Apparently, every minute Poppy and I spend with each other outside the safety of our homes needs to be planned out, curated, examined from every angle and every which way the media might be able to spin it.
Exhaustion settles on my shoulders like a heavy blanket. I click my phone off and slide it back into my pocket.
Whatever damper Brooke is about to put on today can wait.
“So, same time next week then?” I joke.
I’m not holding out any hope that I’ll get Poppy back out on the ski hill anytime soon. I know she’ll be tied up with the café once our brief honeymoon period comes to an end. That was the whole point of this marriage scheme in the first place, wasn’t it? To achieve our own ends and go our separate ways?
I know all this, it’s just that lately I can’t imagine the day that I wake up and don’t have Cordelia purring next to me. The day that I no longer have a reason to talk to Poppy first thing in the morning or wake up to the sounds of her moving around my house.
“Yeah, take me on some of those jumps in that one area…” Poppy holds her mittened hand up, gesturing for me to finish her sentence.
“The terrain park.”
“Yeah, that one. Take me to the terrain park.”
I’m absolutelynotgoing to do that, but Poppy glances over at me a joking smile playing on her pink lips. Another comfortable silence falls between us as I shake my head, and Poppy lifts her hot chocolate to her mouth.
Snowflakes are now forming a light dusting on her fuzzy earmuffs, and curling the outer pieces of her bangs.
“Hey so, you were surprisingly sweet today,” she says.
“Surprisingly?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting cocky, arrogant pro-skier Jett Landry to be such a patient teacher.”
My eyebrows twitch upward as I consider what she’s said. The reputation that has become synonymous with my name. The one that could now cost me everything.
“Don’t take everything you see at face value, Poppy,” I caution her gently.
“What, you mean to tell me you aren’t the world’s hottest skier?” She turns and looks at me with a false look of shock.
It occurs to me in this moment how much I’ve enjoyed spending time with Poppy today, and that this might be the longest date I’ve ever had. Still, I don’t want it to end.
“No, I am.” I nudge her shoulder like she did to me earlier, and she shrieks as a bit of her hot chocolate spills out the hole in her lid.
“So, it’s just the cocky asshole thing they’ve got wrong,” she says with a laugh.
There’s a part of me that wishes I could say yes, though I also know that I didn’t get the reputation from nowhere.There’s a reason people think they can drag me through the mud and that it will be a believable story.
“I used to be a lot more hot-headed than I am now,” I explain. “The media latched onto it when I started to make a name for myself in the sport, and I guess I figure why disappoint them?”
“You’re okay with having people think you’re a dick?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to saydick…”I shrug. “But yeah, I guess I am. It’s better they criticize the character I play in front of the camera.”
Although in recent years, the role I play for the media has crept into other areas of my life, as well. So much so, that even the people closest to me have started to view me in a similar light to the public. You play a part so much, so frequently, it’s hard to separate that from the real you.
“I just can’t imagine being anyone but myself.” Poppy glances down and fidgets with her cup as she holds it with her mittens. “People think I’m kind of eccentric and quirky and that I don’t live a super exciting life, but the fact is, the people who love me reallylove me.”
Her words ring somewhere within me, opening up a new perspective I never considered.
“By allowing people to hate you, which, by the way, I’m not sure there’s anyone in this world who could, you’re also allowing the right people to see you for who you are?” I clarify.
“Exactly.”
I flick my eyes over to Poppy, and she’s walking while looking up, holding her tongue out to catch a snowflake. She’s adorable, and watching her in this moment makes my heart feel like it’s about to burst.
