Page 137 of The Route to You

Kyle stayed where he was as Tomas studied him through the remaining window. “That’s a lot,” Tomas said with a low whistle.

His brain kept on spinning, trying to think of a way—anyway—to make this work. “Yeah.” Five months. Could he train in five months?

“We don’t have to take their offer. We can pitch someone else. Or tell them you’re injured and can’t take their offer as-is.”

“I get the feeling they’re more interested in highlighting their SkyRun than our show, given the amount of time he spent talking about it.”

“Yeah, but that’s irrelevant.” Tomas leaned back in his seat. “You can’t do it. And I’m going to be honest, Kyle, I’m not up for it. You’re the one who always does the mad things. I’m happy to narrate and do behind-the-scenes bits, but this is out of my league.”

Kyle propped his jaw between his hands and exhaled slowly. “We’ll figure it out,” he said flatly, then said his goodbye. Closing out the chat, he slammed his laptop screen down, frustration rankling him.

Fuck.

He was so close to being back to normal, too.

But January?

Maybe he could talk to his surgeon and see what he could handle. He’d been making a swift recovery. But with Tomas sounding doubtful about participating at all, the smart thing to do would be to say no and move on. Finding another costar who wanted to do something like this—and would be physically able to—wouldn’t be easy.

He sighed, resting his head on the top of his laptop, the plastic cool against his skin. He’d hoped to be able to lock this down. While he had some other leads on sponsors, none were as big as Blue Ridge and offered the same value in money and gear. Losing this would be a huge blow.

Before he could think about it further, though, the soft sound of light footsteps made him glance back. Sloan rounded the corner, a robe tied loosely around her, hair messy and framing her face.

Her nose was red, though—like she’d been crying.

He shot to his feet. “Sloan, what’s wrong?”

Sloan looked up and met his gaze, holding it, her eyes clouded with grief. “I have to go to San Francisco.”

Kyle closed the gap between them, his stomach dropping. “What’s going on?”

“My dad just called. He just landed at the airport and is on his way here because he wants to talk to me. It’s . . . Penny.” She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. Tears slipped onto her cheeks. “She has leukemia.”

Her words landed, and everything else—the sponsorship, his shoulder, the stupid fucking SkyRun—fell away. His problems felt ugly and irrelevant in the face of the things he already knew this could take from her.

He wrapped his arms around her, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest as she cried.

Penny had the same disease that had taken Sloan’s mother.

35

SLOAN

Kyle’s arms were around her before Sloan could even ask for a hug, and she sank against him, her stomach knotted tight.

How can this be happening again?

Leukemia wasn’t supposed to be hereditary—the oncologist had reassured Mom of that so many times over the course of her treatment.

But now, Penny had it.

. . . and Dad flew out all this way to tell me in person, only to drop the bomb when he was ten minutes away?

That made even less sense.

And . . . shit.

Dad was going to find Kyle here—assume she’d moved out here for him, just like Penny had suggested. And after last night, it wasn’t like she could say with a straight face that their relationship was platonic.