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“It’s fine.” Wade stood before his bookshelf, sideways to me as he looked up and down at the different trophies. “Don’t worry about it.”
There was an air about him that felt… different. Melancholy was the only word that came to mind, thick and heavy in the space, his lips pressed into a thin line. I took a step forward toward his desk. “Are you, uh, okay?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Would you like me to dust them?” I offered, my gut coiling as I realized I had no idea what to say to him. It felt like I was in uncharted territory—the normally happy-go-lucky teasing Wade or irritated beyond belief Wade had become a down-in-the-dumps Wade.
He slowly turned his gaze to me, one dark blonde eyebrow lifted. “Dust them?”
I shrugged.
“No, I don’t want you to dust them.” The side of his lips twitched upward, just a hint of that happy-go-lucky Wade peeking through, but it was gone before I could fully capture it. I held my breath as he lifted his hand toward one of the trophies, pointing at it. “I got this one when I was seventeen. Felt like I was walking on air.”
I couldn’t see the trophy properly from where I stood. Part of me wanted to approach him, look at it with him, but another part of me wanted to ask instead. Mom had always said I was never a fight-or-flight person. Freezing up was my go-to, in more ways than one.
“And this one,” he motioned to another on the shelf below, blues and reds climbing the shiny frame, “I got at eighteen. It was my first FIS competition.” His eyes darted to the platinum ski leaning next to the bookshelf for stability. “That one was right before the accident.”
The accident. The words echoed in my mind, over and over, begging me to ask him what that entailed. I could feel the sentence climbing my throat, sitting on my tongue, and banging against my clenched teeth to be let out. But if I asked, that would mean admitting there was a little piece of me that cared enough about him to want to know. And I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit that to either of us.
“I’m glad you had a nice morning with your mother?—”
“What happened?” I blurted out.
Maybe Mom was wrong. Maybe I was a fight person.
Wide eyes flared as they collided with mine, sending my heart rate off the charts. Another step forward and I was in front of his desk, my hands fidgeting, my sleeves pulled down over my palms.
“What happened?” I repeated, smaller that time, uncertain.
“Do you actually want to know or are you just humoring me?” he asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, his button-up pulling around the muscles of his biceps.
“I want to know.”
He seemed to mull it over as he looked between me and the trophies, his lips between his teeth. “Come here.”
I didn’t hesitate.
Stepping around his desk, every click of my heel felt like torture, like I was bearing something to him instead of the other way around, and maybe I was. Maybe my chat with Mom that morning had let the idea of pretending for a little bit go to my head. But I wanted the human connection, however small.
He motioned for me to sit atop his desk as he leaned back against the window, the morning’s pale, white light filtering in through the snow clouds. I pressed my hands into the hardened wood and hoisted myself up, my feet dangling below.
“Comfortable?” he asked, one brow raising again, challenging me to say anything other than yes.
I nodded.
He looked again at the platinum ski. “It was two weeks before my nineteenth birthday. I had signed a deal to ski with the Olympic team the following winter, but to keep my spot, I had to keep winning,” he explained. His voice had dropped. It was deeper, harder, a hint of what I could only imagine was pain behind it. “That was all I cared about. That and Emily.”
Emily. I opened my mouth to ask, but he held up a single hand to stop me.
“I’d stupidly let my ego take over everything I had,” he continued. “I’d stopped worrying about the risks. Sure, I’d had a few tumbles over the years, but nothing too bad had ever happened. When you’ve got an ego as large as mine was and a too-large dose of teenage invincibility, shit tends to hit the fan.”
“To be fair?—”
“I know,” he said, the smallest, saddest smile spreading across his lips for a fraction of a second. “My ego is still massive. Just be glad you didn’t know me back then.”
I shut my mouth, allowing him to continue.
“I needed to win, and in order to win, I needed to be fast. Speed was always my biggest advantage, so I didn’t think twice when I angled myself forward and took the corner too sharply.” He sucked in a breath as if the memory was real and tangible and happening in front of him. “My right ski caught on a skinny aspen. Fully twisted it. Fractured two bones in my shin, shattered my kneecap, and had a spiral break in my femur. I went down like a fucking bowling pin.”
