Page 136 of The Route to You

Tomas frowned. “And the other two?”

“There’s an event we sponsor in mid-January called the Teton SkyRun. It’s a mountain race in ski mountaineering—also known as skimo. Really exciting sport that’s starting to get a lot of traction. For our event, it’s teams of two racing uphill on lightweight skis, transitioning to crampons for boot packing, then one more transition to downhill skis. You haul your own gear, navigate your own line. It’s part endurance, part mountaineering.”

Jackson.

Jackson fucking Hole.

Kyle’s lips pressed to a line, his fingers curling into his palms. The shame of it was, he’d always loved Jackson and the Tetons—before he’d been arrested there. That had unfortunately left a permanent mark on the memory of it.

“There are no coincidences.” Granny’s voice sparked through his memory.

“It’s about thirty miles total,” Shawn continued on, undeterred by the silence from Tomas and Kyle. “But most of it is straight up or straight down. The winning team this year took just under eight hours.”

Tomas let out a low whistle. “That’s not a fun jog.”

Shawn laughed the benign laugh that corporate folks used when they spoke of things they never actually did themselves. “It depends on how you define ‘fun.’ The point is, we want someone covering from the ground. Someone who can give the public an insider view of what it takes to run a race of this caliber. These races would also be a major opportunity to showcase much of our product line. Those would be the first two episodes we sponsor for you, of course—the other three contingent on you completing this.”

Yeah. Kyle restrained his grimace. Highlight your product line while battling ice and wind so cold it cuts.

“So, you want us to make two episodes covering the SkyRun in January, and then we have your sponsorship for three additional episodes?” Kyle repeated.

“Well”—Shawn shifted in his seat, tugging on his collar—“we don’t just want you covering it. We want you in it—racing it. Letting your audience see what that actually looks like. We realize you’re not professional athletes, but that’s exactly what we’re targeting. Every day athletes and hobbyists at home.”

“In it.” Kyle’s words came out flat. Oh fuck.

They had no way of knowing, of course. His family had done a great job of keeping his accident and injuries private, like he’d asked them to.

But . . . January?

He almost pounded the table with his fists. God dammit.

Kyle rolled his shoulder before he could stop himself. The joint protested, a tight, ugly pull that shot down his arm and made his fingers curl.

January. Could he possibly train for a race like that? January would be just shy of a year after his injury. “How long of a run is it?”

“Depends on how you count the suffering.” Shawn’s grin was starting to annoy Kyle, for all the wrong reasons. “About thirty miles. A lot of vertical. It’s not a casual race. You would need to train for it. And we’ll cover the cost for two weeks of travel before the race so you can acclimate to the change in atmospheric pressure.”

Kyle’s mind drifted to thin air. Scree and switchbacks that never seemed to end. The way his lung had burned the first time he’d tried to run more than a mile without stopping. “And you want this as part of the sponsorship?”

“Exactly. You keep doing your show. We come along for the ride.”

“We’re not racing to win it, though?” Tomas asked with a furrow of his brow.

Win it? No fucking way they could. He’d probably tear his rotator cuff again just trying to prep for this. Thank God for Tomas’s acting skills right now. Tomas was up for a lot of challenges, but he hated snow. He was doing a much better job not giving anything away than Kyle, whose jaw clenched despite his best efforts.

“Of course, we’d love to see you compete , but our priority is to show potential consumers what goes into a race like this.”

Kyle’s hand tightened around his mug. His family would kill him.

Sloan would kill him. Thank fuck she was asleep right now instead of listening from the kitchen.

But instead of saying no and explaining his injury outright, he said, “I’ll need to see the details.”

“Of course,” Shawn said. “I’ll send everything over today.”

“Okay.”

“Looking forward to working with you,” Shawn said before his window disappeared.