I think about quitting more these days, but I refuse to do it until I win a World Cup. My family has sacrificed too much to get me here to not go all the way. I think about all the money my family invested into my training when I wasstarting out, how much time Grady spent driving me to and from the mountain every weekend, how much Hudson gave up so my family could support me.
“That seems like a reasonable fear to have,” Poppy says, and there’s a bit of relief that comes with having told her, getting it out in the open. “Geez, I would be terrified going down the hill. I think I would cry the whole way down.”
“You’ve never skied before?” I ask her, my eyebrows lifting in surprise.
Poppy’s eyes go wide. “Oh god, no. Do I look like someone who has participated in any sports at all?”
“C’mon, Poppy. You’ve lived in the Rockies your entire life and you’re telling me you’ve never been on a ski hill,” I say, aghast.
Skiing is almost like a way of life here. Most people have tried it at least recreationally. It’s one of the best parts about the winter in the mountains.
“What’s so unbelievable about that?” She laughs and sets her mug down on my coffee table so she can hold up an arm and flex a bicep. She pokes at it. “Look. Nothing. I don’t have an athletic muscle in my body.”
She’s cute.
My lips tug upward into a smile, and I huff a laugh. “Then we can forget about our relationship looking believable.”
Poppy cocks her head at me, her brows pinching together.
“I mean, I know we’re not exactly similar…” she starts.
“We’re complete opposites, Pops. That’s not a bad thing. But I do worry what people will think if my girlfriend, mywife,doesn’t even know how to ski.”
She sighs.
“You’re right.” The expression on her face almost looks defeated, as if this is the end of the line for us, as if she’s thinking that we’ll have to go back to square one. Back to the drawing board.
“We’ll just have to fix it,” I say, my smile twisting into a cheeky smirk.
Her face shifts from discouraged to absolutely horrified.
“No way,” she snaps, and then whatever fierceness was in her voice is gone, eyes cast downward. “If you’re so concerned about how we look as a couple, why didn’t you kiss me today?”
She plays with her hands in her lap, staring at them as if she’s never seen them before.
“Poppy…” I murmur. Something in my chest twinges, because even though I stand by my decision, it was so fucking hard not to. I shouldn’t have wanted to kiss Poppy the way I did today. “It would have been?—”
“My first,” she finishes for me. “I’m aware. You don’t have to remind me.”
“I just didn’t want to—” I start, before Poppy cuts me off again.
“I am a consenting adult, you know. I knew we were going to have to kiss today, and I was fully on board. I signed up for this willingly.”
“If you’d let me finish—” I reach my foot across the couch and nudge her leg with it. “—that’s not why I didn’t kiss you.”
Poppy looks up at me now with a quizzical expression.
“None of this is normal, Poppy. You’re sacrificing somuch already for the café, I won’t have you sacrifice your first kiss, too.”
“It’s fine, Jett. I was starting to think it might never happen for me, anyway,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t do anythingnormally,and I’m okay with that. I’m quirky, and dating for me isn’t the same as it is for anyone else. Trust me, I have no idea what I’m doing with any of it. This is the best I’m going to get.”
“Maybe you just need a coach,” I offer. “Consider me your dry run.”
“What, like, practice dating with you?”
“Exactly. We’re pretending to date anyway, we’re going to be married. We can turn our publicity stunts into lessons.”
She tilts her head back and forth, considering my proposal.
