Shredded

Chapter 6 Ophelia

This time I don’t bother to look up when the car pulls to a stop in front of me. I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes waiting for my connecting bus, and this is the fourth car that’s stopped. I don’t think I look like a hooker sitting here all zipped up—and it is obviously a bus stop, after all—but given all the idiot guys who’ve stopped to offer me a ride, you’d think I was wearing a sign that read No One Refused.

Which is so not the case.

“Hey!” one of the morons in this newest car calls to me, but I don’t even turn my head. If I completely ignore them, maybe these idiots looking to get lucky will finally go away.

“Ophelia!”

This time I do turn, at the urgent tone and the sound of my name. Shit. Not a stranger then, but Z, who looks confused and more than a little pissed off.

I wave to him, then go back to what I was doing before he pulled up. Which isn’t much, really. Just staring down the road and trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

I hear him curse, then the sound of the Range Rover turning off and a car door slamming. Which means I’m not getting rid of him as easily as I’d hoped.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, coming around the front of the car to crouch down in front of me. “I thought you had a car.”

“I do.” But it’s not the blue Honda outside the clinic. No, my car is safe in the parking lot outside the employee housing provided by the lodge—in the same spot it’s been in since I arrived here twelve days ago.

“Then why aren’t you driving it?” He looks at me like I’m insane. And maybe I am. Either way, it’s none of his business.

Which is why I shrug. “I’m still new to Park City, don’t know my way around very well. I took the bus today because I was worried about getting lost and being late to my appointment.” Not a lie, I tell myself. Just not the whole truth, either.

But Z doesn’t look like he’s buying it. Big surprise. After all, it takes a con artist to know one.

“Isn’t that what GPS is for?” he asks.

“What’s the big deal?” I demand, going on the offensive because the defensive obviously isn’t working. “Why does it matter if I didn’t want to drive today?”

“It doesn’t matter. Except you lied to me. And now you’re sitting out here at the bus stop, alone, in the dark and the cold, waiting for a bus that doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime soon.”

“It’s coming. It’ll be here in seven minutes.”

“Great. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you won’t be a Popsicle by then. Or a rape victim.” He stands up, reaches for my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I yank my hand back, glare at him. “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Relax, princess. You’ve been safe with me all night. I’m not going to suddenly attack you. I just want to take you back to the lodge.”

“I’m fine. The bus is almost here.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” He gestures toward the nearly empty street. Currently the only car on it, besides his, is stopped at the light a few yards away. The two guys in the front look about our age, maybe a little older, and seem intensely interested in what’s going on between us. “You don’t actually think I’m going to leave you here alone, do you? With assholes like that around? It’s practically the middle of the night.”

“It’s not even eleven o’clock yet.”

“Still. Come on. Get in the car and I’ll take you home. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is you’re wasting your time. I’m not going to sleep with you.”

His eyebrows shoot up to his forehead. “Who asked you to?”

I almost blurt out that I know about the bet, but I don’t want him to get mad at Cam for tipping me off. “Give me a break. I know when a guy wants to sleep with me.”

“Well. Aren’t you the egotistical one?” He tugs on my hand, pulls me to my feet. This time I don’t fight him, though I’m not sure why. “Are you sure you aren’t projecting?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning maybe you’re the one who wants to sleep with me.”

His hand is on my lower back now, and he’s guiding me toward his Range Rover. I should stop him, I know I should. But his hand—warm and firm and steady—feels so good that I’m hard-pressed not to just sink into him. Already my teeth have stopped chattering as his warmth slowly seeps through the layers of my clothing and into me.

“As if.”

“That was weak,” he tells me with a snort. “Surely you can come up with something better than that.”

“I probably could if my brain cells weren’t all frozen. I swear, I don’t know how anybody lives in this place.”

He yanks open the car door, starts to help me inside like he’s some kind of gentleman instead of a too-conceited-for-his-own-good snowboarder who also thinks he’s a player. “I’m fine here,” I tell him one more time, even as I slide across the smooth leather. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No. You—” He slams the door in the middle of my sentence, effectively cutting me off. I expect him to rush around to the driver’s seat, but instead he just stands there for a minute, looking at me through the glass of the passenger window.

I start to look away—the last thing his ego needs is for me to watch him like I’m spellbound—but I can’t. There’s something in his face, in his eyes, that keeps my gaze locked to his. It’s familiar, like I’ve seen it a million times before, and at first I think it must be the charmer in him. All smooth and smiling and I-know-you-want-me.

Remi was like that, and I figure that must be it, that there must be something of my old boyfriend in him. Except … except then he blinks, and the mask I didn’t even know he wore starts to slide back into place. Then I realize it wasn’t Remi that look reminded me of. It’s myself. It’s what I see every morning when I look in the mirror before I put my makeup on. Before I put my mask on and try to convince the world—and myself—that I really am okay.

This time when I tremble it has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the knowledge that deep inside, Z is as shredded as I am. The charm and cockiness aren’t just products of being too hot and too talented. They’re camouflage for something else. Something dark and dangerous and desperate.

Part of me wonders what it is, while the other part just wants to let it be. Let him be.

Still, my hand comes up of its own volition, presses against the ice-cold window. Z doesn’t see it, thank God. He’s already turning away, taking the long way around the SUV to the driver’s door. When he finally climbs in, that look of vulnerability is long gone. In its place is the Z I’m coming to know and tolerate, all oozing sexuality and wise-ass comments. Surreptitiously, I tuck my hand back into my lap.

I should be relieved he’s back to normal. After all, this Z is so much easier to deal with. So much easier to dump a drink on and just forget about.

Or at least he should be.

Except as he drives, his strong, long-fingered hands expertly handling the SUV on the icy roads, I can’t help but remember that moment in the ice cream parlor when I realized something was wrong.

Or those few minutes in the park when he teamed up with me, working so hard to protect me when it would have been much easier for him to have just left me behind.

Or how he stopped when he saw me at the bus stop and all but forced me into his car.

He could have left me. Could have driven right by and pretended not to see me. I never would have known. No one would have. But he didn’t. He stopped for me. Insisted that I get in the car. And now he’s going out of his way to make sure that I get home safely.

Again, I’m reminded of Remi. Only this time, the reminder is an empty, aching wound inside me, one that strips me raw and leaves me bleeding. Collateral damage to the wreck that was his life for far too long.

We’re silent for most of the drive, which is good and bad. I could use my sparring partner back. Right now I’d love something—someone—to sharpen my claws on. But as Z oh so graciously pointed out, my retorts aren’t exactly up to snuff at the moment. I guess that happens when it feels like your whole life is about to implode for a second time.

An old Nirvana song comes on the radio, “All Apologies,” and Z reaches over, starts to turn it off.

“No.” I put a hand on his arm, stop him. “Don’t.”

His face is grim as he glances up at me. “You like this song?”

“Yeah.”

He nods, swallows, then sits back as Kurt Cobain’s rough, emotion-filled voice fills the car.

It’s not true. I don’t like this song. I used to, a long time ago. I used to listen to it again and again and again, just to hear the subtle shifts and nuances in Cobain’s voice. But now … now I listen to it for an entirely different reason. I listen to it because it hurts. I listen to it because I hate it. I listen to it because, in my twisted, warped mind, it’s a penance I have to pay, a debt I’ll never get on the other side of.

Everything is my fault. I close my eyes for a moment, listen to Cobain sing about blame, sing about shame. Tears press behind my eyes, but I will them away. Crying is for pussies, for wimps, and I can’t afford to be one of them. Besides, tears don’t change anything. If they did … if they did, I really would cry a river. Maybe even an ocean or two.

I swallow past the lump in my throat, hoping Z is so caught up in driving the winding roads up to the lodge that he doesn’t notice my little meltdown. But a quick glance at him as we pass under a streetlamp shows his jaw clenched tight enough to break teeth and his hands locked in a death grip on the steering wheel.

His stiff thumb taps out the melody and his left leg bounces, not to the slow, melodious beat, but to something else. Something in his head that only he can hear.

I snap my arm out, turn off the radio with one emphatic push. It’s one thing to torture myself, but to torture Z, too—or to watch him torture himself—is another thing altogether.

“Changed your mind?” he asks, shooting me a surprised glance.

“Yeah. Nirvana’s fine in New Orleans, where it’s warm and sunny most of the time. But here, where it’s dank and gray and cold, they are way too fucking depressing.”

He laughs, as I mean him to, and we’re close enough that I can sense the subtle relaxing of his muscles, though it takes a minute. Good. I wouldn’t wish what I feel on anyone.

“So,” I say a little while later as the silence stretches taut as a violin string between us. “What idiot stunt were you trying that landed you in the clinic’s urgent care today?”

“What makes you think I was doing something idiotic?”

“I’m sorry, have you met yourself?”

He chuffs out a laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know exactly what it means. From what I understand, snowboarders are total adrenaline junkies to begin with. And you, you’re the worst of the bunch. Everybody says so.”

“Do they?”

“They do.”

“And how would you know? Have you been asking about me?”

“What? No way!”

“Uh-huh.” He grins. “I think the lady doth protest too much.”

“The lady doth not protest at all. And cut the cheesy Shakespeare quotes. Just because my mom’s a moron who named me Ophelia—”

“I like your name. It suits you.”

“Seriously?” I stare at him incredulously. “Telling me that the name of one of Shakespeare’s most abused, craziest characters suits me is so not the way to get into my pants.”

“There you go again, thinking everything’s about sex.”

“And there you go again, pretending it isn’t.”

“No offense, Ophelia, but you seem awfully obsessed with the idea that I want to bed you.”

“Bed me?” I scoff. “Are we actually in the fifteen hundreds?”

“Would you prefer I say I want to fuck you?”

His words slam into me with the force of a wrecking ball, and suddenly I’m hot. Really hot, despite the chill in the air and the frost creeping around the edges of the windshield. It’s been so long since I’ve been with someone, so long since I’ve been held and touched and kissed. It’s why I lost it at the park earlier, when I was on top of him, and why I’m close to losing it again right now.

For a minute I can all but picture it. Z’s mouth on my skin, his hands on my thighs, his body pressed against mine. His indigo eyes staring into mine as he slides slowly into me.

I shift in my seat, try to control breathing that has suddenly gone shallow and disjointed. Because I can’t not do it, I glance at Z out of the corner of my eye. I can tell by the look on his face and the tension in his body—so different from the stiffness of earlier—that he’s noticed my reaction. Shit.

I wait for him to say something, to press his advantage. But he doesn’t. Instead he clears his throat and says, “I was trying out an inverted 1440.” His voice is huskier than it was, thicker, which only makes me hotter. As does the knowledge that he’s trying to bring the temperature in here back down to normal by circling the subject back around to snowboarding.

“An inverted 1440? What the hell is that? I’ve never even heard of it before.”

“Oh, yeah? You hear a lot about snowboarding down there in Louisiana?”

“No. But I’ve been at the lodge almost two weeks now. With the X Games and the Olympics coming up, it’s all anyone can talk about. Especially with you guys boarding at the resort.”

“Is that why you decided to hang with us? Because you think Ash is going to win a gold medal at the Olympics?”

I start to get offended, but then I realize that’s exactly what he wants. “Maybe I think you’re going to win a gold medal.”

This time his laugh is filled with derision. “Yeah. That’s not going to happen.”

“You sure about that? People are talking.”

“People talk about a lot of things. But no, this year it’s all Ash.”

“You okay with that?”

For the first time since I got in the car he looks pissed. Really pissed. “He’s my best friend. I’m more than okay with that. I’m fucking stoked about it. He better go all the way. He’s the best damn boarder in the country right now. Definitely one of the best in the world.”

“So are you. Or at least, that’s what they say.”

“Who the fuck are all these people you keep talking about? They seem to know a hell of a lot about me. How come I don’t know anything about them?” He shoves an annoyed hand through his hair and I think he’s going to say more, but then the SUV hits a patch of black ice and starts to skid.

I freak out as the back of the Range Rover fishtails, my hands clenching at the seat while I bite my lip until it bleeds. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Please, not again. Please, not—

Z stays totally calm through the whole thing, steering into the skid and holding the car steady like it’s nothing. Within seconds we’re back under control.

I slump into my seat as we continue up the mountain. My heart is beating like crazy, and I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that I’m going to be able to pry my hands off this seat before we get to the resort. I only hope I haven’t left nail marks in the supple leather.

“Hey, you okay?” Z glances at me worriedly.

“I’m fine.” The hoarseness puts paid to the fact that I’m lying.

“That was no big deal, Ophelia. Honest. I’ve been driving on ice-slick roads since I was fourteen. I know what I’m doing. I’ll keep you safe.”

The concern in his voice is new, and it undoes me in a way nothing else could have.

Not the ride home.

Not the conversation that made me smile despite myself.

Not the sudden ache I’m feeling for sex after months of feeling nothing.

Not even his total modesty when it came to his fame and talent.

No, it’s none of those things that start to get through to me. I have defenses against everything. Or at least I thought I did. But the softness in his voice, the way he looks at me with such concern and sincerity while he promises to keep me safe, puts a couple of long cracks in the hard shell I’ve spent the last year building around myself.

The thought terrifies me. Absolutely, positively panics me on every level it can. So much so that it’s all I can do to keep from throwing the door open and flinging myself out of the SUV and onto the icy road.

I don’t want to feel … anything. I sure as hell don’t want to feel something for the most charming manwhore in Park City, Utah, who obviously has more than a few issues of his own. As for feeling safe? I haven’t felt safe in so long, I’m not even sure I’d recognize the feeling ever again.

“Ophelia?” He doesn’t touch me—he’s keeping both hands on the wheel as he negotiates the treacherous road—but I can tell he wants to. Not because he wants to fuck me, as he so eloquently put it earlier. But because he wants to reassure me. Wants to make me feel secure.

“I’m good, Z. It just startled me, that’s all.”

“You sure?” He sounds tentative, like he doesn’t believe me but doesn’t want to risk upsetting me any more than I already am.

“Yeah. It’s no big deal. It’s not like anything happened, right?”

“Right.”

He relaxes a little and I turn to look out the window. I recognize this stretch of road, know we’re only a couple of miles from the employee housing where I’m currently staying. Which is good. In my opinion, we can’t get there fast enough.

The next few minutes pass in silence of the uncomfortable variety. When we get to the turnoff, I start to tell Z—it’s kind of hard to see, even during the day—but he seems to know exactly where it is.

Of course he does. He’s probably fucked every female who lives in the place. God only knows how many times he’s made this turn in the middle of the night.

When we pull up to the curb in front of the building, I all but leap out of the car. I start to call over my shoulder, “Thanks for the ride,” but Z turns off the SUV before I can even open my mouth.

Then he’s walking around the front of the car and reaching for my elbow. I’m so shocked that I let him grab hold, and then he’s walking me up the sidewalk to the building’s front door, making sure that I don’t slip on the ice that’s accumulated.

Again his concern gets to me. Again I slap it back, spackling the cracks in my armor almost as soon as they appear. I’m not doing this. I am not letting anyone in, and certainly not Z.

He waits with me while I fumble for my keys and unlock the front door. As soon as I’ve got it open, I turn to him with a smile I’m far from feeling and say, “Thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.”

“Where’s your room?” he asks, looking down the hallway.

“I’m on the third floor.” I gesture to the staircase, start to step back from the door so that it will close.

His hand shoots out, stops the door from slamming in his face. “I’ll walk you up.”

“Z—”

He cuts me off with a raised hand. “Once tourist season starts, there are all kinds of creeps around here. Let me walk you to your door, make sure you get inside safely, and then I’ll leave. I swear.”

He looks sincere, which only affects me more. The self-protective part of my brain is screaming at me to kick him out as soon as possible, to get him out of the building and my life. But, somehow, I find myself nodding and letting him walk me up the two flights of stairs to my room.

“I’m right here,” I say, stopping two doors into the hallway.

Z frowns. “I don’t like that you’re so close to the stairwell. It doesn’t seem safe.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing it’s none of your business, isn’t it?”

“Wow. A little prickly there, aren’t you?”

“You haven’t even seen me get prickly yet.”

“Hmm. That’s a real concern, considering you ruined a five-hundred-dollar pair of snowboarding pants yesterday when you weren’t being prickly.”

I nearly swallow my tongue. His pants cost five hundred dollars? And he’s wearing another pair today? Jesus, two days’ worth of clothes for him would pretty much pay for my whole damn wardrobe. It boggles the mind.

“Are they really ruined?” I ask, sick to my stomach. Since room and board is included in this job, five hundred dollars is close to two weeks’ salary for me. If I have to pay him back, I need to start saving now—

My alarm must show on my face, because he laughs. “They’re fine, Ophelia. I was just messing with you.”

Relief sweeps through me. “Thank God. I had visions of going bankrupt trying to replace them.”

“I’d never make you do that. It was my own fault anyway.”

My brows shoot up. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you admit that.”

“I may be an asshole, but I’m not a total douche,” he tells me. “At least not normally. I know when I fuck up.”

I’m not touching that admission with a ten-foot pole. Not when it makes him seem so … human.

“On that note, thanks for the ride.” I all but push him toward the stairs. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

“You could give me your number. That way you’ll be sure to see me around.”

For long seconds his words don’t compute. “You want my number?” Z never gets a girl’s number. He usually meets her, takes her out, bags her, and then goes on his way. Or at least that’s what everyone says about him. And it’s certainly the vibe I got off him that first night.

“Yeah?” For the first time he sounds uncertain, like he’s totally unfamiliar with this routine. “That way I can call you. See if you want to go to dinner sometime, or maybe to see another movie.”

Another crack appears in my shell, and I know it’s the uncertainty I’m responding to instead of the request for a second date. There’s just something about seeing the totally self-assured Z look a little lost that gets to me in a big way. In a bad way.

“I, uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean—”

“You don’t want me to call you?” He sounds incredulous.

I don’t, no. For so many reasons that I don’t want to get into. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure, it is. You give me your number. I call. We go hang out, have a good time. See where it goes.”

“Why are you pushing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Why are you so determined to get my number? There are hundreds of girls at the resort who would lie down buck naked in the snow for a chance to go out with you. Why are you here trying to convince me?”

He looks uncomfortable, and suddenly I remember what Cam told me. The bet. Of course. This is all about the bet he made to sleep with me.

On one hand, the knowledge reassures me. On the other, it scares me to death. Because I’ve been around him one night—one night—and already he’s getting to me. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it is.

What am I going to do if he keeps popping up, trying to endear himself to me? Even if it isn’t serious, even if it’s all about that stupid bet, I’m not sure I’m strong enough to resist him. Not the sex, because that’s the most unimportant part of the whole equation. But the vulnerability I see in him when he doesn’t think anyone is watching. The pain that connects so easily with my own.

“Maybe I like you,” he says.

Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of. Or, more accurately, I’m afraid that if I give him half a chance, he can make me like him. And I’m just not ready for that. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“Good night, Z.” I take another step into my room, start to close the door.

Once again, he catches it—this time by wedging his foot against it. “Fine. If you won’t give me your number, at least take mine. Or tell me what time you’re working tomorrow. I’ll show up. We’ll talk. I’ll even let you dump coffee on me again.”

“I don’t want to dump coffee on you again.”

“Maybe not now. But give me ten minutes. I’m sure I’ll say something that pisses you off again.”

The funny thing is, he probably will. But even that’s a problem, because if I’m angry, then I’m feeling something. And once I open that door, who knows what else will leak through. Look where I am already, just twenty-four hours after meeting Z.

I start to tell him to get lost, to leave me alone, but he gives me that charming grin again. The one he gave me yesterday, and the one he gave me over and over again today whenever I looked at him.

And that’s when it hits me. He’s not going to give up. Not Z, world-class athlete and Olympic contender extraordinaire. He hasn’t gotten where he is by being a quitter, by forgetting about what he wants. By giving up. If he’s got a bet going on, then he’s going to be all over me for the next week, trying to get me into bed. Trying to win that bet. Which, normally—with any other guy—I’d just ignore.

But Z isn’t an easy guy to ignore. Especially now when I know there’s a lot more to him than I first thought. The longer I’m around him, the bigger the risk I’m taking. Not that I’ll fall for him, because that won’t happen, but already I’m cracking. Already I’m letting him in when I swore I’d never do that again. Never let anyone close enough to hurt me the way Remi did.

But I can see traces of Z’s pain, know there’s so much more of it than what’s at the surface. And I’m afraid that somehow all the agony I sense in him will slip behind my last line of defense and then I’ll be right back where I was a year ago: totally screwed.

I don’t want to go back there. Not now. Not ever. When I came here, it was for a fresh start. I promised myself that I wouldn’t look back, wouldn’t think about the past. It’s a good plan, one I can’t let Z derail me from, not now that I can finally breathe a little.

Which is why, even as I tell myself to close the door, I end up doing the exact opposite. I step back and ask, “Why don’t you come in for a while, have something to drink?”