No other sponsors? That makes no sense. Vox could make akillingon sponsorship alone. I’d love to see his contract, but something tells me Vox isn’t going to just hand it over, and neither is Grey.
Once I’m parked, I take my place with Montoya and Fuller and get ready to watch our team as they come sailing down the mountain on a warm-up run.
Vox looks good as he goes flying by, but he’s tightly wound. I can see it in the jerkiness of his hips and the way his arm movements are reactionary to keep his balance and not flowing to help him gain momentum.
I make a mental note to apologize and clear the air, feeling guilty for contributing to his tension.
A few runs later, he narrowly avoids sideswiping Gibson by running out of bounds because he isn’t paying attention to anything but getting down the mountain as fast as he can. A second later, I hear his shouts from here.
The almost-accident has me swaying on my feet. The ringing in my ears starts first, followed by tunnel vision as I sit back in the snow.
“Watch where the fuck you’re going!” Vox yells.
“Hey, man,youcame intomylane,” Gibson calls back.
“This entire goddamn mountain ismylane,” Voxfires off.
“Lang, you all good?” Fuller asks, looking over his shoulder to see my ass in the snow.
“Yeah, must’ve been standing with my knees locked,” I lie. “Felt woozy for a second, but I’m good now. Thanks.”
Montoya laughs next to us. “Not to mention, this altitude’s a bitch.”
Exchange over, I refocus my attention on Vox, who’s still adjusting something on his binding.
I whistle and call Vox’s name, but the bastard just blasts by me as if he didn’t hear me yelling for him. I’ll give him the rest of the run to cool down and catch him on the next lap.
But when he ignores me a second time, I can’t let it go.
My jaw clenches in frustration as I climb on the snowmobile and haul down the mountain after him.
Coming up along his side, I see his eyes widen when he realizes I’m chasing him, and I laugh into the wind.
We’re going too fast to talk, so I hold up both hands, bobbing them up and down in a motion to tell him to slow down.
He doesn’t.
Looks like we’re doing this the hard way then.
I give him plenty of time to prepare. After everything I’ve been through, I wouldn’t risk another boarder, no matter how pissed I was or what point I was trying to prove. I pull the snowmobile horizontally across the cutoff he’ll take to get back to the lift he needs, forcing him to come to a stop and talk to me.
He’s going a little faster than I anticipated, though, and he turns sharply, driving the edges of his board into the snow—hard.
Once he comes to a complete stop, he rips his goggles off and storms over to me, close enough to touch.
“What the fuck was that, Connor? You couldn’t wait until we got to the lift? You could have seriously fucked me up.”
His words are a punch to the solar plexus, but I stand firm because keeping this job is more important than his feelings…or mine.
“You were at greater risk of fuckingyourselfup. You’re boarding like you’re the only one on this mountain, and I’m sorry to say that isn’t the case anymore, Vox.”
“Yeah, well, it should be. It’s better when I’m alone,” he mutters, and something tells me he isn’t just talking about on the slopes.
For all the easy smiles he offers the media team and fans, I’m starting to think he’s been holding himself together with accolades and anger for quite some time.
Vox moves to turn his back on me, but I grab his arm. Just like the first time I touched him yesterday when we met, there’s a low hum of electricity buzzing in my veins as we touch. Having been the star myself for several years, I don’t really get starstruck, but I can’t deny that having access to Vox is a heady feeling.
I also can’t deny that I probably need to get laid.
