Page 1 of On the Line

CHAPTER1

LAUREN

Park City, Utah

Today is going to be a great day. I can feel it in my bones. Things are starting to come together, to line up in just the way I need them to.

I pull out into downtown Salt Lake City traffic, and the office where I just verbally accepted a job offer fades away in my rearview mirror. After several years staying at home, first as a newly married wife and then as a new mom, I’ve finally made my way back into the world of sports marketing.

And I’ve done it on my own: no handouts, no nepotism, no connections. I got this job solely based on my own merit, and it’s the best feeling.

“So you haven’t even told Josh yet?” Petra’s voice carries through the speaker in my SUV as I approach a stoplight. Petra’s one of my three best friends, but she’s the only one who knows the struggles Josh and I have had over the past year and a half as we adjusted to being the parents of twin girls.

Well, I’ve adjusted. He’s slowly pulled away.

“He hasn’t exactly been reachable these past few days,” I tell her.

“Where is he this time?” she asks.

Petra and Josh are both former professional ski racers. When she left skiing many years ago, she started a new career, first as a model, then as an event planner, and now she’s the host of a well-known TV show.

Josh retired more recently, and in the couple years since, he’s made his living skiing—traveling to ski resorts all over to promote different brands that sponsor him, filming videos and ads, and generally relishing the fact that he still gets paid to ski even though he’s no longer competing.

“Somewhere in Washington. They were at Stevens Pass, then I think they headed somewhere near Spokane a couple days ago. He’ll be home tonight, but I texted him earlier and haven’t heard back yet. At least after this trip, he’ll be home until Christmas.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” she says encouragingly.

“I don’t know how you handle the load when Aleksandr is away,” I say. Her husband plays in the NHL, so he’s gone a fair amount during the season and together they have a seven-year-old adopted daughter.

“I just do.” I can practically hear her shrug over the phone as I change lanes to head toward the on-ramp for I-80, the road that will take me into the mountains and back to my home in Park City. “He was already traveling when we got together, so it’s all I’ve known.”

Josh was also already skiing professionally when we met and got married. He traveled a lot then, but since I’d quit my sports marketing job in Boston in order to move out to Park City with him after we got engaged, I was able to travel with him to his races that first year.

And I’d made some great girlfriends in Park City—starting with his physical therapist, Jackson, and her best friends Sierra and Petra. They brought me into their group and we were all so close, but all three of them have moved away and gotten married over the past two years, right as Josh and I were starting our family. With him still traveling a lot, I’m now often on my own with the kids, so his travel is hitting me harder than it used to.

But that’s on me, because I don’t have anything else in my life except for him and the kids—which is why the job is going to be such a big deal for me.

Having something to focus on besides my family will help me feel like a more well-rounded person, able to bring more to our relationship and our family than just my role as a mother. I’ll finally have things to talk to my husband about again—things besides nap schedules and the infinite minutiae of what our girls did each day. Plus, with my background in sports marketing and my general passion for hockey, getting to work for one of the NHL farm teams is a perfect mix of my interests and abilities.

But I thought the interview and offer process would take longer than it had, so I assumed I’d have more time to figure out how to tell Josh.

“Sooo,” Petra says when I’m so lost in my own thoughts I forget to respond, “how are you going to tell him?”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind right now,” I say.

“I’d hardly have to be a mind reader to know that’s what you’re thinking about. I know how he feels about you working.”

I didn’t know he was so old-fashioned about the role of wife and mother before I married him. I guess that’s what happens when you have a whirlwind romance and marry someone you’ve known for six months. At the time, it was all so romantic, and he was so attentive and passionate and protective. Completely unlike any of the guys I’d dated up until that point.

I used to joke that I was going to marry the first nice guy I dated, and I held true to that—I just wish that the Josh I’d dated and the Josh I’d started a family with were the same person.

“He’s going to have to adjust,” I say. “We’ll work out childcare. Morgan mentioned that one of her friends might be looking for a part-time nanny position, so I’m going to talk to her as soon as possible.”

“That’s great,” Petra says. Morgan is my younger cousin and Petra’s personal assistant. She does most of her work remotely and because her schedule is so flexible, Morgan has been immensely helpful in watching the girls when Josh is out of town and I need to be somewhere else, like at today’s final interview when they offered me the job.

“When it comes to talking to Josh,” she continues in that husky voice she’s literally famous for, “I’ve found that a good meal and good sex can convince a man of just about anything.”

“I must finally be learning,” I say with a laugh, “because that’s pretty much exactly what I have planned for tonight.”

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