It was a good thing she’d already seen his balls because after last night, she might otherwise have wondered if he had any.
Jesus!
She had texted him this morning first thing.
HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY.
She’d added a little heart on the end, her concern for him coming through. He hadn’t texted back, not because he didn’t want to talk to her but because he didn’t know what to say. Should he pretend everything was normal? Should he apologize?
He hoped to God Esri had an opening this evening. If he couldn’t see her soon, he might come out of his skin.
“Hey, Jesse.” Ben sat down across from him, looking a lot better than he had on Saturday. “How are you?”
Jesse didn’t feel like talking. He wanted to tell the kid to get lost, but he knew Ben would take that the wrong way. “I’m fine. You?”
“I just wanted to thank you for what you did Saturday.”
“You mean saving your life?”Tone it down, asshole.“You’re welcome.”
But Ben hadn’t finished. “I’ve asked Matt to take me off explosives. I’m just not right for it. He said he would talk to you and Kevin about it.”
Jesse couldn’t deal with Ben’s shit right now. “Okay then.”
“That means you’ll ask him to take me off explosives?”
“Jesus, Ben. Can I just eat my lunch?”
“Sure. Yeah. Sorry.”
Jesse finished, carried his tray to the counter, and walked out into the afternoon sunshine. He stepped into his skis, skied over to the lift line, and rode the chair to the top of the mountain.
The sky was blue and wide as only a Colorado sky could be, the high peaks gleaming white with snow. The mountains had saved his life when he’d come here from Louisiana. But today the beauty and vastness couldn’t touch him.
He skied out to the back bowls, an out-of-bounds feature that attracted freeriders who wanted to risk their lives for a few minutes of adrenaline. There were no rule-breakers today, the snow pristine and untracked apart from the little trails left by pinwheels—little snowballs that were often the precursor to an avalanche.
Jesse could understand why people risked their lives out here. He could understand the need to throw everything inside you into a single moment, to test your mettle, to pit yourself against nature and see who won. Some part of him wanted to do that now, to point his tips down the fall line, forget everything but the rush of it, to throw himself at the mercy of the mountain.
How do you think the Team would feel digging your frozen, dead ass out of an avalanche? How would Ellie feel if you killed yourself on the job?
What the fuck was he thinking? This wasn’t like him.
Neither is crying on your girlfriend’s chest.
He needed to get a grip. “Forty-two to dispatch.”
“Forty-two, go ahead.”
“I’ve spotted a couple of skiers headed for the back bowls. I’m going to check it out.” He’d never made a bogus call before.
“Forty-two, copy.”
Jesse skied to an outcropping of rock and stared down at the slope below, the mountain calling him.
* * *
Ellie had just putthe kids down for their afternoon nap when her cell phone buzzed. She almost tripped over her own feet in her rush to get it.
Jesse.