Slope of Love (Love in Bloom: The Remingtons) (6 page)

She debated going back to the lounge or finding Rush and asking him to go with her to the cabin, but she’d slipped into weak-girl mode with Marcus and she’d be damned if she’d ever do that again. She took a deep breath and headed for the porch. Marcus stood in the middle of the living room with his bags over his shoulder and an angry look on his face.

“I came to get my shit.” He wore the same clothes and irate scowl as the night before.

Jayla stood just inside the open door and shoved her hands in her pockets to keep him from seeing them tremble. “How’d you get in?”

He held up the key before tossing it onto the couch. He walked toward her and she stepped aside to let him pass, but he stopped beside her. It wasn’t the look in his eyes that she noticed; it was the dark energy that he exuded, so different from Rush’s positive, warm aura.
What the hell did I ever see in you?
It pissed her off just thinking about it. She clenched her teeth and took another step back.

“Look. I’m sorry for all the shit that happened. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I shouldn’t have grabbed your arm in the lobby. I’m just—”

“Save it, Marcus. I’m done with all of your excuses. I put the competition ahead of myself. I stayed with you way too long to avoid being distracted over a breakup while we were competing, and I’ll never do that again.” She clenched her teeth again, this time to keep them from chattering.

“Jayla—”

“Leave, Marcus.” She held her breath as he walked out the door.
How could I ever have thought that you were a reasonable distraction from my feelings for Rush?

He stopped before descending the porch steps and looked back over his shoulder, a deep V between his brows. “It’s just as well. It was Rush you were after, not me.”

She breathed fast and hard, biting back the retort that vied to fly from her tongue.
I have never been after Rush Remington!

Okay, maybe she hadn’t been
after
Rush, but clearly she had never gotten over the feelings she carried for him, and the way he looked at her made her wonder if he finally felt something, too.

An hour later, she was still a little shaken by her run-in with Marcus. She’d showered and just finished another round of shoulder exercises and popped a few Tylenol and Motrin—which was the equivalent of using Scotch tape to seal a gunshot wound—when she received a text from Rush.

Night ski?

She craved the comfort of her best friend. Surely, she could ignore whatever feelings had been creeping forward. Of course she could. They’d lived a lifetime without even so much as a kiss. Why was she wigging out now? She thought of Rush showing up last night and realized that maybe she was
too
comfortable around him. Was there such a thing? She’d never thought so, but now she worried that she might chew him out again for no reason—or jump his bones.

She chose the safe route and texted back,
Tired, but thanks anyway.

An hour and a half later, there were three hard knocks on the door. She froze, then remembered that Rush had knocked the same way earlier that morning. She pulled the door open a little, peeked out, and found Rush fumbling with a stack of DVDs, microwave popcorn, and his big, stupid slippers.

“You’re supposed to be skiing,” she said.

“I did. I’ve gone three weeks without my best friend.” He pushed past her and set everything down on the counter. “Probably my fault, but you know.” He shrugged.

“Tunnel vision during competition. Yeah. I know.”

“Now that Marcus is gone, the tunnel has widened.” He made himself at home, opened the cabinets, fished out two wineglasses, and set them on the counter.

“You know why you’ve never had a long-term girlfriend?” She leaned on the counter and fiddled with his keys. He still used the little ski keychain she’d given him about a hundred years ago. For the first time in weeks, she felt like she was back on solid ground.

“Because I never wanted one?” He arched a brow.

“No. Because you won’t get rid of those stupid slippers, and you drink water from wineglasses. Real women like to be wined and dined.”

“Maybe real women do, but best friends don’t need me to pretend. Besides, if I were tied up with some needy woman, I wouldn’t be able to come over and watch you wallow in your Marcus-less life. I figured you needed a little rehab.”

Worried he was talking about her shoulder, she said hopefully, “Movie rehab?”

“What have you always told me?” He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair.

“That your ego is too big?” She flipped through the DVDs and held up one of them. “
Eyes Wide Shut
? Really?” She rolled her eyes.

“I packed a bunch of movies since this was supposed to be our week to hang out. Thanks for getting rid of you know who.”

“Don’t even bring up that ass.”

He shrugged. “Fine by me. I didn’t know what mood you’d be in, so I made sure to bring your favorite and your most hated movie. And…” He put the popcorn in the microwave, then pulled two enormous bags of gummy bears from his coat pocket.

Jayla reached for the candy. “You really are the best.”
And I’ve been such a bitch and avoiding you. How could I ever avoid you? Why did I? Ugh. I’m such an idiot. I can’t even think straight.

Rush held the bag out of reach. “You women are all alike. You only want me for my candy.”

You couldn’t be farther from the truth
. “I have a feeling the candy I want you for and the candy your ski hos wants you for are very different.” She moved in close and placed her thumb to the ticklish spot just inside his jeans pocket—the one that she’d learned about when they were kids and he’d tackled her in a tickle fight—then she squeezed.

“Hey.” His arm came down and she snagged the bag.

And just like that they’d fallen back into their comfort zone. That was one of the things Jayla loved most about their friendship—it was never more than a breath away. She suppressed the butterflies in her stomach and smoothed the kink in her crush-lust armor, settling it right back into place.

“Works every time.” Jayla glanced in the living room and realized she’d left the red rubber therapy band she used for her shoulder exercises on the doorknob to the bedroom. With the bag of candy in her fist, she grabbed the band, tossed it onto the bed, and closed the door.

Rush opened two bottles of Vitamin Water and poured them into the wineglasses. “What do you always say to me at the beginning of training season?”

“Please keep it to yourself.” She grabbed a glass and stuck
Spaceballs
into the DVD player.

“What? It’s great advice. There’ll always be another one right around the corner.”

He held her gaze and her heart squeezed. She’d completely misread him. He must not have been feeling anything more for her if he was suggesting that she date other guys. She flopped on the couch and tried to act like her hope hadn’t deflated.

“That’s great advice for a guy who thinks sex is like fine wine and he should taste as much as he can. It’s not good advice for a girl who has just sworn off men forever.”

Rush slipped his feet into his fuzzy, quilted slippers, which made him look like he was wearing two rabbits on his big feet. He carried the popcorn over and sat beside her. Rush put his arm around Jayla, and she tucked her feet up beneath her.

“Forever, huh?”

She cuddled in beside him as she’d done so many times before. Natural. Easy. Comfortable. Her pulse sped up a little despite the armor she’d slipped back into, and she took a deep breath.
Friends. We’re friends. That’s good enough. It has to be
.

“Maybe.”

“I hear if you don’t use certain body parts, they fall off.” He tickled her ribs with the tease.

She laced her fingers with his as the movie started. She’d missed their friendship these last few weeks. She’d missed
them
. She’d missed him. “That’s only for guys. Besides, who says I won’t use them? I’m just swearing off men.”

“They say batteries are a girl’s best friend.”

“I’m beginning to think that whoever
they
are, they just might be right.”

Rush pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and tucked it around her legs. “You might be right. We can be assholes.”

“Yeah, you can. But you did bring my favorite movie, and you get a free asshole pass for that.”

He held his phone up in front of them. “Smile.”

“Rush…” She covered her face. They had taken hundreds of random photos over the years, and in most of them Jayla was in some sort of disarray and Rush was beaming like a fool. He’d initiated the idea of an album, and he’d carried the idea forward throughout the years more than she had. She wondered now, as she was pressed against his body, if the album could possibly mean as much to him as it did to her—despite her discomfort of being the focus of photographs.

“Come on. Good times, bad times, you know how this goes, and you know I’ll take it anyway. We’ll add it to our album. Please?”

She stuck out her tongue and he clicked the picture.

As she soaked up the comfort of his friendship, she knew she had been right all those years to keep her feelings for him silent. She couldn’t risk their friendship by trying to be something more with the one person who not only understood her as a person, but really got her passion for skiing, her drive and determination, the one person who helped her push herself to be more than she ever knew she could. She trusted Rush in a way that she didn’t even trust her family, who she knew loved her and who supported her on a different level. They were there for her like a safety net. They’d catch her when she fell. Whereas Rush would never wait until she fell. He would become her legs, her strength, her skis, the very legs she stood upon. He’d hold her, breathe for her, find her balance for her, and when she made it down the mountain safely, he’d haul her right back up to the top of the mountain and push her to do it again—all by herself.

Because he knew she could.

Even if she didn’t have to.

RUSH WOKE UP at four in the morning after he and Jayla had watched
Spaceballs
,
Star Wars
, and finally
Tomb Raider
, because Rush knew that Jayla would rather die than watch a sappy movie where the female lead was too weak to take care of herself. He straightened up the living room and went to the bedroom to grab a heavier blanket for her. Even though she’d been there only a few hours, the bedroom was already Jaylaized. Three pairs of ski pants hung over the closet door, two pairs of boots and a pair of sneakers lay on the closet floor, and a picture of her family was displayed proudly on the dresser.

He picked up the photograph and smiled. She came from a large family, just like he did, and he’d met them many times. Her younger brother Jared looked up to her, and her older siblings looked out for her.
Sort of
. They weren’t as close as Rush’s family, getting together as often or trying to make it to most events as a group, but they loved one another, and if Jayla ever really needed them, they’d step up to the plate. But Jayla was too independent to need that kind of support, so Jace, Mia, and Jennifer lived their busy lives and kept in touch through emails, occasional phone calls, and holiday gatherings. Occasionally, one or two of them would make it to one of her competitions, and Rush had always felt a twinge of sadness for Jayla when his entire family would show up to support him. She never seemed to mind. His family had known her for so long that they treated her like she was one of them.

Rush glanced at the photo again, remembering a few times when Jayla had mentioned Jace being overprotective, but that seemed to ease after she was out of high school. His eyes lingered on Jen. Jen was a lot like the person Rush used to be. She liked men, and she liked sex. Rush had never seen anything wrong with that, but now the idea of Jen having any influence on Jayla took on a whole new feel, and he had to work hard at pushing the jealousy away.

He set the frame back on the dresser and moved toward the bed, hoping that he was mistaken about what he saw. He picked up the long rubber therapy band and gritted his teeth. “Damn it, Jayla.” He set it on the nightstand and grabbed the blanket from the bed.

Forty minutes later, he sat on the edge of the bed in his own cabin with his head in his hands. He’d showered and changed, had a protein shake, and couldn’t stop thinking about the Thera-Band. He’d seen Jayla flinch when she’d lifted that damn bag. He’d hoped he was wrong and that the coach had been more worried about her focus than an injury, but the band could mean only one thing—that the injury was bad enough for her to
need
to hide it. He headed up to the gym in the resort with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t make him feel any better that when he’d tested the waters by mentioning other guys were waiting
around the corner,
she gave no indication of the interest in him he thought he’d picked up on earlier.

He and Jayla, like most professional athletes, lived with the fear of incurring an injury bad enough to end their career. Snow was their blood, and competing was their oxygen. How many times had they played out the what-ifs together?
What if you could never ski again? What if you could never compete again?
What happened to ex-athletes?

The gym was empty, which was a good thing, because Rush wasn’t in the mood to talk. After stretching, he worked his biceps, pumping the heaviest weights he could, fighting against Jayla’s answers to their what-ifs. He didn’t want to let them in, and he was powerless to stop them.
It wouldn’t matter. I’d die from withdrawals.
He knew it went deeper than the innate need to ski. Washed-up skiers didn’t get big advertising contracts like other ex-professional athletes did. At least he had a degree he could fall back on, though he couldn’t even imagine ever needing to. Jayla hadn’t gone to college. She worked two jobs in the summers and poured all of her money into her skiing career, hiring the right coaches, buying the right gear, training at the best camps. Her parents supported her efforts, but they didn’t have the financial means to fund her or her siblings’ educations. He knew Jayla was good with finances, and she probably saved almost every penny her sponsors had paid. He also knew that when skiing was all a person had ever wanted to do, going without could feel like a catastrophic free fall. If that happened to Jayla, he’d make damn sure that he was there to catch her.