Page 83 of Just Let Go

“You’re setting the bar a little too high, you guys,” Quinn said from the backseat. “The lower the expectations, the better it will be.”

Carly elbowed her in reprimand.

Quinn was grumpy, and it showed. It was all she could do not to call a cab to come get her and take her back to the flower shop.

Facing the lake, Dockside Pizza was a nondescript gray building with a hand-painted sign out front. There was a closed-up window with a red awning on the side of the building.

“In the summer, you can get pizza by the slice at the window, so lots of people come up from the beach,” Jaden said.

Grady parked and looked out over the water.

“It’s usually nicer here. Winter isn’t the greatest weather,” Jaden said.

“I disagree,” Grady said. “I live for winter.”

Jaden grinned. “Right. I live for winter too.”

Quinn shot Carly a look. Her sister smiled. Had Carly forgotten? Grady wasnota good role model for her son.

Grady’s phone buzzed.

“You need to take that?” Quinn asked.

He stared at the image of a man’s face on the screen, then quickly hit the Decline button. “Nah, I’ll call him back.”

They walked into Dockside, and Terrance, a round man with a sliver of a mustache, greeted them. He stood behind a small podium next to a rack of menus. Behind him, the wood slats on the walls were painted white. The red, white, and gray theme carried throughout the small space. Not a traditional pizza joint, for sure, yet it fit here on the beach. The smell of tomato sauce and baking dough wafted through the small space, and Quinn’s stomach growled.

Fine. She was hungry, but she wasn’t about to admit that to any of them.

“Ah, the Collins family is back,” Terrance said. “It’s been too long.”

“It’s gotten busy, but we needed our Dockside fix,” Carly said. “Terrance, this is Grady Benson.”

Terrance’s eyes widened. “The skier?”

Great. A fan.

Grady flashed him that trademark smile—she’d seen it online in nearly every single posed photo that had popped up when she made the mistake of googlingGrady Benson.

It wasn’t like she wanted to dig up every little bit of information on the man. She was simply trying to figure out what he was like—for Jaden’s sake.

Still, she’d closed the door of her office at the flower shop and looked over her shoulder—twice—before actually typing in his name.

Hundreds of thousands of pages popped up.

Her eyes scanned the top results. A Wikipedia page, a Twitter account—she clicked on that one but quickly learned someone elsewas likely managing it for him—a link to his profile on the US Alpine Ski Team website.

She clicked on each one, then on an article titled “Grady Benson’s Olympic Dreams Slip through His Fingers.”

As her eyes danced across the screen, the picture of what was at stake for Grady came into focus.

She had no idea—and was almost a little embarrassed by it—that he was such a big deal. He wasn’t just a skier, or even just an Olympian. He was supposedly some kind of legend in his sport. If he didn’t make it back on the team, it would be a huge upset.

This whole time she’d been so focused on his faults, she hadn’t given a single thought to the pain he could possibly be feeling over his current situation.

She clicked on a video embedded in the article. Then another and another. Races, interviews, profiles—she watched it all, even found herself getting caught up in the excitement as he keenly maneuvered his way down impossibly challenging slopes.

At one point she’d let out an audible gasp as he tumbled, head over feet, then slid humiliatingly down the side of the mountain. She’d checked the shop again after that, for fear of someone—Grady—walking in on her. He seemed to have a way of showing up unannounced.

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