Rose points her finger at him. “NowthatI approve of!”
Sergio’s jaw drops, and his eyebrows knit together. He sits back in his chair and brings a hand to his chest. “Rose, you wound me.”
“She has a point, mate,” Holden says, then jostles Sergio’s shoulder with his hand. “You know I love you like a brother, but you and Henry would both need a babysitter in Paris.”
Sergio shrugs. “As long as it’s someone hot to look at.”
Rose turns her attention to Allison. “You see. Didn’t I tell you? Total player this one is.”
Allison averts her eyes and giggles behind her hand. Rose has obviously been preparing the young twenty-year-old skater for Sergio’s arrival.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Rose,” Jeremy says, surprising Sergio, and apparently Adrien as well, who turns to look at him while bringing his hot tea to his lips. “Is it still a play when it’s a one-man show?”
Adrien nearly chokes on his tea, and the rest of the table bursts out laughing. Even Henry lets out a guffaw when he sees everyone else’s reactions. Everyone except for Sergio, who replies, “You’re all jealous.”
Holden claps him on the shoulder, again, and harder this time. “Not me!” he exclaims with pride lighting up his face so that it practically sets the table aglow. He grabs Rose’s hand with his other hand and holds it up. “Nabbed my win on my first try.”
Rose lets go of his hand and pats him on the head, playfully messing up his hair. “Keep telling yourself that, babe.”
“Oh, please,” Jeremy says with a pretty smile tugging at his lips. “You two are equally smitten.”
“Yeah, they are,” Allison agrees.
“The model couple,” Adrien chimes in and raises his tea. “A relationship we all aspire to have.”
Holden lifts his beer, prompting the rest of the table to do the same. “Here, here!”
“Yes, yes,” Sergio says, holding back the urge to fake gag. He can feel Allison staring at him, but instead, he can’t help but look at Jeremy over the brim of his pint and wonder what would have happened if he’d played his cards right during the Olympics.
Whatever. It was in the past.He shakes it all off, then turns his attention back to Allison, where he spends the rest of lunch flirting in an attempt to ignore the way that Jeremy so easily fits in with his family. He tries not to get mad at Adrien for choosing to chat with Jeremy instead of reassuring Sergio that he was merely joking less than an hour ago when he said he was quitting. He tries to stay positive when he sees Henry falling asleep in Jeremy’s lap. And he tries to avoid Rose’s glare and Jeremy’s snicker when he hops onto the chairlift with Allison, slinging an arm around her as they are carried up the slopes to take a black diamond run together.
However, for once, having a beautiful girl under his arm isn’t enough to distract him from memories of the two days from his past he desperately wishes he could do over.
The first is the day his parents died. At the time, having just turned seventeen, he was young and dumb. These last ten years, he’s thought of that day often and how monumentally he screwed up. How with one poor decision, he ruined four people’s lives. How he turned not only his, but Adrien’s world upside down. And for what? To get off? To get the girl who’d beenstringing him along and playing hard to get with him in his first experience of fumbling adolescent love alone in a lavish beach house? And then, when it was all over, she hadn’t even been there for him during his grief?
Not only was that the day he lost his parents, but it was also the day he saidfuck itto love. Forever vowing from that moment on not to waste his time with anyone who could have a hold on him and cloud his decision-making.
The second day, which isn’t a surprise either, was the day he kissed Jeremy Owens. He doesn’t regret kissing Jeremy. He regrets letting him go, even though he’ll likely never admit that out loud.
He genuinely liked Jeremy, right from the get-go. Jeremy was charming and smart and held himself with such composure, even under all the pressure that was placed on him, the perfect definition of stoic. He was incredibly talented on the ice and photographed beautifully. He was the first person since the death of his parents that had Sergio thinking,You know, maybe I can give dating someone a try. And then,WHAM!He kissed him, and it was perfect, and he felt it from his lips all the way down to his toes, and the first thing Jeremy did when they pulled apart was reject him.
Of course, the truth was that Jeremy didn’t reject him, he only wanted them to put a temporary pin in what was forming between them. But Sergio, unfortunately, hadn’t seen it that way and went right back to swearing off a connection with anyone from that moment forward. Hook-ups, one-night stands, and no-strings-attached arrangements cause far less grief and heartache.
That is what he keeps in mind as he texts Allison a photo he’d taken of them from the ski slopes with a declaration that he’s looking forward to seeing her later tonight at the New Year’s Eve party. It’s a huge soiree thrown at the Grand OlympianHotel every year. Holden and Rose are co-hosting for the fourth year in a row since returning home as champions from the last Olympics.
“Can you grab Henry from Jeremy?” Rose asks Holden when they pull into the garage after their afternoon of skiing. “I need to get cleaned up and start getting ready for tonight.”
“Sure thing,” Holden says, then turns to look at Sergio and Adrien in the back seat. “Do either of you want to come with? Maybe Jeremy has Henry up and on skates. You should see him. He’s terrible.”
“Jeremy seemed careful on his skates last night, but I wouldn’t call him terrible,” Sergio says. He briefly does a mental side-by-side comparison of the Jeremy of old with the Jeremy of now. Yes, he looked less sure of himself, but nothing close to terrible.
“I meant Henry, but good to know you were paying close attention to Jeremy,” Holden teases, then asks again, “So are you coming down or not?”
Sergio nods. “Yeah, I’ll come.”
“Adrien?”
“Nah. It’s almost midnight in Paris. I’m gonna call Daphne and wish her a Happy New Year.”
