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CHAPTER 39

LIZZY

I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU

I wake up with a sinking feeling settling over me when I realize I’m back in my condo. It’s familiar, a place I’ve woken up in so many times. But it doesn’t feel right waking up here and not in Clay’s arms. Did I do the right thing? Should I have stayed with him? My eyes adjust to the light and I see a cup on the nightstand, a nitro cold brew from Finch.

I bury my face into a pillow and groan. “Please go away. I don’t want to talk to you right now. I told you, I need space. This isn’t something you can fix.”

“But it is something I can fix.” A woman’s voice, not Clay’s immediately jolts me up. I look over to see Kayleigh, sitting in the corner chair of the bedroom.

I look at her in disbelief. Of all the people I would have expected to see right now, much less wanted to, she wouldn’t be at the top of the list.

“What do you mean?” I say, my voice shaky and groggy, half from irritation, half from being half asleep.

“I know you may have doubts, but we’re just friends. That’s it. You can trust him.”

The thing is, I do trust him. Everything in my heart says I can, but my mind doesn’t want to believe it. “I saw you two. He loves you.”

She sighs and drops her head and rubs her temples. “It’s not like that. But you’re right. He does love me and I love him, but only as friends.”

My heart sinks at that admission. I knew what I saw, the connection between them. But only as friends? “Why did you need to see him right then, right in that moment?” I ask, desperately wanting to know what Clay wouldn’t tell me last night.

“I’ve been going through some relationship drama. It finally ended. Charlie broke up with me yesterday. I just needed to talk to him.”

“You realize that doesn’t exactly make me feel better. That the first person you rush to when your boyfriend dumps you is the man I’m madly in love with, right?”

“Lizzy.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “ She ended it. She broke up with me.” She looks up, her eyes meeting mine and I see the pain there. Charlie. Shit. I just assumed. But my family even calls my own sister Charlie sometimes. Suddenly, so much more makes sense.

“Kayleigh. I… I didn’t know.” I’ve heard about her for years. She’s a public figure, featured in global ad campaigns and on posters at almost every ski resort in the country. “How-”

She wipes a tear from her cheek before cutting me off. “No one knows except for Clay and Grace. I finally realized it right when I was eighteen, almost nineteen. It was right around when Clay was recovering from his first injury, right around when he lost his mom.”

I feel a tear welling in the corner of my eyes when she continues. “I never told anyone else. Not my family, not my coaches or trainers. No one. Growing up in Utah, in a very public family, I didn’t want anyone to know, except for Clay.”

My thoughts drift to Clay being worried if I scrolled up when I read her messages last night. Even in that moment, he was protecting her, worried for her.

“We were always so close and we were both such a mess then, it just felt natural to tell him. We leaned on each other so hard. Eventually, I told Grace too. The long distance thing worked for so long, but I guess Charlie and I just grew apart. Clay knew - he was the only person I could talk to and not keep it bottled up when it ended.”

My heart breaks wide open for both of them. “Why are you telling me then?”

She turns and looks at me, her face hardening. “Because you’re right, I do love him - like a brother. I care about him so much and he’s helplessly in love with you. He’s never been willing to open himself up to being hurt, until now, until you .”

Those two words, until you, hit me like a punch to the gut.

“I never thought I would see this day. And somehow that boy, that man, trusts you.” Her throat bobs. “And if he trusts you, I trust you with this.”

I’m at a loss for words. I stare back at her in disbelief at everything she’s just opened up to me about. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Just… please do not ever doubt Clay. There is no one in the world I would trust more than him. I see the way you look at him. He needs that, someone who will make him look out for his own happiness for once. Shit, he was willing to break his own heart and ignore his own happiness to protect me. I wasn’t going to let him do that.”

I watch as more tears stream down her face. I pat the bed next to me. “Come here.”

She gets up and sits next to me and I wrap her in a hug. She sniffles into my shoulder. “Please don’t hold this against him. Do not doubt him. He doesn’t think he’s allowed to be happy. He doesn’t think he deserves to want things just for him in his life. He’s been more of a friend and ally than I could ever ask for, but it’s his turn to be happy.”

“Thank you, Kayleigh.” I squeeze her tight, overwhelmed with everything she just told me. “Thank you for telling me. All of it.”

Suddenly, I feel a flood of relief. I know that my heart and my mind were both right. I knew deep in my heart I could trust Clay. It just felt right. But my mind was right too. There was something there. But more than anything, I’m so relieved that I feel like I can trust myself .

I wipe the tears from my eyes, the happy tears for once. “Where is he now?”

“He’s out with Grace.” She laughs and looks at me. “You really must be rubbing off on him because they’re out shopping. He’ll be at the banquet tonight though.” She looks down and frowns for a second. "After yesterday, I told him to take Grace as his plus one.”

“Oh.” I say, thinking that makes sense, but I just want to see him.

“You know, I still need a plus one though. Will you be mine?” She looks back up at me smiling brightly with a wink. “Strictly as friends, of course.”

“Of course.” I pull her back into a hug, before letting her go. “I can’t wait to see him.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m going to need to find a new date to these things in the future. We always let people think we might be more than friends. We never really did anything to stop those rumors.”

I shrug and smirk at her. “I might be able to loan him out to his best friend from time to time.”

She lets out another soft laugh, wiping away another tear. “It’s funny. That first night at dinner at your condo? Clay brought me because of you. He had no clue how to act around you. He was obsessed and terrified. So naturally I wanted to meet the girl he wouldn’t shut up about.”

My heart warms at the thought. “Thank you for telling me that. I’m glad he has had you.”

She smiles softly and nods. “I’m glad he has you now too.”

And now all I want is to be close to him, to feel his warmth. But another thought creeps into my mind, something that’s been nagging me.

“Speaking of tonight, I need to talk to you about something.”