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The five minutes of waiting were absolute torture.
I had to take myself away from the bathroom. Instead of staring at the potential lines, I stared instead at the family photos that hung on the hallway wall. Imagining my father behind me instead of forever memorialized in photos was enough to calm my breathing, but not my mind.
I counted every second. Took my time. Meditated with it. And by the time I got to three hundred seconds, I raced back to the bathroom and stared in absolute horror at the sight in front of me.
Two lines.
Pregnant.
Chapter 30
Wade
Amidst the lingering chill of the fading ski season, I stared out at the small array of people still hitting the slopes. My spot inside the bar had remained unchanged—in front of the fire with a book on mountain biking in one hand and a scotch in the other. I was exhausted, barely able to stare at the words on the pages. I could hardly focus on anything these days.
There was nothing inside of me that could muster up the energy to go back into Boulder. I couldn’t keep seeing her, couldn’t be near her. I needed my distance if I was ever going to get over her, and even then, it seemed impossible. She was always there in the back of my mind, inserting herself where she no longer belonged—in my dreams, in my thoughts, in my waking nightmares. Distance was the only thing that seemed to calm it, even if it was only a little.
Despite the warming air that was ever so slowly melting the snow, bunnies still swarmed the resort. I didn’t have the forethought to hide from the media when I came back, and considering I hadn’t had the heart to leave, they knew where to find me.
I knew that throwing myself at them would be the quickest fix. And if it wasn’t, it would be enough to take Ray off my mind for at least a fleeting moment. But I didn’t want them. They didn’t appeal to me. The thought of being buried inside someone who wasn’t her was enough to make me feel sick, to make me put down my glass of scotch instead of relish in the burn it gave me. The old me would have jumped at the opportunity.
Ray had changed me, though, in ways beyond that. Eventually, when the thoughts of her faded as much as the ones of Emily had, I could find happiness in that again. I was sure of it, I had to be to keep my sanity. But for now, that wasn’t me, and I wouldn’t be setting foot in someone else’s room for a long time.
“Wade?”
I blinked past the light fog of the booze and turned over my shoulder, thoroughly expecting yet another bunny, but found an irritated Mandy instead.
“The fuck are you doing down here?” she asked.
“Uh, reading?” I answered, lifting my book to give emphasis. My mind couldn’t process why she was there. She and Jackson weren’t out this far often, and immediately, my mind went to the worst possible reason. “Has something happened to Ray?”
“What?” Her brows knitted as she recoiled a little. Her nose scrunched up just like Ray’s did. “Not as far as I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you’re not upstairs.” She stared at me for a moment, confusion bouncing off of both of us. “Please don’t tell me you forgot we had a meeting today.”
Oh, shit. I had absolutely forgotten.
“Wade,” she groaned, her ass falling into the wingback beside my own. “You need to get yourself together. This is… this is bad.”
I sighed and dog-eared the page before shutting my book. “I know.”
“No, you don’t,” she insisted, her tough-love attitude pouring into every word. “You’ve been useless lately. Honestly, I should have realized you’d forgotten when you hadn’t sent me the maps for the new lift or the floor plan for the second resort. Did you forget about that too?”
“Maybe.”
“How often have you been drinking?”
I rolled my eyes at her as I picked up the scotch again. “Calm down. I’ve not turned into a drunk, Mands.”
“How many have you had today?” she asked, her lips pressing into a thin line as she stared me down. “If it’s anything more than one, that’s an issue.”
“Two is not a problem.”
“It’s eleven in the fucking morning.” She snatched the glass from my hand, spilling little droplets on the plush carpet beneath us, and set it down on the table furthest away from me. “You need to get yourself together or your investor is going to pull out. Is that what you want? After everything you did to get there?”
She had a point. I’d barely made a lick of progress in weeks, and I should’ve already had the plans sorted for both the lift and the new resort. Neither had been done. “I get it. I’m shit. Thanks, Mandy.”
