I ran a hand over my beard, sighed. “If you want, I’ll kick the door in and make him talk.”
Lucas looked toward the house. “I want to know. Fuck, I do. But this was about you. About closure or forgiveness or some shit like that.”
I opened my truck door, my gaze looking past Lucas to the house. “There’s nothing here. I lost him years ago.”
I had. I just hadn’t realized it. Dennis Seaborn had been dead to me since I was nine. I just hadn’t buried him. Now I had.
“That’s fucking closure right there.”
12
HAILEY
Cy was right. I had to face my shit. And I’d been using him and Lucas as a way to delay the inevitable. And I’d been doing that with them, using them to put it off. When it changed from just a good time to something more, I had no idea. Maybe it was the first time I saw Lucas at the mud run. Maybe it was when Cy and I had been sprayed by that asshole skunk. Maybe it had been building all along. I’d not only gotten exactly what I’d wanted, an amazing time with two men, I’d gotten exactly what I hadn’t wanted.
Love. And that scared the shit out of me. Enough to drive them away. To run away. To avoid. Again.
Ever since I’d told them I wanted to quit, I hadn’t changed my mind. Of course, it had only been overnight, but I knew it would stick. I’d still ski, that wasn’t going to change, but I wasn’t going to compete anymore.
I hadn’t told them, but I’d lost my nerve. That accident had been brutal and to shave off the difference between winning and something like eighth place—which sometimes was less than a thousandth of a second—was to go all out.
I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t want to. Not if it risked so much.
I’d lucked out that I’d only needed knee surgery.
Even though I was decided, I wasn’t thrilled to tell that to Mark. My parents had been easy when I’d called. They understood. Perhaps, they were content with me giving it up because I had wiped out so badly that it had shaken them, too.
They wanted me happy, but they also wanted me alive and in one piece.
Mark didn’t have any skin in the game when it came to my career. At least not blood. I was his cash cow and he was driven not for me, but for himself.
If I quit, he lost his cut. He lost the recognition of being the champion’s coach. The connection to the sponsors, to the big-league players in the racing world. I was his meal ticket.
It was time to live my life for myself, not for a dream that I’d had since I was a kid, not because I wanted to be like my mom.
I wanted to be me. And if I were truly honest, I wanted to be with Cy and Lucas. For more than just fun.
As for a job, I had an idea. I wanted to lead some group trips for Lucas’ non-profit. Ski trips. Whether they were just day outings to Cutthroat Mountain or winter camping trips where we cross country skied into the backcountry. Either way, it sounded ideal. Fun. Calm. And with people who could really use my help and guidance.
Maybe I’d even teach a few kids’ classes at the resort because I remembered what it was like to first discover the thrill of racing down a mountain, even if it was the flattest of green runs.
I’d texted with Lucas. I wasn’t mad at him, only afraid of what loving him meant. And, it wasn’t his fault Cy was an asshole sometimes. I was amazed he’d given me space, allowed me to be pissed, to think. The downside of having two men in my life is that I didn’t have a lot of time to myself. To stew. To drink more wine than I should have.
He knew I was meeting with Mark this afternoon, was okay that we’d meet at his house. I knew Mark would be angry, and I didn’t need him to make a scene at a restaurant or any other public place.
When this was over, I’d go to the ranch. Talk it out with Cy. I didn’t hate him. The opposite. I loved him. I really did. Crazy, definitely, but I was wired crazy.
We’d argue perpetually, definitely more than me and Lucas. But he was worth it. And if he never wanted to deal with his dad, I didn’t blame him. Me avoiding Mark and him steering clear of the man who’d abandoned him as a child, then fucked with Lucas’ family, was something else entirely.
The doorbell rang and I smiled, resolute in my plan, eager to get back to the ranch and my men. To make it right with them. God, the makeup sex we’d have!
I was finally eager to talk with Mark, to get it over with, so I could move on with my life.
“Hey,” I said, when I opened the door for my coach.
He lifted his chin in r
eply, came inside. I hadn’t seen him since the mud run, the day I’d met Lucas. He looked the same, perhaps his tan had faded a bit.