“Tell us about Dan’s decision to sponsor you. This must be costing him a fortune.” The reporter asks.
“Dan has more than enough to fund my trip, but this isn’t about the money,” Jett answers, and his mouth slides into a grin. It’s the same one he makes when he knows he’sabout to stun his audience. “Dan has always had my back from day one, and his support means the world to me.”
He pauses for second, thinking, and in the moment of quiet, Cordelia purrs loudly.
“And, it turns out you don’t need money and fanfare when you’re born as talented as I was.”
There it is. That cocky arrogance that you can’t help but love. That Jett’s fans go crazy for. I smile, torn between missing him terribly and feeling my heart about to burst. Despite all odds, despite the setbacks, Jett and I both managed to get to where we wanted to be.
Just not with each other.
And that’s okay, that was the plan all along. There’s just still a part of me that wishes I could be there, at the bottom to celebrate with him. To pull him in for a kiss as he waits to hear his score.
“Would you like to make a comment on the most recent allegations about your marriage?”
I wince at the mention of the scandal, and brace myself for Jett’s answer, wondering how he’ll spin it for the media. But something in his expression changes, softens, as he prepares to give his answer. It’s the same look he got on his face before he addressed the kids at the high school. It’shim.No mask.
“As skiers, we always talk about the fall line, something to respect if not to fear. We’re aways riding just close enough to it to stay on the safe side, to not let ourselves lose control. I think I did that a lot in my life, too. But with Poppy…” Jett shakes his head, trying to find the right words.
I wonder if he knows I’m watching, if whatever he sayswill be filtered a certain way. But when he speaks, there’s nothing but honesty in his tone.
“The second I kissed her for the first time, I fell hard and fast. I lost control, and it was exhilarating. Our relationship might have start out fake, but my feelings for Poppy are very real. I went into it thinking that it would be safe, that Poppy and I were so different there’d be no way we’d develop feelings for each other, or that she would develop feelings for me. But I have fallen head over heels for a quirky girl and her cat. And that’s the truth.”
My heart stutters, my breath catching in my throat as I snatch the remote out of Hudson’s hand and rewind it to listen again.My feelings for Poppy are very real… I’ve fallen head over heels…
A fluttery feeling fills me up, rippling through my body making me giddy and antsy and physically unable to stop smiling.
It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t imagining it. Jett felt it too, and God, I wish I wasn’t almost eight thousand miles away from him.
All the times that Jett has taken care of me, at bowling, teaching me to ski, even just knowing when I need a day to unwind and rest… Travelling the world doesn’t seem so impossible if I have him waiting for me at the end.
Hudson and Wren are staring at me, as I stare at the TV screen, where Jett’s face has been frozen since I unknowingly paused it.
“Poppy.” Wren breaks me out of my trance, the gobsmacked state my brain fell into. “You know what this means, right?”
I’m still dumbfounded when I pull my eyes away fromthe screen and look at her. All I can think about is Jett’s admission. That he’s fallen just as hard for me as I’ve fallen for him. We may have done our relationship slightly out of order, but the result was the same.
“Poppy,” she repeats, as if she knows that saying my name will help to ground me and refocus me. “We need to get you to Switzerland.”
Excitement sparks to life in my belly, the possibility that I might be there to see Jett win the cup, to be waiting for him at the end of his run. To kiss him like we have so many times now, but knowing this one will be different. It will mean more. It will meaneverything.
But the spark flickers out when I realize the impossibility of Wren’s suggestion.
“The event is tomorrow. There’s no way I’ll get there on time,” I counter.
“We need to try,” Wren says, that stubborn, headstrong part of her nature blazing in her brown eyes. It reminds me of someone else who is used to always getting what she wants. Someone who owes Jett and I both a favour, or ten.
I hold out my hand to Wren. “I need to use your phone.”
She doesn’t ask any questions before she hands it to me, and I type in Brooke’s number. I’ve seen it pop up on my phone so many times by now that I have it memorized.
Brooke, it’s Poppy. Any chance you can get me to Zermatt before the final?
Wren and Hudson and I take a seat on the couch while we wait for Brooke’s reply.
I can’t stop my knee from bouncing as we stare at thephone. After what feels like hours but is only minutes, her name lights up Wren’s screen.
BROOKE
