Instant Attraction

Two guys burst through a set of trees above Cam, avoided the trees by a miracle, and threw themselves to the snow at his feet.

“Jesus, Tuck,” Cody gasped, rolling to his back. “Jesus Christ.” He slapped his hands down his body. “We’re alive.”

“Barely.” Tuck lifted his head and smiled at Cam. “Dude, we almost killed you.”

Not likely, Cam thought, as neither of them could have aimed and hit him if they’d tried. They were fifteen, maybe sixteen. Both with knit caps low over their eyes, baggy boarding gear and goggle tans.

Cody shoved his cap up a bit to see better. “Hey.” He peered at Cam’s face. “Hey, I know you.”

Cam shook his head.

“No, dude. I do. You’re Cameron Wilder. Dude,” he said, smacking Tuck in the chest. “It’s him, look.”

“Sweet. Hey, man, we need some pointers.”

“Stay out of the trees until you know what you’re doing.”

They both laughed and slapped each other around some. “So why are you walking down?” Cody asked Cam.

“Your knee?” Tuck asked. “It’s not better?”

“No.” Which was infinitely more appealing than the truth-that it was as good as it was going to get, so he’d switched gears and became a Professional Quitter.

“You’re not, like, giving lessons, are you? Cuz my mom would totally pay you to teach me how to board without breaking bones.” Tuck pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and revealed a casted wrist.

Teach other people how to ruin their lives too? Huh, what a concept. “No.”

“We could walk down with you, and you could tell us about the 2006 X Games, where you-”

“Can’t. Sorry.” Their faces fell, and he felt like an ass. A complete and utter loser ass. “But you could come by the lodge.” Where he had closets and closets full of sponsor gear he’d never be able to use in one hundred lifetimes. “I have extra gear if you’re interested.”

“Dude!”

“Can we bring our friends?” Tuck asked, lit up in sheer joy.

“Yeah.” Why the hell not. He already felt like a one-man freak show, might as well become one.

“Maybe you’ll be boarding again before the end of the season and we could tag along,” Cody said. “You know, like, sometime.”

Cam looked into their young, eager faces and felt a hard tug on his gut. He wanted to say leave me the hell alone, but he couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t look into their hopeful, whole-life-in-front-of-them faces and crush their dreams just because his were gone. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Sweet!”

They hit the mountain slope again, arguing over who to bring with them to Wilder, and Cam followed.

On foot.

Chapter 5

After flying their clients to Cascade Falls, Stone and Nick spent the day leading them down a series of verticals. By late afternoon, they’d tackled four different peaks and sat at the top of Mt. Paiute, looking out over what felt like paradise.

“Never gets old,” Nick noted.

“Nope.” Stone turned off his iPod. “Cam should have come.”

“Said he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, whether he’d stick around or not.”

“Yeah.” They were both well used to Cam and his special level of bullheadedness. “I’ll call him.”

“Don’t,” Nick said.

“Why?”

“Because you’ll piss him off.”

“Will not.”

“You’re his brother. It’s what you do.”

Yeah, but it was worry that propelled him. Partly that was because Stone was the middle child, and that’s what he did, worry, and partly because their father hadn’t ever worried about Cam. In fact, he’d resented the hell out of the baby who had not only not been his but sickly too. Cam had eventually gotten healthy-no thanks to their father’s harsh discipline-and had ended up with Annie-a fact that Stone was convinced had saved Cam’s life.

The old man was long gone now, but Cam still took everything to heart, deeply to heart, and had a habit of just shutting down rather than feeling something, even before the quick rise to celebrity and fame had closed him off. And then the snow-boarding accident, which had taken away the one thing he’d loved above all else.

Without the rush of his sport, Stone knew Cam was flailing, lost, trying to find his place. What Stone didn’t know was how long it’d be before Cam figured out there wasn’t a physical “place” at all, only a mental one. With Nick shaking his head, he called Cam.

“You lost?” Cam asked dryly.

The relief Stone felt from hearing his brother’s voice made him instantly grumpy. It’d always been this way. Stone doing his damnedest to take care of everyone, especially Cam, and Cam doing his damnedest to make Stone not want to. “Nick wants to come back for you so you can ski with us tomorrow.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

“We could use the company,” Stone went on. “Our clients are a bunch of spoiled, rich punks who don’t want to ski as much as find a good view and sit and drink beer.”

“Sounds like you a few years back.”

“I was never more interested in beer than skiing.”

“Right. You were much more interested in women.”

Okay, true. “You coming or not?”

“Not.”

Stone tried to keep his cool, but as he considered Cam a flight risk, it was difficult. “You getting restless feet again? Because I swear to God, if you even think about leaving, I’ll attach cement blocks to your feet.”

“Jesus, relax. I’m not going anywhere.” Cam hesitated. “I went hiking. My knee’s swollen up.”

Cam’s pain after the accident had nearly killed him, and had nearly killed his brothers to watch him suffer through it. Stone hadn’t realized there was still that particular demon to fight. He swiped a hand down his face and fought to keep his voice even. “Have you been keeping up with your PT?”

“Yeah.”

“The meds?”

“Quit them at the same time I quit you.”

“Have you-”

“Stone.” Cam’s voice held frustration, and something else. Defeat? Whatever it was, he didn’t sound like himself. “It’s just a bad day.”

Sympathy wouldn’t work here, not on Cam, even though that’s what Stone felt. “Sorry, didn’t get that you were still so fragile. You just stay there and relax.” Beside him, Nick sighed, and Stone ignored him. “Take a nap.”

“You know what? Fuck you.”

There. There Cam was, and just like that, the tightness in Stone’s chest eased in relief. A bum knee they could deal with. An attitude-ridden Cam they could deal with. It wouldn’t be pleasant and there would be fights, but what they couldn’t deal with was Cam vanishing again.

“Look, I’m back, okay? I’m here, and I’m…trying. I’m trying to help like you asked.”

“I’d rather you want to want to be back,” Stone said.

“Yeah, well, I’m working on that too. I’ve spent the past two hours booking no less than four upcoming groups, all of which will bring in more money than you did in the last month.”

“Is that why you told Katie I’d triple her salary to shut up?”