Page 66 of Hotshot

Denny stretched his arms as he breathed in the fresh evening air.

“It’s beautiful here,” I said.

“Hmm. A good thinking spot.” He sat next to me on the stump, shoulders pressed against mine.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure ’cause?—”

“My agent says New York wants me,” he blurted.

“Whoa! Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’d be willing to leave Denver?”

“According to my agent, it’s more money than a sane person would turn down. Besides, Denver isn’t home anymore. My parents are gone and…I guess I’m thinking about them too. I had a panic attack the other day.” Denny gnawed his bottom lip. “I haven’t had one of those in a while. My head is just…too full. It always goes dark when I get overwhelmed and—sorry. First-world problems.”

“Talk to me, Den,” I cajoled. “I’m a good listener.”

“You are.” He smiled wanly. “I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot. I wonder what he’d think of all this.”

“He’d be proud, I bet,” I replied carefully.

“Maybe, but he didn’t know me as a hockey player. My life would be foreign to him.”

This was new ground…and a gift of sorts. This was Denny opening the vault.

I didn’t want to disturb the fragile thread, but when the silence stretched, I prodded gently. “How so?”

“My dad was a skier.”

“Yeah?”

“I was too. And I was pretty good.” Denny cast a cocky half smile my way. “It was our family sport and obviously, the mountains were in our backyard in Denver. I grew up in ski clubs, went to meets every weekend. I won awards and…it was cool ’cause it was something we had in common. Did Grams tell you her son was in the Olympics?”

“Your dad was an Olympic skier?”

He nodded proudly. “Yep. He didn’t win any medals, but he was in Calgary in 1988. He moved to Whistler for a while and worked as a ski instructor. That’s where he met my mom. She was from Montreal.”

“You mentioned that.”

“I did?” Denny furrowed his brow, his eyes focused on the creek. “Yeah, they were ski rats. They followed the snow for years. In the summer, they’d go to New Zealand, teach there till winter hit the north. They didn’t get married till Mom was expecting my brother, Kai. He’s five years older than me. I think they still traveled more when he was little, but they morphed into a typical suburban family after I was born and founded a ski clinic in Denver with another partner. Dad was an instructor while Mom handled the books and became one of those uber-involved PTA types, always volunteering to head a committee. They were pretty…incredible.”

His voice broke, but he didn’t seem upset—he seemed determined to share a piece of his history.

I set my hand over his on the tree stump and kissed his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Denny squinted at the creek, unseeing.

“Can I ask what happened?”

“My dad died in a freak accident,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It was a normal day, nothing different, nothing special. Dad finished his last lesson of the day and he was tired, but I wanted to practice on a black diamond run we’d done a million times. Challenging but nothing for him. He didn’t want me to do it alone yet, so he was skiing behind me, to check my technique or whatever. Halfway down the slope, I…stopped. I just sensed he wasn’t there. They said an animal had most likely darted onto the trail and that Dad was going too fast to avoid a collision. He fell hard enough to dislodge his helmet and hit a rock and…he was gone.”

“Fuck.”