Page 32 of On the Edge

“She moved here so we could live in the same place, we even work together. You moved here because you came to visit and saw a business opportunity, a niche that you could fill. You will be fine if I move home.”

“So will Sierra,” Petra says with far more confidence than I feel.

It’s not that I think Sierra can’t survive without me. Not at all. She has her own life—a job and a fiancé and I’m sure she’ll be okay. But I do think she’d be really hurt if I left. “I just don’t want to say anything until it’s more definite.”

“You’re really thinking about giving up your job to move to New Hampshire?”

“Yeah. It’s still in the very early stages, but Danforth is recruiting me to be their head athletic trainer,” I shake my head, still in awe of the offer. “In a lot of ways, that’s a step up from where I am now.”

“Are you sure this isn’t just about Nate?”

“I mean, the idea of working with athletes thataren’thim definitely holds appeal.” I give her a little smile. “But honestly, I started looking into options at the end of my Italy trip, as soon as I found out about my mom, and before I even knew Nate was on the team. I figured I’d give Josh one last year, then jump ship and go home.”

“But then working with Josh morphed into working with Nate,” Petra says.

“Yeah, exactly. And Petra, I can’t even explain how bad it is.”

“Why? Is he being a horrid asshole?”

“No, which is the problem. It’d be much easier to keep hating him if he was. He’s being great, actually. Last night he even apologized for some of what happened between us. Not all of it, but it was really heartfelt.”

“Wait, last night? Why are you seeing him outside of work?”

I tell her the bare bones story of staying in his suite with him, but leave out anything that might indicate how attracted I am to him. Then I tell her how I left this morning determined to quit my job so I didn’t have to work with him anymore.

“Hold up,” Petra says. “This is not adding up. You stayed at his suite last night, he was nice—made sure you got dinner and a bath and even apologized. And you snuck out this morning determined to not work with him? Why? Wouldn’t that make it clear that working with him would be easier, better than you expected?”

I look down at my hands—a blanket that’s been lying on the couch next to me is all clenched up in my fists. I can’t meet her eyes, afraid that she’ll be able toseethe war going on inside me playing out like a movie on my pupils. Even as hard as it is to admit to myself how attracted I am to him, I worry that she’ll see it plainly written across my face. Petra knew Nate and me when I was still racing. She saw the good, the bad, the ugly of those years, and she knows that no matter what ups and downs we had, the one thing that lasted until the end of our relationship was the attraction, the desire.

“Jackson,” she says in a voice that should be reserved for reprimanding children, assuming Petra ever settles down enough to have kids.

I glance up at her, the guilt and shame making it hard to breathe. Icannotbe attracted to Nate. Not after the way he took my heart and shattered it. I’m never giving him, or anyone else, the power to do that to me again. There’s no way I could withstand a second heartbreak of that magnitude.

“What’s really going on?”

“Petra, I can’t talk about this,” I whisper, images of Marco flashing in my mind. I can’t betray him.

“Okay, I’ll talk about it then.” She shrugs. “Here’s what I’m seeing—you dreaded having to work with Nate. But he’s hot, and you have a history that’s even hotter, and you’re mentally fighting your physical attraction to him, and it’s hard. And you’re probably feeling really guilty because of Marco.”

I blink several times in reaction to her astute assessment.

“Yeah, pretty much. I hate him. And I love Marco. So why am I attracted to Nate?”

“Um, maybe because you guys have always had this explosive chemistry together?”

“I guess.”

“Jackson, I remember a time that man could look at you from across the room and we’dallblush from the fire in his eyes. Like we could all feel it. It was consuming. Katarina and I were always so jealous,” she adds, referring to a German racer that we were close with back in the day.

“Yeah, well, sometimes it feels like he’s still looking at me like that.”

“So let him look.” She juts out her chin in defiance. “It’s probably driving him crazy to realize what he let go of, especially since you’re with Marco now. He deserves to feel that regret. And you deserve to feel desired. No harm in that.”

I pause, considering whether I should say anything more. But I need advice. I need someone else to know what I’m feeling. In a small voice, I tell her, “But I feel that attraction too, now that he’s back. And it’s tearing me apart because it’s so wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to an attractive man. You’re probably missing Marco and starved for sex. It’s natural that you’d feel attracted to someone you’ve had amazing sex with ... as long as you don’tacton it,” she reminds me, and I can feel the heat creeping up my neck and into my cheeks as the memories of last night and this morning run through my head. “Wait,” she says, “you haven’t done anything with him, have you?”

“No,” I respond, relieved that I can be honest about this at least. “Nothing has happened between us.”

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