Page 82 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2
I looked back over at him in surprise. “I don’t watch you because I’m worried.
I watch you because you’re a very graceful skier.
You relax and trust your body in a way I’m always trying to explain to my students.
Part of the reason I watch you is to figure out how to teach it.
I don’t think it’s possible. Some people simply come by it naturally. ”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally, he met my eyes. “Thank you.”
I barked out a laugh. “That killed you, didn’t it?”
Jules grinned. “Yes. It did. Thank you for recognizing my sacrifice.”
“What did you really want to say?”
“That you’re a liar or that you don’t recognize a ski potato when you see one.”
I pulled my arm out of his to slide it around his shoulders. “I have taught literally hundreds if not thousands of ski potatoes, Jules. Trust me. You’re not one of them.”
He leaned a little closer to me. “BJ seems awfully flirty with you today. What happened when you met him at the cabin?”
The little errant curl over Julian’s ear was sticking out from the bottom edge of his helmet. It made my heart rate spike. “Who?”
Jules elbowed me in the ribs. Thankfully, our parkas kept it from hurting. “You know who. The yoga instructor. The super-bendy yoga instructor,” he muttered.
I wanted to laugh, but I also knew this was coming from a real place of fear, and I tried to be patient. “Babe. I talked to him about you . About being in love with you and you freaking out.”
Julian’s eyes flashed to me. “ In love?”
He wasn’t paying attention when the chair approached the ramp, and he almost caught his ski tip on the edge of it. I quickly lifted the safety bar and grabbed his elbow to keep him steady as he overcorrected and nearly toppled off the chair.
Once we were safely off the lift and at the top of the slope waiting for Rocco and BJ, Julian shot me a red-faced grimace. “Sorry,” he said.
I reached for his shoulders to keep from putting my cold gloves on his face and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. It was quick and chaste but important.
“Yes. In love,” I said carefully. “And I don’t care about anyone else out here. Now or ever. I know you’re having a hard time believing it. I know it’s new and scary. But it’s real. And we’re going to talk about it—and also chat about it—until you find a way to trust me. Okay?”
Rocco and BJ interrupted before he could respond. I got the sense Jules was grateful for my words, and he wanted to believe them but still didn’t fully.
We got right back on the slope and did three more runs before taking a break in the restaurant for hot drinks and a snack.
BJ continued to flirt with me, even going so far as to beat Jules to the spot beside me in the booth, but I decided it was harmless.
The man had a bubbly personality. He also flirted with our server, the man in the booth next to ours, and the woman who gave him directions to the men’s room.
Through it all, Julian’s temper simmered under the surface.
Thankfully, he was an attorney with plenty of experience keeping his cool in tense contract negotiations.
So, when Julian finally snapped at BJ a little while later at the top of the first moguls run, I nearly dropped the video camera into the snow.
“If you don’t keep your fucking hands off my… Parker … we’re going to have words,” he barked.
BJ pulled his hands off my chest in slow motion. The edge of his mouth turned up in a knowing grin, but Jules probably couldn’t see it. “Jules, darling, I was only trying to keep myself from wiping out. Like I said earlier, I’m not very experienced on moguls.”
“We’re on a powdery, flat meadow.” Jules’s sunglasses hid what I knew had to be a familiar, murderous glare. “But if you can’t handle the next run, maybe you should take Pinecone Ramble back down to the restaurant and wait for us.”
BJ propped his gloved fist under his chin like he was deep in thought. “I think not. If anything happens to me, surely I’m in good hands with your… Parker. He’ll come to my rescue if I get in over my head.”
Jules lunged forward as if he was actually going to tussle with BJ.
I grabbed his wrist just in time to pull him off to the side, where he tripped over his skis and landed on one knee in the powder.
I grabbed him under the arms to haul him back up.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold back my laughter, and the sound of it made him mad enough to fight me.
The two of us wound up in a snowy tangle on the ground.
Jules tried to shove me away from him while I tried to pull him closer. “Stop fighting me,” I said through a snort. “Jules, cut it out. This isn’t?—”
A glove full of snow went into my mouth and up my nose.
Julian’s face was red with a combination of cold, embarrassment, and anger. What I should have done was calm him down with soothing, reassuring words and help him up.
What I did instead was force my snowy face into his previously warm neck. He yelped and tried to shove me away, but I used my legs to keep him pinned, legs that were considerably strong from years of professional skiing.
He had no chance.
“Dammit, Parks!”
BJ and Rocco were laughing their asses off but staying far enough away to keep from being dragged into the fray.
We wrestled again like we had the other day, only this time I was hard for him, and I knew exactly what it meant.
My heart thundered in my chest as I tried to get close enough to his ear to say something the others wouldn’t hear.
“Just you and me, Peanut. Just you. And me. Always. ”
He suddenly stopped and met my eyes. His breath panted out of him in faint white puffs.
“ Only you,” I added in a soft but firm voice. “Hear me and stop being stupid.”
I could tell he wanted to argue with me, to tell me all the reasons I couldn’t possibly know my own heart. But he also knew this wasn’t the time or place for further discussion.
“Okay.” His grip on the back of my parka changed to a quick hug and then a smack on my ass. “Now get off me, asshole.”
We stood up and shook ourselves off before clipping into our skis again to prepare for the moguls run.
Julian knew to help me keep an eye on BJ without my having to say a word.
The first pass down the bumpy slope went fine.
The second was even better. It wasn’t pretty, but BJ managed to make it down without too much trouble.
It was at the end of the third run when things changed.
I should have been paying closer attention.
The responsibility was on me to keep the four of us strong and safe on the slopes, but with my attention split between Julian’s emotions and Rocco’s filming needs, I failed to identify when BJ’s legs began to tire.
We were halfway down the black diamond slope when BJ suddenly cut a mogul wrong, lost control of his balance, and went careening off the side of the trail.