Baylor looks at me so long I have to shrug it off.
“Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s get something down before I’m gone for a few days.”
Chapter 13 – Baylor
Back to Black – Amy Winehouse
CasisbackinL.A., and I swear I didn’t feel this lonely before.
Did I?
I ski off from the pack that is my brothers and their partners, plus Piper. What I need is a nice long ski run, nothing too technical.
I head down the slope, and I’m alone on this one.Fool’s Rushis steep enough to make me pay attention to what I am doing, but not so difficult I can’t try to figure shit out in my head and let my body do what it knows how to do on the ski slope.
The problem has layers. First, my thoughts that starting some kind of friendship with now-Cas would put then-Cas away forever is plain wrong. Instead, I feel like I’m in some sort of polyamorous situation. Except there are only two of us. A love triangle with a memory.
Which is a problem, because now-Cas and then-Cas blend together much too easily.
Not to mention there were a few moments when Cas was here: when we were in the living room playing his game, when we were in bed together for Christ sakes. In those moments there were unguarded glimpses into Cas. Raw seconds of. . .longing.
But it can’t be longing for me. That can’t be right.
If Cas had felt for me these past years the way I felt for him, he would have reached out, or come to Bear Valley. Something.
My foot catches out on the ice, the sharp edge of my ski unable to compensate for my poor footwork and distracted brain. I take the fall, my body knowing not to fight it, or else really injure myself. On my stomach, I skid down the steep slope about a quarter of the way before I stop. My ski is in front of me, and I slide down to it once I right myself back to my ass. The other ski fell with me, with the heel of my ski boot out of the binding, but it was caught enough on the toe to stay close.
Thankfully this slope doesn’t run back under the lift for someone to have seen that epic fail.
I shake my head. Cas in my bed.
Yeah, that thought is enough to cause a wipeout.
I slam my boot back into the ski and take off, letting my speed and the mountain wind blow off the rest of the snow that’s stuck on my jacket from where I landed.
No answers await me at the end of the run, or the next one, or the one after that, or at the end of the afternoon when I meet up with my family at my moms’ house.
No answers beyond what I already know: I’m still in love with Cas, and that isn’t changing. Cas of then or Cas of today doesn’t matter.
“You okay, Bee?” Jack asks as he hands me a drink. Of course, he knows something is up.
“Took a fall onFool’s Rush, right at the drop off. Just sore.”
Jack nods, moving off of the couch where I am sitting outside.
Theo takes the seat beside me.“I was going to ask the same thing.”
“Did Matt send you to ask me this? Quinn?”
Theo shrugs a thin shoulder. It’s hard to deny the sweetest guy on the planet much, so I wouldn’t put it past my brothers to send him on recon.
“Neither. This is just me, looking out for you.”
I bump his shoulder. “Thanks.”
Theo beams, and I sense Matt staring at his man from across the room. I made Theo smile, so Matt will probably be sending me food over for a week.
“I’m fine though, really,” I say “Having Cas around has been. . .nice? I think we are going to be able to pull off this album.”
