there for long enough to thank her lucky stars that Ali Porter thought she was hot and was making jokes about sex toys.
She trudged to the table and asked for a vest. They handed it to her, and she realized she was supposed to pin the bib to it.
She pulled off her gloves but Ali was there, ready to help.
“Need me?”
JT looked down at Ali’s sparkling eyes, delicious lips, and tried to act normal. “Always,” she said in a low voice.
Ali made quick work of the safety pins and then helped JT get the vest adjusted correctly. “Is this an excuse for you to touch me?”
“Obviously,” Ali said, her eyes trained on JT’s chest. “Too bad you’re wearing so many layers you’re like one of those nesting dolls.” She huffed out a breath. “I can’t even feel you under there.”
“Yes, I am actually a very tiny lesbian in seventeen coats. And I don’t think the point of this competition is for you to feel me up in public.”
Ali shrugged. “Shows what you know. I signed up for this solely so I could cop a feel with an audience.” She tugged at the vest one last time. “Turn around.” JT complied. She would have done anything Ali asked.
“Wait, are you checking out my ass now?”
Ali laughed and gave the vest a sharp tug. “I wasn’t, but I am now.” She tugged again. “How does that feel?”
“Fine. Why?”
“There’s a spot to hook the rope with a carabiner. I assume they’re going to attach it to you when it’s our turn to race. You want to practice?”
JT nodded. Ali grabbed the sled and attached it to JT. JT waited for Ali to climb onto the sled and then walked to get used to how it felt to pull. The angle of the sled was a little weird, as the rope pulled it up in the front and almost made Ali topple out of the back.
“You okay back there? Do you need me to try to run crouched over? Like this?” JT took a few hard steps with her legs bent and her chest as low and she could manage without falling over.
“Stop!” Ali yelled. “I don’t need you to do that. It looks awful. Try pulling with your normal running form and see how we do. I’ll hold on tight.”
After a couple minutes, they figured out the method that worked the best. JT’s job was to go as fast and as hard as she could while Ali held on for dear life.
“You have to trust me!” Ali said. “You’re doing all the hard work. I will find a way to stay in the sled, I promise.”
JT tried to turn around, but the way the sled was clipped to her back made it very difficult to face Ali. She looked around and confirmed no one was near them. “I don’t want to hurt you.” She said it in a low voice, so they wouldn’t be overheard.
“What?” Ali yelled from the sled.
JT tried turning again and made it about halfway, the rope wrapping her up like a mummy. “I don’t want you to get hurt. If you fall out, you could get hurt on the hard snow. I—I don’t want to hurt you.”
Ali climbed out of the sled. “Do you think I’m made of glass?”
JT thought she sounded annoyed so she shook her head. “No! Of course not!”
Ali leaned closer. “Seriously, do you think I’m some fragile person?”
JT shook her head again, feeling like she was in the principal’s office. “No. I—”
Ali held up her hand. “Then run this race as fast as you fucking can and leave it to me to stay in the goddamned sled. I will not break if I fall out. I may be little but I am fierce.”
JT grinned. She loved this Ali, the fiery, fierce, powerful woman standing in front of her. No, she didn’t love her. That wasn’t right. She couldn’t, not this fast. She really liked her and admired her fire. Yeah, that was better, saner.
JT looked down at Ali. “Fine. I don’t think I’ve ever had a coach quote Shakespeare during a pep talk, but it worked. Next time I get nervous before a game, I’m calling you.”
Ali smiled and wrapped her hands around the straps of JT’s vest. She gave a tug. “And I will provide one anytime you need it. I’d love to be your secret weapon. But first, we have a silly hometown competition to win.”
They walked to the starting line, JT resisting the urge to grab Ali’s hand.
Ali didn’t seem shy about her affection, but holding hands, in front of Kyle and the rest of the town, seemed like a bigger declaration than JT was willing to make without talking to Ali first. But her hand seemed to drift toward Ali as they walked, and it was only by stuffing it in her pocket that JT managed to resist.
“First up, we have two of the three Cox siblings who have entered. Jonathan and Emerson will be racing each other accompanied by their partners Clark and Beth.”
JT clapped her gloved hands together and whooped.
She definitely wanted to win this, but she also knew that familial bragging rights were on the line and her money was on Emerson.
She had that steely competitive fire and honestly, Clark looked more like he’d seen the inside of a gym in the last five years.
Jonathan, by contrast, looked like he spent a lot of time in the studio.
They didn’t have a starting gun, which was not very on-brand for New Hampshire, but JT was happy not to have to hear one fired over and over.
Instead, they had a whistle. When Jonathan and Clark took off around the track, the crowd cheered.
They got to the first turn with Jonathan shockingly in the lead, but then it all went sideways.
Jonathan slipped and fell, which should have given Clark a path to victory, except when he fell, he blocked the track.
Clark tried to pull his sled, with Emerson shouting at him to go faster, over the Jonathan’s rope, but he got stuck.
The result, two tangled sleds and two brothers-in-law sprawled on the snow while their wives shouted at them to get up and move, causing a gasp to come from the crowd half a second before everyone, including Jonathan and Clark, laughed.
They looked at each other and lay down on the snow while their wives laughed but climbed out of the sleds.
“If you two are going to lie there, at least lie in the sleds.”
“Oh my god,” JT said to Ali, laugh tears covering her cheeks. “Em and Beth are going to fight it out.”
Ali pointed to the track. “Did Emerson just kick Clark?”