Rebound (16 page)

T
he lodge has a library off the great room that’s small and dim, with dark mahogany bookshelves and two stuffed chairs. It’s as much privacy as I can get us right now, while still being part of the day’s program. I claim it for Team Quick-Wood, taking Ali there as the other teams stake out other spots throughout the house.

We weren’t the only team hustling inside for shelter five minutes ago. The weather’s taking a turn for the worse, which could be a problem. Jackson airport only has a single runway and a good storm could get us stranded here for a few days—not a good thing with Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. As much as my employees like me, I’m guessing they’d rather be with their families for the holiday.

“Right here, lovely,” I say, sitting Ali down in one of the huge leather chairs in front of the fireplace. If there’s one takeaway from
this retreat, I think
lovely
is going to be it. Thanks to Jazz, everyone’s taken to the word. “I’ll get a fire going.”

“That’d be great,” she says. She’s a little shaken up by what she just told me, and she’s shivering from cold, but I feel a steadiness in the air between us now, and a keen awareness of the trust she just placed in me.

It feels incredible to have her faith in me. I want to let her know she’s safe; I won’t let her down. I want to take her hand and tell her she’s brave, and that she should forgive herself.

What she told me also gives me plenty to consider where Graham is concerned. I’ve always been wary of him. But, added to what Ethan told me and to Rhett and Cookie’s feelings about him, it’s painting a pretty dark portrait of the guy. I can work with assholes, but a person who has major character flaws—who can manipulate his own daughter so cruelly—that’s something I need to think about. Not now, though. Later.

Now, warmth. A fire to warm Ali.

Once I get that burning, I stand. Ali has tucked herself into the corner of the huge leather chair, all folded up. Her ski jacket is off, and she’s in a white cashmere sweater. Her boots are off too, and her socks are purple with pink polka dots. Her blue eyes are just a little swollen from crying, but she’s smiling. She’s moving forward. She looks cute and sexy and beautiful the way she is—everything. I wish I could take a picture of her, but that’s the last thing she needs right now.

“Stay put,” I say. “I’ll be right back with our coffees.”

“Okay. But don’t think for a minute you’re escaping this, Adam.”

“Didn’t forget. Just wanted to take care of you first.”

I hesitate before I go. Even though I can hear Paolo and Sadie laughing in the great room just outside, it feels like Ali and I are the only people in the world, and I don’t want to let go of that feeling. Then something changes inside me, and fear starts scratching at
my chest. Fear that if I walk away she won’t be here when I come back, because life can change like that. In a matter of seconds. I know it can.

Alison tilts her head questioningly, responding to my mood.

“I don’t like leaving you,” I hear myself say.

“The sooner you go,” she replies, softly, “the sooner you’ll be back.”

It’s just the motivation I need.

In the kitchen, Mia stands at the espresso machine. She pours steaming milk from a can into a mug. “Hey, Adam. What’s your poison?”

“Double espresso, if you’re taking orders. And Ali likes—”

“Latte with cinnamon on top. I made one for her yesterday.”

Jazz, who’s waiting for Mia on a barstool, beams. “This is such a marvel to witness. I truly don’t know of any other organization whose employees are so in tune with one another.”

“Well, he’s not an employee,” Mia says. “He’s the boss.”

“But look at you two lovelies. You’re simply beautiful together.”

I lean against the counter and cross my arms. Mia and I share a look. We’re definitely not beautiful together. But there’s something between us that’s unique, for sure. We’re connected in a strange way, through Ethan and Alison. Through a tumultuous, twisting past that seems to be straightening out and settling.

My eyes pull to the windows. It’s snowing again. And even though it’s only three in the afternoon, the mountain looks shadowed and dark through the windows, making it feel much later.

“Hey, Galliano. Do me a favor and get an update on Jackson airport? I want to make sure you’re back in Ethan’s arms for Turkey Day.”

“You got it, lovely.”

In the library, I hand Ali her coffee. Then I pull the other chair right in front of hers and take a seat.

“You ready, partner?” she asks me. She seems relaxed. Happy again.

“Born ready.”

“Here we go,” she says, tying the blindfold over my eyes. There are no blue cones to navigate for me. We’re going right to the heart of things—to the Trust Layovers, as Jazz called them.

For a few seconds, I check in with the way my other senses sharpen. The crackle of the fire sounds louder. The smooth taste of the espresso on my tongue more pronounced. The scent of Ali’s perfume has a lush spiciness I hadn’t noticed before. And the sound of her voice when she speaks is even clearer and more musical.

“This is a little disappointing, I have to admit,” she says.

“Yeah? How so?”

“I was looking forward to leading you around. I wanted to have control of . . . well. Of you.”

“You do, Alison. More than you know.”

She’s quiet. Without being able to see her, I have no idea how she’s reacting to my comment. It’s a crazy feeling. Not safe like I expected to feel without having to look into her eyes. I realize I haven’t been worrying about that lately. Not nearly as much.

Since we got to Jackson, have I at all?

“This is weird,” Ali tells me. “I’m nervous even though I’m asking the questions.”

I know exactly what she means. This is intense. I can’t see, but I feel very
seen
.

After another moment, she asks, “Your tattoo. What does it mean to you?”

“Someone I loved drew it. She died a few years ago.” I’m being vague to protect myself. I’ve been doing it for four years, with everyone except Grey, who knows the truth. But this exercise is about trust, and Ali just bared her soul to me. I make myself say it because I can trust her and because I want to. I want someone to know.
Maybe even to understand what I’ve been carrying around all these years. “She was my wife.”

I pause. I don’t realize I’m making fists until I feel Ali’s hands settle on them.

“Adam, we don’t have to—”

“No, it’s . . . Sorry, this just caught me off guard.”

I straighten up and draw my hands away from hers. I don’t want to regret what I just said, but regret is waging a war against me. What have I done? I’m now a widower in her eyes, and I’m twenty-three. Too fucking young to wear that shit comfortably, and I don’t want her pity, and—
shit
. What did I do?

But then there’s this incredible relief sweeping through me, too. I can talk about Chloe. I can finally talk about her. So I do.

“Chloe was . . . She was the first girl I ever loved. We met at school, at Princeton. I was a freshman, a computer nerd. I’d already sold a business by then, but I was still . . . I don’t know. I was young. Barely eighteen and unsure what the hell I wanted and who I was. Chloe was the opposite. A year older than me. An art student. Wild and creative. She attacked life. Embraced it. Every single fucking day. She was like a human firework and she . . . she fascinated me.” I have to stop for a moment because my voice is hoarse and tight.

“The tattoo on my shoulder is from a sketch she drew. She loved birds. But just the flying kind. Not ostriches or turkeys or . . .” I feel like I’m rambling. I feel like I’ve been talking for an hour. I feel like I’m saying stupid things that sound so dumb but that mean everything to me, so I wrap it up. “So that’s who my wife was. That’s what she was like. That’s why I got the tattoo. Because I loved her and she loved birds and she drew it and she’s gone.”

It’s as much as I can manage right now. Even if I talked about Chloe for a week, it would never be enough to describe her anyway. You can’t bring a human being back to life with words. You just can’t.

Ali’s fingers have woven through mine. Her grip is fierce, like
she’s trying to give me her strength. The relief I felt earlier grows more solid inside me, regret seeping away. This is good. It’s going to be good. I don’t want any secrets between us.

I know what she’s going to ask me next. It’s the logical question.
How did she die?
I wait for it. Question number two. It’s inevitable.

She lets go of my hands. I feel her undo the knot at the back of my head. The blindfold comes away. “Why is it hard for you to look me in the eye?” she asks.

I look away. I look at the fire. “You know why.”

“I don’t.”

“Ali, you do. Don’t make me say it.”

She falls quiet. Then she scoots closer, her legs between mine, her face inches away. “Adam, it’s okay,” she whispers.

And I feel like it is, for an instant, and that instant is long enough for me to open the door. “Because it fucking scares me, Ali. You don’t know what I lost . . . Jesus, Quick.” I glance at her. “What are you trying to do to me?”

She takes my hands again, uncurling my fingers and winding them with hers. For a few seconds, I feel her stroke the pad of my thumb. I don’t know how she calms me when calm doesn’t seem like it’s in the realm of possibility anymore, but my racing heart slows down and I’m breathing again. Didn’t even realize I wasn’t, but now I am again. In and out. In and out until I don’t have to think about it anymore. Until I can answer her.

“Chloe used to tell me . . . she used to say that looking into my eyes, she felt like she could fly. That’s why it’s hard for me to do that. To go there.”

I want to tell Ali that she’s changed that. She’s changing that for me. But we’re talking about Chloe now and I can’t, so the thought just balloons into this feeling, like I can’t wait for the right time to let it out.

“One more, Adam,” she says gently. “Just one more.”

“Okay. Just . . . be Quick about it.”

Such a dumbass joke, but we laugh. I think we both needed it. A moment of relief.

But then we’re right back in when she says, “How did Chloe die?”

I’m ready this time. This is what I thought her second question would be so I’m prepared, and I know I’ll tell her everything—not what Rhett knows, that I was married once and my wife died. I’m going to bring her into the very center, with Grey. To the truth only Grey and I know.

“Chloe and I,” I hear myself say, needing to give her some background. “We did things a little unconventionally. We got married after we’d only been together half a year, in September, and it was a courtroom wedding for a couple of reasons. I come from money, and she didn’t. My parents wouldn’t have had a problem with that, but Chloe didn’t believe me. She didn’t want to face any judgment. She just wanted it to be us at first, and so did I. And we were nineteen and twenty, and you just don’t do that. Who gets married at that age nowadays? Anyway, we kept it to ourselves. We decided we’d do it then tell our families over the holidays. That way they wouldn’t be able to refuse us or talk us out of it.

“Christmas came around, and we were at my parents’ house, and it didn’t feel right to me. I don’t know why, but I wanted to hold onto her, have her just for myself for a little longer. I felt like we had this amazing secret and I didn’t want things to change. I told her we should wait until spring, but Chloe didn’t understand, and she could get volatile sometimes. Just really passionate. We’d been drinking because of the holidays, and we ended up fighting.

“I don’t yell. If I do, it means something I love is being threatened and that’s how I felt. She took me wanting to wait the wrong way. She thought I was ashamed of her. It was the opposite of what I was, but once she got an idea in her mind . . . Anyway, we got to yelling. I couldn’t believe she thought those things. We were bringing
the house down and that only made it worse. With ice on the ground, it was probably the worst time to get in a car. I knew it wasn’t safe, and I didn’t want her to drive . . .” I’ve forgotten how to breathe again and the library feels like it’s closing in on me. Like the walls are collapsing. “Give me a minute. I’m going to finish. I just . . . . I need a minute.”

Ali leans in, and I feel her head settle on my shoulder. It’s a gentle gesture, but I feel like she’s holding me up. “Okay,” she says. “Take as long as you need.”

“Jazz has some answering to do. How exactly is this making my company stronger?”

I sense Ali’s smile. “Well, I don’t want to speak for you, but I feel like our energetic frequencies are definitely aligning.”

I have to finish this. I have to tell her what happened on the road that night, so she’ll know I couldn’t have stopped it, but she straightens abruptly.

Rhett and Mia stand at the door.

They both look from me to Alison for a moment. Then Mia smiles slightly, and Rhett frowns.

“Sorry, but I’ve got some bad news, Adam,” Mia says. “The storm’s picking up. It’s supposed to hit tomorrow, but flights are already getting canceled.”

“We have to get everybody home,” Rhett says. “We have to end this retreat right now.”

I
’m tucked into the bottom bunk, doing my best to stay out of the way as everyone scrambles to pack up before traveling back to LA. Adam’s arranged several chartered flights, squeezed in wherever they could fit us. Adam and I are last, and I don’t know if that’s by luck or by design, but I’m grateful to have just a little more time here. I’m reluctant to get home, to have to face my father and tell him I don’t have any more information on Adam.

Even though I do.

Who would have thought that two days of playing around in the snow would leave me feeling so wrung out, so exhilarated, so peaceful, and so anxious at the same time?

I feel lighter today than I have in a long time. And yet I’m also carrying around this deep ache, a feeling of being scooped out in the center. I can’t stop thinking about Adam. About the way he looked
in the library, shrunken and vulnerable. Maybe a lot like the boy he was when he first met—and lost—Chloe.

I can’t help myself. I pull out my phone and do a search on “Chloe Randall.” I know I won’t find much, but there must be some trace of her. I just want to see her, to have a picture in my mind so that when Adam and I talk about her, I’ll know her in some small way—for him.

Nothing comes up at first, but I try “Chloe Randall, Princeton, art,” and a link to a PDF appears—a newsletter from the New Jersey Watercolor Society. I click on the link and scroll through a few articles until I find a short piece titled, “Maybe Art Isn’t for the Birds.” It’s about Chloe winning a scholarship to a summer art program.

I scroll further, and there she is. I know it even before I read the photo caption. She’s beautiful, with gleaming auburn hair in waves and delicate features.

She stands before a row of paintings—all of birds. I recognize her style immediately, can see the inspiration for Adam’s tattoo. But more than that, I see the birds aren’t falling, like they do on Adam’s tattoo. They’re flying.

People talk about feeling someone else’s pain, and now I truly do. It feels like someone’s tightening a wire around my heart. I want to find him and put my arms around him. I want to love him enough for two people—the girl he lost and the girl I’m trying to become.

“Hey, Ali,” Sadie says, coming into the room.

I close out of the browser and put my phone away.

Mia and Pippa come into the room behind her, and they riffle through all the blankets and pick up every pillow. Since Sadie’s wearing only one boot, I assume that’s the purpose of the search.

“Hey, Sadie. You guys need some help?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s in here somewhere.” She drops down onto the floor and lets out a triumphant, “Aha!” Then she pulls out
the twin to her pink Doc Marten and plops onto the bunk to slip it onto her foot.

“Hey,” she says. “We’re all going to hear Mia’s roommate Skyler play at The Echo on Sunday night. Want to come?”

I glance over at Mia, who smiles at me. “Skyler is awesome. Electric cello. You should definitely come.”

I’m embarrassed by how moved I am by the invitation. And how much I missed this—just the company of other girls. And with these girls, I feel more a part of things—improbably—than I ever have.

“Will Ethan—”

She shakes her head before I even finish the sentence. “Girls night out. But it would be okay even if he was going to be there, I think. Don’t you?”

I nod. It would be, I realize. Completely okay. At least with me—and now, it seems with Mia.

“That would be great. Thanks.”

Pippa rises from the bunk and insists on a group hug. “Come on, lovelies,” she says. “One for the road.”

After I see off the first team—my roommates plus Paolo, I find out that Adam’s out taking advantage of one last run on the slopes. I haven’t gotten to ski at all, and I’m dying to do it, though I know they’re going to close down any second.

I zip into my ski suit and clamp on my boots. I need to get out into the open, to have one last moment with the bracing mountain air, the cottony powdered snow. I need to clear my head and just fire like a rocket down the mountain, leave thoughts and worries behind me. And I need to see Adam.

I say goodbye to Rhett, Cookie, and Philippe before I leave.

“You owe me a major debrief when you get home,” my best friend tells me. He waves his hand in front of my face, like he’s trying to air-polish me. “Whatever’s got you looking so glowy is
definitely
a topic of conversation.”

“Definitely,” I say and give him a long hug. “I love you.”

His eyes widen in surprise, which makes me realize I don’t say that often enough. Something I really need to correct.

“Love you too, girl,” he says. “Be careful out there.” He grins and nods in the direction of Adam’s suite. “And in there.”

“Haha. Please. We’ll be a few hours after you.”

“If you say so.”

The resort has almost completely emptied, and I’m the only one on the ski lift. The attendant gives me an apologetic smile. “I doubt you’ll get in more than an hour before we shut it all down,” he says. But I’ll take just one run if it’s all I can get.

As I crest the top of the mountain, the air is bitterly cold, cutting through my layers of clothes like a knife. It feels bracing and welcome after the drowsy warmth of the lodge.

The ground is powdery and soft as I begin my run, and I take to it, letting myself make wide arcs down the mountain. So many people I know prefer groomed, hard-packed snow, but I love the feeling of sinking in, of challenging my body to keep my skis moving, to position myself just right so the snow doesn’t grab me and take me down. It doesn’t take long until my thigh muscles burn like crazy, but I love that too—that feeling of having worked for something.

I charge on, looping between pine trees, over shallow moguls. Visibility is a little spotty, with a low freezing mist drifting across my path, and a pale sun almost hidden behind gray clouds. The wind whips the tree branches into a frenzy, dumping clumps of snow down on me as I fly along.

Up ahead, another skier charges along the path in front of me. A guy, from the size of him, slicing through the powder like he owns it. His style is impeccable, and I can tell he takes to it like I do—he’s all in, making the mountain his own.

Adam, I realize, and feel a huge grin spread over my face.

He’s beautiful, absolutely natural. The way his body moves, sliding almost parallel to the snow. The way he thrusts himself forward, the power of his movements. It’s incredible.

“Adam!” I call, and my voice disappears in the wind. I dig my poles in and push harder, trying to get close enough for him to hear me.

I call his name again, and this time, he looks back and starts to slow. I smile, and everything in me lifts. He sees me.

Adam executes an elegant hockey stop, sending out a shallow spray of snow. Then he takes off his goggles, waves at me with a gloved hand. He looks so beautiful standing there, tan skin against the snow. I can see his smile from here, inviting, and so warm. He’s all I see as I push in to cover the twenty or so yards between us.

Which is why I completely miss the tree stump.