Page 11 of Fall Apart

Looking around the hot tub on the snow covered patio outside the Aspen Grove Club, I can’t help but relax a bit watching the steam rise off the rippling water. The hot tub is doing wonders for my sore body after working all day. It feels good to be with my brother, seeing him so happy. He lives almost five hours away and I don’t get to see him enough since we’re both busy with work. I take a deep breath, relaxing back into the jets and it’s almost enough to shake the thought of my mystery girl from last night.

She isn’t the distraction I need right now in my life.

I have two job sites to manage. I’ve got condo renovations and expansions in the exact condo complex I’m at right now and then the project over at the Grand Lodge. Thankfully, that is wrapping upsoon, but this one here is demanding. And ever since I got promoted, it feels like I have even more pressure on me. This is why I don’t obsess over random girls I’ll never see again. Tourists like her come and go. And I don’t do girlfriends. I don’t get attached.

Normally that’s perfect because it never ends well for me when I get attached to anyone, to anything. But how is that prissy little blonde already under my skin so much? We talked for maybe five minutes and we made out. Somehow though, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. Her smell. The taste of bourbon on those red lips.

I’m pulled from my thoughts by a pair of familiar laughs. I look over to the patio door, seeing Grace and V come out in fluffy white robes with plastic wine glasses of Champagne in hand.

“Hey ladies!” I shout. “You two finally ready to be real sisters?”

Grace is almost six feet tall and V isn’t far behind. They even have the same long, brown hair, minus Grace’s streaks of purple, pink, and orange. She’s always felt like family. It’s going to be awesome having her around more, especially if it means my brother isn’t moping around like a lovesick puppy and she makes him visit more often.

“You came!” V’s eyes go wide and she grins. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, just like Collin.

She steps towards me, away from Grace. And that’s when I make out the golden blonde pony tail of the shorter girl behind them. When V gets further from Grace and I can see all of her, my lungs stop functioning and I can feel my heart pound into my rib cage.

Fuck.

Her big, blue eyes meet mine and I freeze.

This must be Lizzy. My future sister-in-law’s best friend.

And my mystery girl.

Everyone’s huggingand joking and bullshiting. But I can’t focus. I can’t hear what they’re even saying. I’m pretty sure my brain has short circuited. The girl I’ve been obsessing over for the last twenty-four hours is here, in the hot tub with me, in an absurdly tiny pink bikini. I knew she was a smokeshow last night, but fuck, this is too much.

My mind is a tangled mess. She ran out of the bar, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. After obsessively playing last night out in my head all day, I remembered it was after I tucked her hair back that she froze. I realize now she must have seen the tattoo on my wrist. So I take it she’s seen that tattoo before, a pretty specific one. We all have it: Tanner, Collin, and now I realize V has it with that bikini. It was our badge of honor, a little inside joke, after skiing Corbett’s at Jackson Hole.

So she recognized me and freaked out?

But she didn’t even try to talk to me. She just ran and left me feeling like an asshole. And now, she’s sitting across from me looking anywhere but at me. Like I don’t even exist.

So I didn’t do anything wrong after all. But also, this isdefinitelynot what I need. She’s Veronica’s best friend. This can’t happen.

Two can play this game I guess. I’m just going to pretend she doesn’t exist either. I need to keep distance between us.

CHAPTER 5

LIZZY

JAGGED LINES

I knewthis was eventually going to happen. I was going to have to seehim. And now he’s going to be my best friend’s brother-in-law. Of course, myTour de Lizzywould come back and bite me.

But that doesn’t make it any easier, especially when he’s shirtless on the other side of the hot tub from me. I knew he was fit at the bar, but holy shit, this is just unfair. Clay has boulder shoulders and pecs covered in a thin smattering of dark chest hair that would make a Hemsworth brother jealous. The tattoos I saw on his neck continue down his shoulders in an intricate, flowing mix of roses and vines. There’s a growling bear’s head on one side of his chest, mirrored by a snarling wolf’s head on the other. He is a piece of art, and not just the tattoos.

That’s not why it’s so hard though. He clearly remembers me. And it’s painful. He’s barely said a word since I walked out with Grace and Veronica and just quietly nursed his beer while either wearing a muted scowl or just staring out towards the ski slopes.

And I’m not the only one to notice.

“Who pissed in your beer?” Tanner leans across the hot tub, shoving his brother. “Come on, let loose a little. You don’t have to have a stick up your ass all the time.”

Clay shakes his head and looks back at everyone in the hot tub, his glare briefly lingering on me, clearly shaking himself out of some kind of trance. Or maybe he’s just pissed at me? His expression is so cold, borderline indifferent.

“Sorry.” Clay mutters before taking another sip of his beer. “Been a long day.”

He looks at Tanner and then Veronica and for the tiniest moment, I can see one side of his lips quirk up and his jaw relax. I can almost make out one of his dimples popping through his five o’clock shadow, giving me a glimpse of the playful man I saw last night. He takes a deep breath and his broad chest fills out. “I’m happy for you guys. V, glad you’reofficiallyjoining the Chapman family.” He tilts his head over towards Grace. “Maybe you can keep this feral granola girl in check.”

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