Page 24 of On the Edge

There’s a photo of Jackson’s parents that must be recent because I hardly recognize her mom, whose once dark hair is completely gray now and the lines at the corners of her eyes are deeper than I’ve ever seen them. There’s a photo of Jackson with an older woman who I don’t recognize at all, and I wonder who she could be.

Then my eyes land on a photo of Jackson that I’d recognize anywhere, even washed out in black and white like this. She’s standing on the podium at her first and only Olympic Games, the ones she headed into during her second year racing on the World Cup circuit when she was hardly known in the international ski world. And the gold medal she’s wearing and the US flag that she’s holding up with both arms pale in comparison to the size of her smile. But those memories—when everything seemed possible—are not what have taken my breath away. Instead, it’s the small triangle of wrapping paper, white with silver foil snowflakes, that’s tucked in the lower right corner between the matting and the photo. It’s the wrapping paper from the first gift I ever gave her, back when we were seventeen—a snow globe with two skiers coming down a mountain above an alpine village. A larger piece of that wrapping paper hung on her memo board in her bedroom in high school and popped up here and there over the years we were together—mostly pressed into a notebook she always traveled with.

The fact that she now has a small piece of it tucked into a frame hanging in her home solidifies in my mind that us ending up together was always the only possibility.

“Get it together,” I mumble to myself. I’ve felt more emotions in the last week than I’ve felt in the last five years. It’s like being around her again has turned me into a sap.

“What’s that?” Jackson asks from behind me.

Holy crap, man. Get. Your. Shit. Together.

“We need to get going. I’m starving, aren’t you?” I ask as I turn toward her.

She’s taken off her fleece pants and is clad in the leggings she was wearing earlier, but she’s left her heavy Sherpa sweatshirt on. “Famished. I’m pretty sure I could eat my weight in mac and cheese right now, so prepare yourself.”

“For what?”

“The room service bill.” She gives me a little wink.

That’sthe Jackson I know and love.

CHAPTER8

JACKSON

Park City, Utah

“This truck is ... not what I expected,” I tell him as I open the passenger door to the cab of his pickup after setting my bag on the floor of the back seat. I’ve never known him to drive anything but luxury SUVs, and the enormous black truck I’m climbing into is so not him. Or, not the him I once knew.

“I needed something practical,” he says. “I’ve lived out of this thing the last couple of years.”

I consider all the driving he must have done, going from mountain to mountain to shoot the crazy videos he’s made, as I take in the interior. For an enormous pickup truck, it’s surprisingly high-end. Leather seats, LCD display, fully trimmed out. In that way, I suppose, it is very Nate-like. The irony of this truck and all the places it’s taken him, and me being in it now, is that I didn’t even know about Nate’s social media presence, didn’t even know about the videos, until Marco told me about a year ago.

Oh shit—Marco!I pull my phone from the pocket of my jacket. “I need to text Marco,” I tell him. “You know, let him know where I’m headed. And with whom.”

“Tell him I said ‘hi,’” Nate says, and his upper lip curves over those ridiculously perfect teeth in a smirk. I’ve seen that look a million times, and it usually meant he was one step ahead of me. It is the same look he’d had on a deserted street in snowy Montreal while we were in college when he pulled me into an alcove, kissed me senseless, and told me he was going to marry me someday. A hundred other memories of Nate and his stupid smirk flash through my mind in an instant. That’s the problem with having to spend time with him—just one quick look can bring back a whole host of unwelcome memories.

“Don’t be a dick,” I say, tilting my head toward him. “And he’s not going to mind that I’m staying with you tonight.”

“Why would he mind?” Nate shrugs, and I try not to read too much into that. I assume he means there’s nothing for Marco to worry about.

“Like I said, he won’t. Because he’s not a jealous fool.”

It seems like that reminder of his past actions shuts him up. But then, still looking at the road as he drives through the fast-falling snowflakes, he says, “I assume you’re implying that my jealousy of your and Marco’s friendship was ridiculous. And yet, you’re dating him now. Soooo ...” He trails off, and my eyes focus on the way his throat moves, how the thick muscles there ripple when he swallows.

I sigh in frustration because I see exactly how this looks from his eyes—that somethingwasgoing on with Marco and me back when I was dating Nate, and we just hid it until recently. Or that the feelings were there back then, even if nothing happened until now.

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it,” I insist.

“Wasn’t it?”

I ignore him, looking back down at my phone and focusing on the text I need to send.

Jackson:Hey, you may already be asleep, but I wanted to let you know that the heat went out in our building and Nate got a suite at the Marquis (a hotel nearby) and offered me the bedroom.

I reread the text, and I can only imagine the questions that will run through his mind when he reads that.Why did you take him up on that offer?And as I consider it now, not in the spur of the moment, it does seem risky that I am heading to a hotel with him. But Sierra and Peter don’t have a spare bedroom, Petra is in Salt Lake City for an event tonight, and Josh and Lauren are in Maine visiting her family, so it wasn’t like I had other options—except to freeze.

Jackson:I took him up on it because I’m desperate for a bath after a crazy workout this afternoon, and I didn’t really think about how it might look. I’m sorry!

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