Page 122 of Forever Offsides

A woman is standing on the edge of the trampoline watching Quinn go.

“Riiight. So are we calling that a 1620?”

Quinn flips her off as she hits the trampoline, bounces, and flies into the air again. She has some sort of weird board attached to her feet. It’s not a snowboard. It’s smaller but maybe meant to simulate a board on her feet if she were actually on the half-pipe.

Neither has noticed me yet, and it’s fantastic because it allows me to watch Quinn go. I’ve seen her gold medal runs on YouTube no less than a dozen times, but it’s not the same as seeing her in person. She really is extraordinary. Her talent. Her intelligence. Her wit. Her sarcasm. Her drive. Her smile. Her hair. Her everything.

She flips and twirls and spins through the air, and after a few minutes, when she’s literally upside down in the air, she spots me.

“Rhett!” She lands and bounces a few more times, stopping her momentum from going back up. A smile hits her face like I’ve never seen before. She’s out of breath and in leggings and a sports bra, and my stupid dick is already reacting.

“You’re amazing.”

She waves me away. “I’m just having fun. I get to do that now.” She arches a brow and glares at the woman who was with her.

The woman laughs. “Yeah, yeah. It’s not too late to reconsider coming out of retirement.”

Quinn flips her off, and the woman laughs harder.

“I’m Ashley. I used to train this brat. Welcome.”

“Thanks. This is a very cool place.”

“It’s my second favorite place outside of the OR.” Quinn snaps herself out of her small board and comes over to me. “Do you want to ski?”

“Ski?” My eyebrows hit my hairline. “There’s no snow.”

“We simulate it,” Ashley informs me. “We make our own snow all year round, but one of our coolers is busted, so we’re stuck with simulations until we get it fixed.”

“I’m in. But I should also tell you that while I do ski, I didn’t start skiing until I moved to Colorado, and by then I was already very much an adult. I’m an okay skier, not a great or probably even good skier.”

“We can make the simulator like a video game rather than actual skiing if you’re more comfortable with that,” Ashley informs me.

“Yes. I think that’d be better.”

Quinn comes out of the net around the trampoline. “I’ll show you. It’s fun.”

I get strapped into two booties on an arched track with a giant screen in front of me.

“Do you have a slope?”

“A slope?” I ask Ashley.

“A mountain you’ve always wanted to ski.”

“Oh. No. Teacher’s choice.”

She smirks, and suddenly I’m in the French Alps skiing down some insane mountain. I swoosh back and forth on the track. That is, until I crash into trees. Not a great start, but it makes Quinn laugh.

“You can do better?” I challenge.

“I can definitely do better. I didn’t start on half-pipe until I became a bit of a daredevil and thrill seeker.”

“Why am I not surprised? Okay, can I start over?”

The two of us go back and forth for over an hour. She kicks my ass up and down the slopes with her board. It’s insane how good she is. Yes, I know she was in the Olympics and won gold, which means she was the best in the world, but it’s another thing to see it and be part of it.

I take her hand as we leave the arena. “Thank you for taking me here. It was a lot of fun.” And a great distraction from the last twenty-four hours I’ve had.