Page 65 of Stuck on the Slopes

Even though he sometimes had a strange way of showing it, Juniper cared. Despite his hesitancies, he cared enough to push past them and to be here at the table with me. He tried to hide it, but I caught the way he’d occasionally shift in his seat to crack his back or pop his hip with a wince.

So, as I made my way back to the kitchen, I grabbed my heating pad and popped it in the microwave. Once it was ready, I set that and the spare tincture bottle I kept on the table in front of him and asked, “Did you want to stay the night?”

“Thanks.” He set the heating pad beneath his right side as he filled the stopper halfway and then emptied it beneath his tongue. “It’s a bad flare-up day with how cold it’s been. If you’ve ever pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve, imagine that but non-stop.”

Not a yes or a no, I noticed. “We don’t have to do anything if you’re hurting today. I’d be down to snuggle up and watch a bad movie.”

Juniper’s gaze softened as he nodded. “Sounds perfect.”

When we crawled into bed after brushing our teeth, Juniper encased his arms around my waist, holding me against his body. His right leg propped up and wrapped around my hips, giving him a comfortable stretch and some added warmth for me.

“You comfortable?”

I hummed and nodded an affirmation as I got the movie started, another bad one with riffs. “Very much so. You?”

“Yeah.” After a brief, comfortable silence where Juniper partially buried his face in my hair, he said, “You know, I spent a lot of time after the accident asking why this happened to me. Everyone always tells you that everything happens for a reason, which sounds nice enough, but then something horrible happens and it sends you into a crisis.” Juniper paused to kiss my hair and gather his thoughts. “But if I hadn’t crashed, then I probably wouldn’t have stopped snowboarding. I’d have never bought this lodge after I retired, and I wouldn’t have met you. And Rachel, I… I am so, so happy I’ve met you. That I have you.”

My heart melted in my chest, leaving me a pile of mush in his arms. “I’m happy we met too, Juni.”

“Eight nights, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Noted.”

He said nothing else for the rest of the night, but to my delight, he came back for all eight.

Chapter 18

Rachel

RightwhenIthoughtwe’d made some headway, Juniper retreated again after the last night of Hanukkah. While he didn’t ignore me completely this time, I noticed his gaze darting around more and more as he kept an eye out for cameras and paparazzi. I’d mostly unplugged over the last eight nights but did still see the likely culprit of Juniper’s withdrawal.

The same tabloid as before took the bait from my bunny suit photos and ran another feature. This time, they’d superimposed the photos of me in the costume, us on our walk, and Juniper in his hospital bed four years ago over a shot of us in the hotel lobby holding hands.

Out of respect for him, I’d never actually looked up the hospital photo. He’d briefly mentioned once in passing that it existed but gave no details because it was a point of contention for him, so I always allowed it to stay in the past where it belonged. But now, it stared me straight in the face.

The photo was taken at a diagonal angle; if I had to guess, whoever took it had snuck it while entering his hospital room and before he realized they were there. He was paler than I’d ever seen him, the drab white hospital gown and the overhead lights washing him out and highlighting how gaunt he looked in the face. His eyes were half-closed and glazed over, probably thanks to whatever pain meds they’d hooked him up with after the accident. I cursed to myself as I read the large, yellow font across the picture of us in the lobby:MANAGER OR MISTRESS?

I scoffed when I saw it, wondering how they could call me a mistress when there wasn’t even an affair involved. Juniper and I were both single and had every right to do as we pleased, but even I had to admit the alliteration was clever. I remembered some advice my father gave me when I very first started my career: when people say mean things, let yourself feel it, but most importantly, act.

So, I grabbed my laptop and got to work.

It took me fifteen minutes to come up with something newsworthy to share but landed on the fact we’d sold out for our entire opening month, then reminded outlets of our opening day and everything the resort would offer.

To curb my anxiety, I opened Instagram, tapped in to create a new post, and then scrolled through my gallery as I struggled to select the best nine photos of my time here. There were plenty of candids of Juniper and Sasquatch, or photos we’d taken on self-timers from our hikes, but those would never see the light of day. I wanted to keep those to myself, little pieces of our lives that didn’t belong to anyone else. So, I only selected photos of the actual lodge or the views from our hikes without us in the foreground (though our shadows weren’t off-limits) and posted the carousel.

I wasn’t a mistress. This was my home, too. These photos would make that known, loud and clear. I kept my caption simple:new home #ColoradoLife @thefoxsdencowith the snow-capped mountains emoji.

Once uploaded, the app took me to my profile where I saw my follower count: 130K. When I moved here, I had maybe two thousand.

After I posted the bunny throwback, I hadn’t really bothered to check my personal account, instead focusing on growing the page for The Fox’s Den, which was already up to 200,000 thanks to Juniper’s star power. But now, I saw the flood of fire and bunny emojis. I couldn’t tell if the people commenting rabbit emojis meant it to be cute or cruel, but it didn’t matter either way. Engagement was engagement, and this would draw attention to the lodge.

There were a few obviously jealous women, commenting on my nose as if I hadn’t heard that insult a thousand times before. I’d inherited my father’s aquiline nose, and he got it from our family members who survived the Holocaust, so I was proud of it regardless of what beauty standards people tried to uphold. There were also more positive comments than negative, a mix of men being creepy, albeit well-intentioned, and women or gay men uplifting me. I had to Google what “mother is mothering” meant, but it made me smile.

Five minutes after upholding the press release and my pictures, my phone rang. The caller ID said LeAnn Weiss, the reporter I met when I first started. Since then, I’d learned she was Action 6’s morning reporter who happened to be a viewer favorite. Whenever they covered The Fox’s Den, LeAnn was on the story—and, better yet, with no personal photos of myself or Juniper involved.

“LeAnn! So good to hear from you!”

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