PROLOGUE
THAYER
The fire danced in the fire pit as snow crunched beneath my feet. I would’ve liked to say the Colorado night air chilled my body, but I felt nothing. Not the bitter cold that everyone huddled around the fire in winter jackets felt. Not the warmth the fire created if you moved close enough. Not a blow to the fucking face. Emptiness had burrowed its way inside my chest four days ago and still resided there as I downed another beer. Might as well numb everything.
“You need anything, Thayer?” Giselle asked from the spot to my right.
I didn’t look her way, just shook my head, my eyes on the crackling embers alternating between orange and red in the bottom of the pit.
I could sense her blue gaze staring at me. “Well, just say the word,” she offered.
I appreciated her asking. Giselle, my best friend Kason’s sister, looked out for me. I guess being two years older made her feel as though she needed to mother her brother and me. And, seeing as though we’d been busy tearing up the mountains on our snowboards since we were kids, she always saw us as irresponsible mountain rats who needed to be looked after.
She didn’t even know the half.
“Dude,” Kason called from across the fire.
I glanced up at his smiling face, his icy blue eyes that matched his sister’s, dancing wildly as two girls molded themselves into his sides like pillars.
“You mind if I head out?” he asked with bouncing brows, his snow bunnies reason enough to ditch me.
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
“If you need me, I can hang back,” he assured me.
And while I knew he meant it, I didn’t need him adding to my pity party. Someone should be having fun. “I’m good,” I lied, knowing I was far-fucking-from-it.
“Cool,” he said, before standing and circling over to me. He leaned down and bro-hugged me. “I’ll see you back at the house.”
Once he stepped back, I ran my hand through my shaggy and disheveled hair. I should have gotten it cut before my mom’s funeral, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, knowing how much she loved it.
“He’s such a selfish prick,” Giselle mumbled.
A humorless laugh escaped me as I glanced to her. “Yeah, but he’s our selfish prick.”
She offered me a smile, one carrying a mix of sadness and compassion. She understood what I was feeling. She understood that my world had imploded, and it would never be the same.
Someone handed me a bottle of beer over my shoulder. I took it, twisted off the cap, and downed the contents. I needed to escape the hell I was going through. I needed to be anywhere but in my body. Because this hell was real. And I was smack dab in the mother-fucking center. And I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back from it.
“Let me know when you want to head home,” Giselle offered.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. And I’m driving you home whenever you want to go. So deal with it.”
I rolled my eyes, not wanting to admit I needed her help, but I was halfway to oblivion and in no shape to drive home. “And if I want to bring two girls home with me?” I asked like the prick I could be.
“Then I’ll cart their skanky asses home with us,” she assured me.
I scoffed. As if I’d want to bring anyone home when she was there. She’d consumed my thoughts since she first acknowledged my existence when I was ten. Since then, it had pretty much been a fucked-up story of boy loves girl. Girl’s brother would fuck him up if he knew. But that wasn’t the worst part. Girl loved a rich asshole. Classic, right?
I stood up, my legs wobbling beneath me. I needed to head inside to say goodbye to any relatives who were still lingering long after the funeral had ended. I’d stayed at my father’s long enough to be polite, but after tonight, I had no desire to see him again. He’d been an absent father and husband for most of my life, finally divorcing my mom five years ago—five years after he’d become a serial cheater. The fact that I had to watch people come up to him at the wake and tell him how sorry they were for his loss nearly made me lose my shit. He hadn’t lost anything. I’d lost something. Someone. Someone who meant the world to me.
My mom was the reason I picked up a snowboard for the first time. The reason I competed in competitions all over the world.
“Where’re you going?” Giselle called, following after me as I headed to the back door of the house.
“To say goodbye.”