He didn’t say anything, and I wondered if he was preparing to attack me again or tell me I was a big pussy for feeling that way.
“She loves you,” he said, his eyes still not on me.
“Yeah,” I agreed, surprised he was going there.
“Do you love her?” he asked, glancing up at me.
I did the only thing I could in that moment. I nodded.
He stared at me, a thousand thoughts playing across his face. “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
A small smile curved my lips. “That won’t happen.”
“And I never want to hear the two of you?—”
“Dude, I’m not that guy.”
He chewed on his bottom lip as if something else was weighing on him. “Gino was a douche.”
“Sure was.”
“She looks happy with you,” he said.
“She is happy with me,” I said.
“She wasn’t happy with him.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
He went silent again. I waited him out. I could see he was caving. “Give me a couple minutes,” he said. “I’ll go with you to the mountain.”
I couldn’t hide my smile.
Thank fuck.
Giselle
If someone were to tell me I’d actually floated to the base of the mountain, I would’ve believed them. Thayer loved me. Not in a high school crush kind of way. But really loved me. And to have him admit it to me, after everything we’d been through to get to this point, had me overcome with emotion. My feet didn’t feel like they’d ever come back to Earth.
“Hey.” I spun around to find Shay heading my way with a smile. “Let’s move closer to the front.”
Loud music played through the giant speakers, and a huge group of spectators had already gathered for today’s Big Air finals. Shay pushed her way through the crowd, not caring if she pissed anyone off by doing so. I followed her lead. Jesse was up in front. When he spotted us, he pulled us the rest of the way until we were right up against the containment fencing. That’s when I realized my parents were up in front too.
“Hey. When did you get here?” I asked.
“We just arrived,” my mom said.
“She was stressing the whole way, thinking we were going to miss it,” my father added.
“Our boys are fifth and tenth,” Jesse explained.
“Who’s tenth?” I asked.
“Thayer.”
“Shit,” I mumbled.
“He’s got this,” Jesse said. “It’ll give him time to psyche himself up.”