Rebound (15 page)

O
n the afternoon of our first official day at Camaraderie Camp, Ali and I pile out of the Four Seasons’s vans with the rest of the crew and shuffle into the snowmobile park. Rhett and Jasmine have already arranged for everything, and I know where I’m going from past years, so I lead Ali around the small double-wide that is the park’s office and head to the snowmobile course around the back.

I move to the helmet rack and hand one to her, taking another one for myself. We pull them snug over our ski beanies.

“Looking
Mmm good,
Quick,” I say, remembering her apron from the other night. I offer a hand down the slushy slope to the course below.

“Thanks, Blackwood,” she says, grabbing onto my arm.

We keep touching each other now, thanks to all the camaraderie work. We’ve only been at this for eight hours or so, but it’s already
become natural. My hands are almost always on her, zipping up her coat for her or resting on the small of her back. Trust work—the art of supporting your partner in ways big and small, as we’ve been told endlessly by Jasmine—completely rocks. Jazz is getting a huge tip from me this year.

The snowmobile is my favorite event of the retreat, and I’m more pumped for it than usual because of my partner this year. At some point yesterday, between trust falls and scavenger hunts through the lodge, I started having a legitimate blast with Ali.

She’s competitive, maybe even more than I am, and her eagerness, the way she’s enjoying herself, her whole attitude, is addicting. Totally addicting to be around.

“Hold up, guys,” a snowmobile guy says, blocking us at the bottom of the path. “Hey, I’m Gooter.” He steals a glance at Ali beside me—who looks amazing with her cheeks pink from the cold and her hair in a long braid that hangs to the side—and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Sorry, but, I just need to show you how to work the snowmobile and tell you how to run the course.”

“That’s all right,” I say. “I’ve done this a few times. Just point me in the direction of the fastest vehicle.”

Gooter appreciates a speed junkie when he meets one. He smiles. “Cool, bro. That one’s got the best pick-up. Get her running for a minute to warm her up, and she’ll fly for you.”

I snag it, and Ali swings her leg over, mounting behind me and scooting close. The feeling of her thighs tight against mine is one I have to take a few moments to enjoy.

“I didn’t even ask you if you want to drive,” I say.

She wraps her arms around me. “You drive. I’ll grab flags.”

I fire up the engine and get us out on the starting line then explain the rules to Ali.

The object of the game, I know from past years, is to ride the course while keeping an eye out for yellow flags along the way. Each
team has to collect four flags to qualify, and then it’s pretty much a race to the finish line.

“What do you think?” I ask, as the other teams assemble around us. “Who do we have to look out for?”

She’s quiet, and I feel her studying the others. Rhett and Sadie, who are ten kinds of awkward together. Paolo and Pippa, who’ve created some kind of leg kick and cheer. Mia and Jasmine—who, in snow gear, looks surprisingly like she was born riding snowmobiles across Alaska. And Philippe who stalls again, and again, and again, until finally Cookie yanks him back into the passenger position and takes over.

“No one,” Ali says. “We’ve got this in the bag.”

I’m suddenly grinning from ear to ear. “Damn right, Quick,” I say, wanting to hang onto this feeling, that we’re invincible. Together, that’s exactly what we are.

When everyone’s set, Gooter walks out to the starting line lifting what appears to be a pink dog toy in the air. “Are. You. Ready?” he yells.

“Wow! This race feels so official,” Mia says gamely.

Pippa and Paolo do a cheer, their legs kicking left and right.

“Hell yes!” Cookie yells, revving her engine.

“Hold on tight,” I say to Ali.

“I am,” she says, firming her arms around my chest. “Don’t hold back.”

Jesus. What I wouldn’t do to have her this close in private. Saying these things in private. With less clothes. Maybe sitting in front of me, where I could—

“On your marks! Get set!” Gooter lowers the dog toy. “Go!”

We shoot away from the starting line and I put us right into the lead, going full throttle down a steep drop. Ali and I come up off the seat as we catch air, and when we land, the impact is jarring. I feel
her arms clamp around me, and the snowmobile finally gets traction again.

“You all right?” I yell.

“Yes! Keep going!”

I can’t open up the throttle any more, so I concentrate on finding the best track.

“Flag!” Ali points. “Right there!”

I see it, and make a sharp turn. When I stop, I bury the bottom half of the flag in the spray the snowmobile kicks out.

“Shit. Sorry,” I say, but Ali’s already hopped off, taken four steps to the flag, and pulled it out of the ground.

“It’s okay. Go!” she says, hopping back on.

I look behind us. Pippa and Paolo, and Cookie and Philippe are just coming down the steep decline Ali and I flew over.

“Go, go, go!” Ali yells, and my chest fills with the sound of her voice this way. So competitive and sure.

We tear back onto the track and find another flag. I get us close, Ali snags it. We blaze on. We’re strategic. Efficient. Ruthless. And we don’t make any false moves. By the time we come up to the fourth flag, I don’t even see anyone behind us, but we’re still gunning for the finish line, the two of us racing some imaginary competitor.

Ali jumps back on the snowmobile, the fourth flag tucked in her arm, but I don’t go anywhere. Not yet.

“Adam, go! What are you doing?”

I turn so I can see her face. We’re alone, but I can hear the hoots and hollers of the others approaching. “I’m kissing you.”

The urge is so strong I won’t be able to do anything—move, think, breathe—until I answer it.

I bring my mouth to her soft lips. A brush was all I thought I wanted. We’re both out of breath and we’re in the middle of a race. But a passing taste isn’t enough. It never is with her.

My tongue sweeps in and strokes hers, and she’s warm and sweet, and so willing, so responsive, I almost forget what we’re doing until our helmets clack together.

I kiss her nose, which is a little red from the cold, as I back away. “What do you say, Quick?”

She smiles at me. “I say let’s finish this.”

And we do.

We’re sipping hot chocolate with Gooter before the next team even crosses the finish line.

I
know when I see the blindfolds that I’m in trouble. Well, I think, mentally replaying Adam’s kiss during yesterday’s snowmobile race,
more
trouble.

We’ve gathered on the expanse of lawn right beyond our lodge’s back deck, which has been littered with colorful mini pylons in what seems like a randomly arranged pattern but that no doubt reflects the perfect symmetry of a hummingbird’s flight or the pattern the brain makes when it falls in love.

Jasmine seems to have a transparent bag filled with blindfolds, along with several lengths of bright yellow rope coiled in her hands.

“Oh, look everyone,” says Paolo. “It’s
Fifty Shades of Grey,
mountain edition.”

“At least buy me some flowers first,” mutters Mia.

Philippe snorts.

The early morning wind carries a cutting chill, the temperature easily twenty degrees colder than yesterday. I shiver and zip the collar of my coat up as high as it will go. Adam stands next to me, and I feel the tension of him wanting to put his arm around me. The same tension I feel, wanting to snuggle close but knowing it’s the wrong thing to do. Maybe just here and now. Or maybe anywhere, anytime. I still don’t know.

“Supposed to be a big cold front coming in,” Rhett tells me. Wearing only a heavy sweatshirt, he jogs in place and blows on his hands as we await further instructions. “Maybe an ice storm.” To Adam, he adds, “Gotta keep an eye on that.”

Adam nods. “I’m checking the alerts. We’ll probably know more in an hour or two.”

Jasmine gives a sharp ear-piercing whistle, and all eyes turn to her.

“I know it’s become a bit bracing out this morning, my lovelies, but we’ll get you warmed up in no time with a little game I call ‘Blind Pilot.’”

“Umm, blind pilots crash,” says Sadie.

“Not if they have expert navigators,” Jasmine replies. She explains that each team is to select one mask and one rope. The pilot and navigator will be tethered together, and the pilot will wear the mask. “You’ll find three blue cones among all of the orange ones on your course. Your job as navigator, my precious angels, is to guide your pilots to each of the blue cones by giving them directions and gently guiding them with the rope. Each time you reach a blue cone, you’ve come to a Trust Layover.”

Adam shakes his head and shoots me a grin. “Well, I like the blindfold part, at least.”

Jasmine continues her instructions. “At each layover, your navigator’s allowed to ask you any question, and your job is to answer truthfully. Unburden your heart so it has more room to be filled with
love and life. And trust that your truth is precious to your partner, and that truth will be cared for and protected.”

I can’t help looking at Adam again, wanting to know if I can believe that, if I can give him my secrets. If he can give me his.

It strikes me that this exercise is tailor-made to my father’s purposes, but that using it that way is the lowest thing I can imagine. I can’t do it. I won’t. And that realization unburdens me, makes me feel light and a little giddy. The way I felt when he kissed me on the back of the snowmobile. The way he makes me feel, period.

“Come on, Blackwood,” I say. “Let’s get a blindfold on you.”

“Not if I get one on you first,” he says and darts off toward Jasmine.

“Oh no, you don’t,” I say, and race behind him. But trying to run through calf-high snow is pretty much a futile pursuit, so it ends up looking like two people in the clumsiest slow motion ever.

We’re laughing when we reach Jasmine, and Adam manages to snag a blindfold just a second before my fingers reach for it.

“Oh, I adore this enthusiasm!” Jasmine says. “You’re such lovelies!”

“Come on, lovely,” Adam says, and twirls the blindfold in the air. “Let’s get this on you.”

We walk down a gentle slope, and I direct him toward one of the little obstacle courses that spreads out in a patch of sunlight. A green cone marks the starting point, and I hold out my hand for the blindfold.

He gives me a skeptical look. “Are you kidding, Quick? There’s no way I’m letting you put this on yourself.” Moving closer, he reaches up and smoothes my hair back behind my ears. “You have the softest hair,” he tells me. Then he places the silken fabric over my face. “Hold that,” he instructs. And I hold it against my eyes, hating to block out the sight of him.

I feel the weight of his arms on my shoulders as he reaches
around me to tie the blindfold, giving it a sharp tug to secure it. His body brushes against me, and the hard length of him grazes my hip.

“Sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “I guess masks excite me.”

I tremble, not from the cold but from the growl in his voice, the feel of him against me. The memory of our last time in masks.

“A good navigator wouldn’t try to distract his pilot,” I tell him. Of course, a good pilot probably wouldn’t want to throw her navigator into a snow mound and jump on top.

Adam fumbles around with something for a moment, and then I feel the length of cord circling my waist, being tugged taut. “Shit,” he says. “Blindfolds and rope. I’m in big trouble here, Quick.”

I laugh. “I’m surprised you can be around horses at all then,” I say. “All kinds of sexy tackle.”

“Don’t say the words ‘sexy tackle’ to me. I’m having a hard enough time.”

“Yes, I noticed how hard a time you’re having.”

He laughs and then I feel him move away from me. “Okay, let’s do this,” he says. “Take about a half step to your right and then walk about two short paces.” He gives the rope a gentle tug to my right to align me, and I step forward.

“Perfect.” He gives me further directions, tugging just a bit here and there as needed, but mainly guiding me with his voice. Even blindfolded, I feel perfectly secure, attuned to him. And there’s a freedom to being locked in this world without vision. Everything becomes his voice, the gentle pull of the rope, my careful steps in the snow. All the chatter in my head falls away, and we’re just a perfect, choreographed dance—flawless together.

“Okay, stop right there,” Adam says. “We’ve reached a blue cone.”

My feet plant, and I wait, thrilled and afraid of the question he’ll ask.

“Tell me what happened with you and Ethan.”

My throat tightens. I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect this. I’m surprised he doesn’t already know. Mia works for him. He plays poker with Ethan. I’m touched that neither of them told him, and their kindness makes me bold.

“I cheated on him.” In my mind, the words freeze into ice and hover in the air between us. I don’t offer anything else. I see it all so differently now, and no other words seem necessary—especially not excuses.

I wish I could see Adam’s face now, see how he’s looking at me. We’re quiet for a moment, the chatter and laughter of the others echoing around us.

Then he just says, “Okay. Move about four inches to the left.”

He guides me through the course until we reach another blue cone. Coming to stand close to me, he asks, “Why?” His voice is gentle and probing but without an ounce of accusation.

I sigh. “It’s such a long story,” I tell him. “We’ll freeze.”

“Imagine my arms are around you,” he says, and his breath stirs against my cheek. “I’ll keep you warm. Just tell me.”

And so I do. I start with all of the things I see now that I didn’t see then. I tell him about that weekend I found my father with another woman, how I ran away, spent the night at the airport, got back to college, and couldn’t tell Ethan anything. Because I felt I needed to be loyal to my father and because Ethan seemed to admire him so much. I kept it a secret, and that secret made everything different between us. It made
me
different.

“I started partying more,” I tell Adam. “And just . . . I stopped caring. I stopped believing in whatever Ethan and I had. And to be honest, I knew I wasn’t in love with Ethan. And he wasn’t in love with me. Not really. We had a lot of nice moments together, and I was excited by his success, I think, because I felt all of this pressure to be successful myself. I don’t know. I just know that I let it all get out of hand. Because I didn’t know what to think or feel. I just
numbed myself to everything. I cut myself off from him and then I resented that he couldn’t share my pain. It was so wrong of me. But I couldn’t pull out of it. I just kept making terrible choices. Telling myself I didn’t care. That none of it mattered.”

“And the guy you cheated with?”

“One of those terrible choices.” Tears sting my eyes, and I reach under the blindfold to wipe them away. I could remove it entirely, of course, but there’s a comfort in it, in not being able to see Adam while I tell him my story. “I was so lonely. It felt like I didn’t have my family anymore. Not in the same way. I pushed Ethan away and blamed him for being so busy with soccer and studies and his friends. The guy was my research partner, and we were with each other constantly. I just wanted to feel like . . .”

“Like what?” Adam asks, and his tone is so earnest and so understanding that more tears come.

“I wanted to feel like I mattered, I guess. Or like . . . I don’t know . . . I wanted to know if it was true, what my father said. That it
didn’t
matter. That it could happen and not mean anything.”

“But it meant something?”

I nod. “I let myself go with it because I was buzzed, and I wanted to escape myself. But I pretty much hated it—which wasn’t the guy’s fault. He was . . . nice enough. He stopped when I got upset, but we were still in bed together when . . . when Ethan found us.”

I start crying again, my whole body seized by the memory and the pain—and, in some small part, by a sharp sympathy for the person I was just a few months ago.

“I’m happy Ethan’s found someone. They seem so . . . in love. But I’ll never forget that look on his face. I spent six months trying to forget that look, drinking and acting like none of it mattered. It killed my studies. I mean,
I
killed them. I lost almost every friend I had. My parents had to bail me out of the whole thing. It was just a disaster.
I
was a disaster.”

“But you’re not anymore,” he says quietly.

I shake my head, shivering. “No. I’m not.”

“Come on,” he says, and gives the rope another gentle tug. “Just a few steps straight on, and we’ll be done.”

I follow his directions and come to stand in front of him. “Last question,” I say. The air temperature has dropped again, and the wind slices into me, starting my teeth chattering.

I feel his arms around me, and then the blindfold lifts away, and it’s just the two of us, face-to-face in the blinding winter sunlight.

“Okay,” Adam says. “Last question.” There’s nothing in his expression but regard and tenderness. “Want to go inside and get a goddamned cup of coffee?”

I smile, brushing away the last of my tears. “That sounds really, really good right now.”