Love Today (16 page)

While Zack hardly had to help her get dressed, he offered product specs, and when he put her into boots and selected a board for Maggie, he briefly went over the information and answered a few questions.

I guess the most impressive thing was that Maggie could easily get into the boots and into the bindings by herself, and even though I didn’t know too much about snowboarding equipment, I could tell by the responses of
two people
in the room that this was a notable thing.
But I could also tell that the meeting was specifically designed for a certain attendee that was present—obviously a big time boarder—and a lot of the questions from his representatives (and himself) had more to do with advanced performance. Maggie’s participation was
merely
a secondary aspect, but it seemed to make the meeting a little more interesting as it displayed more of the brand that Zack was marketing.

Maggie’s favorite part
was the selection of hats she had to choose from. And I thought it was pretty odd that there were so many of her size and the colors she liked until I realized that
a lot
of the stuff there was actually
for
her. Apparently Zack’s shipping order included an entire snowboarding wardrobe for my niece.

Part of the meeting consisted of the attende
es
looking over the
merchandise—h
andle it, try it out
—and while Maggie de-boarded herself, Zack told them to take what they could personally use for themselves as a gift.

“At
Secure
I want only the best,” he concluded with. “I want my family and friends to have the best products on the mountain so they can enjoy their experiences to the fullest. I wouldn’t put the people I care about in or on anything else. I fully back everything I design, and I’ll do whatever I can to make the product
s that you need for your career,
”
he concluded, directly speaking to the boarder at the other end of the table.

With a smile the guy saluted and said, “See you on the mountain.”

“See you on the mountain,” Zack nodded.

The meeting adjourned after that. Zack continued casual conversations with a few of the people as the
y
left with armful
s
of gear, and while Maggie asked me if we could go play in the snow, Zack motioned me over to meet the “see you on the mountain” guy.

“This is Taryn,” he told him
, putting an arm around me
. “Taryn, this is Scotty Grosse, champion of last year’s World Tour.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “And congratulations on your success.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “Unfortunately it’s a title that Zack would have held by now.” I glanced at Zack, unsure of what to say, but Scotty added, “
So what do you think of his company, Taryn? You think it would be a wise endorsement for me?”

“Uh, well, I’m not a
n avid
snowboarder, so I have zero expertise on that.
But
…
I do have
inside
knowledge about a certain someone’s character,” I said with a smile, glancing at Zack. “And I’d have to say that alone is a perfect choice.”

Scotty slightly nodded his head. “Totally agree with you on that.” He patted Zack on the arm and said, “I’m starving; I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bring your best game.”

“Certainly will have to. Bye, Maggie,” he added with a chuckle, waving as he left.

Maggie returned the wave, and it was then that I noticed why Scotty had laughed. She had on what looked to be about four different hats.

“Hey, you might start a new trend,” Zack told her.

She had no idea what that meant, but she laughed when he pulled the bottom hat over her entire face.

“I’m starving too,” he told me. “Are you girls hungry?”

“I am,” I replied.

“Me too,” Maggie said, finally removing all of the hats.
Her hair had been in two braids, but now it was full of fuzzy strays sticking up everywhere.

While a crew came in and packed up the remaining merchandise, the hotel employees cleaned up the coffee mugs and straightened the room. Maggie still had on the bib overalls, and I was carrying her shoes in my hand. While she walked to the elevator in her socks she asked, “When can we play in the snow?”

“How about after we eat?” I told her.

“Okay,” she shrugged.

W
hile Maggie was busy checking out the pockets on her pants, I looked at Zack, smiling at me.

“What?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he shrugged, trying to hide the smile.

I kind of chuckled at him but asked, “So did the meeting go okay? Are they all that…casual?”

“Casual? Oh, I think there
were
a couple of ties present and maybe a skirt.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I smiled.

He laughed but said, “Yeah, it’s usually pretty laid back. I don’t think I could do it any other way.”

I glanced down at his clothes and said, “I assumed that you were heading back to the room to change before you went.”

“
Cargo pants
and Vans aren’t meeting attire?”

“I guess in this case they are.”

He smiled and put his arm around me
as the elevator s
topped, and then we headed for t
he Steak Pit
. “Well thanks for joining me.”

“I didn’t want to. We really were just looking around the lodge.”

“I know. But I’m glad you found me. I was going to invite you to come, but I didn’t think Maggie would be interested. But once I got there
and saw all of her gear… Well, it was a little too late for the idea. Or so I thought.”

“So…is that what you do every time you go out of town? You meet a room full of people, go over the products, and then have them test ‘em out the next day?”

“Yeah,
pretty much. The testing
part is the best part,” he smiled. “But most of those people in the meeting are just the business end of it, and that’s taken care of
with Rusty
. Like tomorrow, all I care about is Scotty and his buddies liking what they use on the mountain. Even if they don’t sign with my company, I know they’re going to use those products anyways. I know for a fact he
will
sign, but that’s beside the point.”

“Oh?” I chuckled. “Isn’t that
the
point?”

“Well…yeah, it is. But it’s not som
ething I really focus on
.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t that your job? To market
the
products to sell?”

We’d entered
the restaurant
by then and were taken right to a table. As we sat down he replied, “Yeah, it’s been my job for the past few years, and I like doing it myself because it gets things done how I want, but I don’t really have to market the products myself. I have other reps.”

“Zack, isn’t marketing your job? What do you mean you have ‘other reps’?
To do your job?
Uh, isn’t that what gets you paid?”

“Uh, well, I guess I’m
actually
an entrepreneur.”

             
“
What?”

He paused for a few seconds while I answered Maggie’s question about the bird outside, and then asked,
“Have you ever heard of Secure Snowboards?”

“
Uh, yeah,” I chuckled. “I just saw about a dozen of them ten minutes ago. And they
are
nice boards
, by the way
.
Or so I’ve heard.
”

He kind of
laughed
. “Thank you.”

It took me a while to understand what he meant, and I finally said, “Wait a minute.
I know you do the marketing for those boards, it’s the company you work for, but…”

He smiled, but it seemed a little mysterious.

“Am I missing something?” I asked.

He kind of shook his head but said, “No, nothing that you should be aware of
, I guess
. Uh…
Secure is my company. I’m the, uh, CEO.”

“The what?” It’s not that I didn’t know what a CEO was, but I didn’t really understand
what he was telling me
.

“Secure is a board—a brand
—that I engineered and marketed
myself
when I thought I’d never compete again
. T
hey kind
of turned out pretty well, and for the past four years my company
has
expanded
a bit
.”

“
A bit
? Secure Snowboard is a multi-
million
dollar company!” I hissed.

He raised his eyebrows. “Jeez, you read up on
your business stuff, don’t you?
”

“Zack, are you kidding me?”

“About what?”

I didn’t even know if I had a specific question, but I didn’t say anything at first. Maggie was back to pointing at the birds outside, so after a minute of conversing with her, I turned my attention back to Zack.

“You really founded Secure Snowboards?”

He barely nodded, studying me carefully. It was almost like he was trying to read my thoughts, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. I was a little shocked that he was the CEO of such a successful company. Now a lot of the comments that he’d made over the past few weeks finally made sense to me, and it must have been funny to him every time I mentioned his “boss.” I guess the most entertaining time was when I’d taken him lunch at
his office and he took me into
the
“
boss’s” office. He assured me it was fine, even saying that his boss was a pretty cool guy.

“I’m getting a weird vibe from you,” he finally said to me. “Are you actually
mad
at me?”

I looked at him and sighed. “No, I’m no
t mad at you.
I mean I’ve been to your office, I’ve been to your house, I’ve been in your car…”

“And? What does all that mean?”

I paused for several seconds and looked him over quickly. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it.

“I don’t seem like a millionaire?” he finally said.

“No, that’s not it. No, actually that
is
it. That’s
totally it. You don’t. And even the things you say and how you act and…”

“That disappoints you?”

“What? No,” I said quickly. “I mean the opposite. I’m really glad that you’re just…Zack. Wait, I don’t mean to make that sound
insignificant
—”

I stopped when he laughed and held his hand up. “No, I’ll take ‘just Zack’ any day.”

Chapter Fourteen

I’d like to say that my
boyfriend
’s
millionaire
status wasn’t going to
get in the way of our relation
ship, but it made me feel even more insecure about him paying for things
,
if that
even
makes sense
. Now that it was out in the open,
Zack asked me not to
object to anything he ever offered to pay for. But now I was worried that he’d just always been leery of girls taking advantage of his finances, and that made me feel really uncomfortable because I felt that he’d
tried
to keep it a secret
from
me
as well
.

I guess I understood that, so I wasn’t upset about the
lack of
full disclosure—it wasn’t my business anyway—but
I was honest with him and told him how I felt. He wasn’t surprised, ev
en claiming that he knew I’d feel that
way. He also joked that I could have all his money, but for some reason, I got the impression he wasn’t kidding.

Friday Zack spent the morning with Scotty while Maggie and I went swimming, played in the game room, and played in the sno
w. We didn’t do any snowboarding
just yet because I knew that Zack was really looking forward to teaching
Maggie himself
. We came in from the snow around one for lunch
in our room
, and we just sat down at the
table
with sandwiches when Zack returned too.

“Perfect timing,” I told him. “You hungry?” I held up a sandwich for him as he dropped some of his gear onto the floor.

“I’m so hungry I could eat
Maggie,” he said, pretending to bite her head.