Page 11 of Seduction on the Slopes

“No. Couldn’t really.”

“Worried about this morning?”

His face goes from fish-belly pale to a green that resembles the hydrangeas in my mom’s garden. Apparently so.

Note to self: don’t remind Crash about the shit he doesn’t want to do.

“So, here’s the thing, I haven’t really come up with a solution—”

He groans and pulls the covers back over his head. It’s kind of adorable in its childishness, but I need him to listen to me. So I haul out of bed, settling my pajama pants that have gone askew so they sit right on my hips. It’s stupid to bother with a shirt, because hell, he’s already seen me naked in the locker room, but I feel like I could use even a thin layer of protection from the all kinds of awkward this is going to be so I pull on the one I’d left folded on my nightstand.

The floor is cold against the soles of my feet so I don’t take my time to mosey on over to his bed, but more skitter and then plop myself down beside him, drawing the covers down from his head again.

“You didn’t let me finish my sentence. Patience, Crash. You need to develop some patience. Sometimes going fast is about going slow.”

He looks like I’m spouting some psychobabble bullshit, but I’m not. In this one thing, I know what I’m talking about. But this isn’t a lecture about technique. That I can do in public, and what I’m about to say can very muchnot.

I expect Crash to shove me off the bed, or wrestle me for the covers, but he doesn’t. I’ve bared his shoulders, and I study the slope of them, the way his pulse beats hard in his throat, the angle of his jaw. He’s not a bad looking kid, but he needs to fill out more. If he hit a tree, he’d snap like a twig.

“What I was going to say is that I haven’t come up with a solution, but we have to do something, because this is not tenable. You can’t keep puking your guts up before pressers. It’s not healthy and it’ll impact your race performance sooner or later, and I won’t let that happen.” When I beat this upstart of a kid, it’s going to be fair and square, not because I let him make himself sick over this shit. “So I’ve decided we’re going to try it your way.”

“My way?” he echoes.

“Yes.”

“You’re going to let me smoke?”

“No. That’ll get you thrown out of here, and I’m not taking that chance.Weare not taking that chance. I’m not going to have one of my teammates, maybe the best raw talent I’ve ever seen, get booted off the team because he smoked pot. That would be stupid.”

“Okay. But that only leaves—” His eyes go wide, so wide I can almost see the whites all the way around. It makes him look like a goddamn Muppet. Which he sort of is. Crash the stoner alpine skier, with his crazy hair and his drawly but still somehow fast way of talking. Somehow, I don’t think that’s flying with Disney.

“Sex. Yes.”

His mouth gapes, and it’s all I can do not to reach out and use a finger to tip it closed. That foolish look does make me feel better about one element of my plan at least.

“We’re . . .” He swallows, his eyes still bulging. “We’re going to fuck?”

“No! No, no, Jesus, no. I was hoping maybe you could just, you know, take care of yourself?” That was about as delicately as I could’ve suggested the guy masturbate, right? It’ll be bad enough that when he’s taking an extra-long shower I’ll know what’s going on, and . . . Ugh. I only have to have a roommate once every four years for like a month. How do people who go to college deal with roommates who rub the occasional one out? Because they totally do.

“I mean, I guess I could try walking my own dog.”

“Are you kidding me with this?”

“Dude, it makes as much sense as “spanking the monkey.” Maybe more. I mean, who actually spanks monkeys?”

We do not need to discuss this. In fact, I’d really rather not. So instead of responding, I glare at him. Even Crash can’t be so thick as to not take that hint. I’m hoping that’ll be it, that he’ll go on his merry, jerking off way, but no. Crash looks at me, the corner of his mouth tugging to the side. He doesn’t look relieved.

Why doesn’t he look relieved? This should help.

“It’s uh . . . it’s not as good. By myself. When I’m really anxious, I have a hard time . . .” He flushes this absolutely brilliant red then and I’ve got to know what he was going to say. Crash has very little shame so if he’s roughly the color of a tomato right now, it’s got to be for a damn good reason.

Kid doesn’t look at me and stammers but I can be patient. “If it’s just me, and I’m all twisted up inside, sometimes it’s hard to stay, you know, hard.”

He scrubs hands over his face and into his hair and mutters some curses. Yeah, I can see why he wouldn’t want to say that. Not being able to keep it up is something no man ever wants to admit to.

“I think too much, and then I get distracted, and then all of a sudden, I don’t have . . . I’m not . . .”

Then his hands flail all over the place in a floppy, sad way, and I get it. Yes, unfortunately that provides all too vivid a picture. This is so far above and beyond my responsibilities as team captain it’s not even funny. I should ask Ted for hazard pay.

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