Page 79 of On the Edge

“I flirt with her because I adore her,” Marco says, rubbing his hand along Christian’s thigh. “Just not the same way you do, clearly.”

Nate nods, and I pull him over to the espresso machine and take his order, then send him over to the table with Marco and Christian while I get to work on our drinks. I can see the grimace on his face as he sits, and it takes him a moment to get settled comfortably in the chair. His back is bothering him more than he’s letting on.

“Your intentions are good this time?” Marco asks. “You’re not going to hurt her again?”

“I’m standing right here,” I call out, unnecessarily loud. “You don’t need to talk about me like I’m invisible.”

Nate pushes his chair sideways, the wooden spindles sliding along the terra-cotta tiles, so that he’s got Marco and Christian on his right, and me on his left. “My intentions have always been good. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to get us to this point.”

“What point is that?” Marco asks.

“The point where we’re mature enough to make good decisions about our relationship, and don’t have the same challenges we had when Jackson was racing.”

“What about the challenges of you racing?” Christian asks. “You and I both know it’s not easy being the significant other of a racer. And now that’s what you’re asking of Jackson.”

I glance over my shoulder in time to see Nate shrug. “Racing is secondary to me.”

“What does that mean?” I ask him as I tamp the espresso grounds into the filter handle and hit the button to start brewing before swinging my eyes back to him.

“I told you that I came back foryou.” He pauses and runs a hand through his sleep ruffled hair, like he’s a little embarrassed and doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Marco and Christian. “I’m happy to be racing again, but it’s not my livelihood and it doesn’t have to be my career if it doesn’t work for both of us.”

“You’d stop racing for me?” I ask, my voice low and breathy from the shock. I don’t ask because I want him to quit for me, I ask because it changes assumptions I had about our lives heading in different directions with me strategizing an exit plan and him still on the team.

“If I needed to,” he says, his face serious. “I’m not interested in racing if you’re not there with me.”

I turn on the milk steamer and it screams into the oat milk until it’s nice and frothed, giving me a minute to collect my thoughts. When I turn it off and pull the frothing wand from the stainless steel cup of milk, their heads are close together in quiet conversation.

“I know just the place,” Nate says.

“The place for what?” I ask as I pour the steamed milk into each of our mugs and top it with the foam.

“Marco suggested maybe we should get away for a little while, somewhere quiet where I can rehab my back and we can have some time together out of the spotlight.”

“Big Sky?” I ask hopefully and he nods, a smile playing at his lips. “I love it there.” I sigh as I set his latte on the table in front of mine and pull up my chair close to him. “And you have plenty of space for the rehab you’ll need to do. I’ll need to clear it with the team, but it should be fine. Lots of athletes go home to do their rehab instead of back to Park City.” Though once his back is better we will need to go to Park City to get him back in shape and get him cleared to race again. Still, we should get at least a week alone together before that.

“Is it possible for you to keep your location a secret?” Marco asks. “So that no one starts to speculate that you have more than a professional relationship?”

“About that,” Nate says. “We don’t need to publicize what’s happening between us”—he pauses and looks at me for confirmation, which I give with a nod of my head—“but it doesn’t make sense for you two to keep pretending like you’re dating.”

Marco and I glance at each other.

“We’ve already planned to end this,” Marco says, “toward the end of the season.” Blessedly, he doesn’t mention his retirement or me applying for the job at Danforth. That’s something I need to share with Nate in my own time, and not until I’m one thousand percent sure he won’t share the news with anyone at work. I can’t risk losing my current job, as that would be a surefire way tonotget the Danforth job. I already have one strike against me because of our proximity at the top of the run in Levi and dating him would be the nail in that coffin. All the reasons I was resisting him in the first place come rushing back to me in the light of day.

I need to talk to him about this, explain that we absolutelyhaveto keep this a secret until I have that job offer and have signed on the dotted line. Probably even beyond that, until I’ve left the team and moved on to the Danforth job. No one can know this started while I was his physical therapist. That’s a nonnegotiable.

“End of the season is way too far away,” Nate says. “I’m not watching you and Jax pretend to be together for the next four months.” He looks at me, asking for me to understand.

“He’s right,” I say, and Marco nods, a concession if not an outright agreement. “We can have an amicable split. Maybe if we spend the holidays separately, it’ll be easy enough to say that we’re still friends and on good terms but no longer romantically involved.”

“That’s fine, but you two need to be very careful in the meantime,” Marco says, and Christian nods along. “If someone catches you two together in the next few weeks, it will ruin our plans and it will look like you’re cheating on me.”

Christian and I both burst out laughing over how ridiculous that is, since for the last year Marco’s been the one “cheating” on me.

“We’ll be careful,” Nate assures him.

“I don’t mean you,” Marco rolls his eyes. “Everyoneknowsyou’re still in love with her. But Jackson’s been pretty cold and indifferent to you since you joined the team.” He turns his head toward me, “You have to keep that up even though it’s not how you feel. Otherwise, people will start speculating, and if you remember, that’s why we started this whole thing in the first place.”

Nate’s eyebrows raise in response to that.

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