Page 74 of Well Played

“They say things come in threes. That was just the first. There is a sense of mortality that hits you when you see your best friend die, literally in front of you. Until something happens, all teenage boys think they are immortal. Then my father passedaway from cancer, and my grandfather. All three of them died within six months. I felt I had nothing to live for, so I packed my van, told my mom, and left. It took me days to drive here, then I needed to find a job and somewhere to live. I slept in my van for weeks. A ski shop took me as a ski tech in the evenings, boot fittings, waxing skis, that sort of thing. He was my mentor and looked after me. Every day I got up early, trained and trained, dug my own courses, put out my own flags, and brought them in. Every day, no matter the weather, I trained, and then worked at night to feed myself. I entered races and started winning. I was an independent, not associated with any of the clubs, so the other guys turned their noses up at me. No one sponsored me and I didn’t have the best equipment. But I wanted it more, so I pushed myself. I won all the events I entered, even against the older guys. Soon, they couldn’t ignore me anymore. Finally, and probably a year later than they should have, they offered me my place on the team, and I have been working damned hard ever since to maintain it.”

“No wonder you want it more than anyone else. I guess that is why I do too. I know what my parents sacrificed for me.”

“But you were a race club kid?”

“I was, but I wasn’t. You think skiing is expensive in the US? Try Australia. There are few resorts, and with such a short season, it is a prohibitively expensive sport. My mother was a teacher, my father was a ski patroller. Dad is from Oregon. They met when Mum visited the US for a holiday. Love at first sight. They moved my brother and me from Sydney to a small ski town when I was six and Louis was four. Dad just couldn’t stay away from the snow. He completed his paramedic degree in Australia and as soon as he had finished, they moved. They both worked extra hours, Mum as a tutor and Dad took overtime to pay for my skiing. As soon as I was old enough, I took a job too. So I understand what you mean. I wasn’t a rich kid, but joining therace club in Australia was the only way to receive coaching since private coaches are not allowed. They scrimped and saved and sacrificed for me.”

“Does your brother ski too?”

“Chris does, but mountain biking was his thing. My poor parents spent their lives racing around the country in summer for him, and winter for me. All my family skied but until I left home, they never had the money to buy themselves new gear. I felt terrible about that.”

“Dedicated parents.”

“As were yours.”

“Yes, but skiing is an expensive sport. My mom had four kids, so mostly I did it myself. Got a part-time job at thirteen and worked to pay my way.”

“We aren’t so different,” I admitted.

“It is one of the many things I love most about you. You have no sense of entitlement. You don’t forget where you came from.”

“Are you sure you want to live together? I mean, won’t your mom mind? You said your family were conservative.”

“They are, but they also want me to be happy. I can’t imagine anything better than waking every morning beside those dangerous curves of yours.”

“Dangerous curves?”

“Every time I see you, I want to bury myself inside you,” he whispered, although everyone around us had headphones on and was paying no attention. “I want to make love to you every morning and every night. You are my everything, Sophie.”

His words took my breath away, and I couldn’t help but smile, knowing every day in my future contained him.

5

Vail,Colorado, USA

As I bidfarewell to my kids for the day, and watched them disappear back to their accommodation, I glanced at the SMS on my phone.

Vail Hospital: He is awake.

My heart thudded, and I gasped, dropping my phone in the snow. After sitting by his bed every afternoon for six weeks while he was in an induced coma, the news that he was awake was akin to being told that the scientific community had cured cancer. The day they pulled me from my class to inform me he had crashed and had been airlifted to Vail with a suspected shattered spine was the worst day of my life. I had gone into shock, and my first reaction was to vomit all over the snow. Jodi, who had been tasked to tell me, had taken charge, allocating my class to a junior instructor and driving me to the hospital. I don’t remember the drive. Just her holding me as they told me that he was in surgery. Sitting in the sterile waiting room for hours,numb, not knowing if he was dead or alive. Knowing my life would never be the same.

When the surgeon had finally emerged, the grim look on his face told me everything and I crumpled into a ball on the floor, bereft. Owen was alive, but no one knew the severity of the damage until he woke. They would keep him in a medically induced coma for several weeks to give his body a chance to heal. Fractured skull, three fractured vertebrae, and a broken hip. The damage was extensive and severe.

Since that day, I had visited every afternoon, traveling straight from work, and staying until I was shooed out after dark. I knew from Dad that coma patients remembered things they heard while they were unconscious, and I talked to him every day, reading the paper, and telling him the news about town. But today was different. He was awake, finally.

“I’m so happy to see you!” I cried, rushing across the austere hospital room towards the single bed in the center. He lay facing away from me, looking out the window, his body held in place with pulleys and straps.

“Get out of here,” Owen snarled in a voice I had never heard him use, especially not towards me.

Hurriedly, I moved around the bed and pulled up a chair, sitting near his face. He closed his eyes and refused to look at me.

“Honey, it will be fine. You are alive, I’m here. I will take care of you.”

“I told them not to call you,” he hissed, the venom leaking from his mouth.

“Why? I want to help.”

“Help do what?” He snapped, his eyes opening and glaring at me through the pain. “I’m a cripple. Broken and useless. In five fucking seconds, my life is over. One ski binding releasedand here I am. The doctors didn’t sugarcoat it, babe. I’m fucked. Likely I will never walk again.”

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