“It’d definitely be easier if he wasn’t avoiding me, but that’s on him. I’ve got you here, and I’m competing again. Nothing’s going to ruin that for me.”
I cupped his cheeks and stared into his pretty eyes. “I want to be the first face you see when you land your run.”
“The first one?” he asked dubiously. “G, you’re the only one I’m going to see.”
“Wow. Good one.”
I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. He looked into my eyes with sincerity. “Don’t you realize you’re all I ever see?”
I closed my eyes, unable to believe feelings could be this pure. Light kisses landed on my closed eyelids, and butterflies fluttered in my stomach. His lips were soft and gentle and exactly what I needed.
“Just you, G,” he assured me as he continued dropping soft kisses all over my face. “Always you.”
30
GISELLE
“How was Thayer feeling this morning?” Shay asked when she found me in the lodge getting a hot chocolate.
“Nervous.”
“I bet,” she said.
“How was Kason?”
“You know your brother. Nothing rattles him.”
I nodded, hating the distance between us. Last night had been tough, acting like we weren’t anything to one another, but I was hopeful that every day was a chance for him to move past his anger and forgive us. “Hey, where were you last night?”
“I had a virtual interview for an internship I’m hoping to get this summer.”
“When will you hear something?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
“They’d be lucky to have you.”
“Heard you ran into Kason last night,” she said, swiftly changing the subject away from her.
“Oh, you mean when he pretended not to know me?”
“He’s gonna get over it,” she said. “He just feels blindsided—and a little foolish that he had no idea.”
“We never meant to do that to him,” I explained. “It just all happened at such a confusing time for me.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me. When Kason and I got together, it was a confusing time for me. I hated him, but at the same time, I saw something redeeming in there too.” She shrugged. “Things happen when you least expect them to.”
I thought about her words as we made our way to the bottom of the slope, where the Big Air qualifier was about to begin. Qualifiers didn’t draw the huge crowd the finals drew, as there were fifty-five snowboarders broken into two heats, compared to the ten who made it to the finals. Kason was in the first heat, so I went to support him—whether he wanted me there or not. Thayer was off warming up for his second heat appearance.
“Dropping in first is Sven Larkin from Sweden,” the announcer said over the speakers.
Larkin flew over the hill, flipping numerous times before coming down hard on the snow and heading straight toward us, swerving before hitting the containment fencing.
We waited, and a score of 70 flashed on the leaderboard. He looked disappointed as he moved off to the side to the area where participants waited for the snowmobile to bring them back up for their second run. It was the best of two scores out of 100. So, it was understandable that he would have been disappointed with that score.
Unlike the practice round, one snowboarder after another brought out their bigger tricks. If they didn’t, they risked not making it to the finals.
“Dropping in now is Kason McCloud from the US,” the announcer said.