Ice for His Ego: A Novelette Read online

  ***

  The next day, way after twelve noon, Roxy watched Baron streak down the freezing powdery peaks in an orange blur.

  “Baron, you’re going to kill yourself one of these days,” she whispered to herself. Even though Baron was a trained snowboarder, it terrified her every single time he strapped on that purple and white snowboard and hopped on the ski lift. The first time she tried skiing was with him. She remembered it as clear as yesterday. She sat next to him on the lift, and all the horrible possibilities of what could happen to the both of them ruminated in her mind. Meanwhile, he sat calmly, his arm draped over her shoulder. And when she glanced over at his bundled form—hat on and eyes covered by goggles—the most dazzling smile stretched across his partially frozen face and she couldn’t help but laugh, but the worry inevitably always came back to plague her.

  Now, she stayed in the cozy lounging cabin where she belonged. Some of the other lodgers moseyed around or sat having animated conversations over lunch with others. Some shuffled around outside in the snow, renting skis or just having conversations. Everyone was with someone, whether it be children or adults. The majority of the children ran around throwing snowballs at each other. Some were learning how to use their skills to fight gravity, and others tubing—which to Roxy was more terrifying and dangerous than skiing.

  Roxy sat next to the window, with a steaming cup of hot chocolate nestled between her hands, warming her palms. A flat-screen television was in front of her, mounted high in the corner showing some fast food commercial. She sat back in the recliner and propped her feet up on the small log table. She sat deliberately by the ceiling-to-floor windows to watch the skiers and snowboarders rush to the bottom of the hill. She loved people watching.

  Roxy blinked back to reality. She began lifting her mug to her lips when a head dipped down and beat her to it. She knew it was Baron, but all she recognized was the helmet on his head and the goggles on top. He finally lifted his head and sighed in satisfaction, his signature smirk and dimples in place.

  “Thanks, Babe,” his voice rumbled.

  Chapter Four

  Baron towered over Roxy, his snowboard tucked between his arm and torso. His hazel eyes sparkled with mirth as he bent down to capture her lips in a short kiss. At least that’s what he had intended until the sweet taste of her beverage touched his tongue and that intended short kiss turned into a much deeper sensual one.

  His hand lifted to cup her chin; hers still held the cup of coffee. Baron released her lips and chuckled. “Not dazzled enough to let go of the coffee, huh?”

  “You got that right,” she whispered, barely catching her breath. Her brown eyes gazed up at him expectantly, waiting for a snarky comeback.

  Baron chuckled and just took in Roxy with the afternoon sun pouring through the cabin windows, casting a glow against her caramel skin. Her long chocolate hair was pulled into a ponytail tumbling over one shoulder in waves. She bit her lip, probably wondering why he was staring at her. She was beautiful. She was his solid ground, and she probably didn’t even know it. He didn’t know what he would do without her. All he had was her, and he damn sure wasn’t letting her go.

  Baron bent over and kissed her again, and then he sat his board against the wall next to her before moving the empty chair to her right, flush against hers. He sat down, pulled his hat and goggles from his head, and unzipped his orange coat. He began to settle in his seat, his muscles relaxing from the snowboarding he had been doing all morning. It was nice to be able to hit the slopes every now and again. It was nice to escape from the constant bustle of the city. He threw his arm over the back of Roxy’s chair while he scratched his chin and looked around the lodge. The quiet that stretched over the Adirondack Mountains when he was on the slopes was such a reprieve, and if it were up to him, he would have planted a permanent spot right in the heart of it all. It was where he felt he was born to be.

  Baron turned to take a glimpse of the happenings outside, but there Roxy was, staring at him. She tilted her head and lifted her hand to his face, her fingers smoothing down the edges of his goatee. “What were you thinking?”

  “What’s right in front of me,” he whispered. His finger brushed the soft underside of her chin, bringing a smile to her lips.

  “As thrilled as I am that you’re always thinking of me, I know that look. What’s bothering you?”

  Baron hesitated then said, “Would you, stay here with me?”

  “What?”

  “If I wanted to leave the city and stay here, would you come with me?”

  Baron watched as the idea ruminated in Roxy’s mind—always the over-thinker. Baron had the adventurous spontaneity that she didn’t have.

  She shifted in her chair to face him. “Just drop everything and leave…everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your job as a personal trainer, that big fancy studio we live in?”

  “I’d leave it all if you came with me.”

  “I’m not so sure I’d leave my job.”

  He ran his finger down her soft cheek. “I didn’t think you would but it was worth a try.”

  Baron kicked his feet up on the table and crossed his ankles. Roxy’s head entered his view. “What’s this all about, Mr. Marchesi?”

  He chuckled and sighed. “Well, Ms. Cruz. Just tired of the city is all. I’m always going-going. It’s nice to relax and not have to actually worry about anything. Work, traffic, you know.”

  “That’s why we’re on vacation. There’s no need to just pick up and leave permanently.”

  “Hmm…”

  “Is there something else you aren’t telling me?”

  No, there wasn’t anything else he needed to tell her. He knew she wasn’t going to just pick up and leave, but there was a small part of him that was really hoping she would surprise him.

  “It’s nothing,” he assured.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Really, Roxy, don’t worry about. It’s all good, babe.” Baron kissed her on the forehead and folded his arms behind his head. “No worries.”

  An hour or so later, they left the warm comfort of the lounge and stepped outside into the frigid cold. The evening sun was orange and yellow against the pristine powder, and Baron was itching to go up one more time before they went back to the cabin.

  “One more time, babe, you and me?” he asked.

  Roxanna sighed, her head dropping to her chest. He already knew she didn’t want to go.He gave her a quick kiss. “One more for me then.”

  ***

  Roxy had watched Baron get on the ski lift, as usual, the same nervousness still and always running through her body as she waited for him at the bottom. Eventually, she spotted his bright orange winter coat speeding down the slope as he took a high jump, but something was wrong. Baron was clearly not in control of his jump and he was coming down fast and hard. When he hit the ground, she felt the impact in her bones. Clouds of snow flew up all around him as he slid and rolled down the remainder of the slope and slammed into a group of thick trees. Her body jolted at the second impact.

  The moments passed in a blur of chaos. Ski patrollers were running over to Baron, and what she thought were seconds passing were actually minutes. The pulsating emergency lights of an ambulance eventually were flashing behind her, the vehicle parked on the only visible road leading from the main lodge. The medics quickly made their way to Baron, who lay motionless in the snow. Her eyes registered the people crowded around, curious as to what happened, but her body and her mind were not working together. She was frozen. Minutes passed and there was a subtle shift from Baron’s prone form. When he moved again, a loud painful yell reverberated through the air, but what disturbed Roxy the most was how still she was throughout the ordeal. She hadn’t even rushed to him before the paramedics arrived, to make sure Baron was alive.

  When the paramedics began lifting him onto the stretcher and she heard Baron moan, her legs slowly began to move forward until she was at a dead run. Her feet slipped
and her legs pushed up the hill through the thick, cold powder. Her heart was pounding from the effort, but more for the fear of Baron. She didn’t know what she would do if anything happened to him; she couldn’t bear it. For three years, she had watched Baron sprain wrists and ankles. Break arms, fingers, ribs, toes. But nothing like this. This looked bad.

  When Roxy reached the crowd of ski patrollers and paramedics, she was hysterical. Baron was just out of her reach when a man in a bright red jacket stepped in her way blocking him from her view. “Ma’am, you can’t be here!” Her movements to get around him halted as he grasped her forearms, attempting to push her back.

  “He’s my boyfriend. No!” she yelled. “Please, I know him. Let me see him!”

  “I’m sorry but you can’t be here.”

  Roxy yelled again, still attempting to escape the man’s grasp, “Baron, Baron.”

  “Babe?” she heard his hoarse whisper. “I’m good…it’s okay. No worries, remember?”

  He didn’t sound okay. “I’m here with you Baron. I’m not going anywhere okay.

  When the man, whom she’d later realized was another ski patroller, decided to let Roxy go, and was convinced that she indeed did have some relation to Baron, she followed the paramedics and stepped into the ambulance. The ride to the nearest hospital was moderately quiet. The sirens were surprisingly muffled and the paramedic would ask her the occasional question. She glanced down at Baron. His form laid out on the stretcher, his normally bronze features were pale and his eyes were scrunched from the pain. Red scratches streaked the left side of his face and the medics were placing gauze on a gash on his forehead. His fists were clenched at his sides, and Roxy badly wanted to reach out and take his hand and make everything better, but she was afraid to touch him. There was no telling what damage had been done to his body, and she didn’t want to agitate anything further.

  It was heart-wrenching sitting next to him, hearing the medics speaking to him asking questions with Baron barely able to respond. His breathing was shallow, and there were moments when his eyes would open and he would look at her and struggle to smile, even through the pain. Never in all of their years had she ever seen him like this, which made the guilt that much more painful. She should have gone up with him, he’d wanted her to go, but only thinking of herself, she had stayed behind. If Baron knew she was blaming her own actions for this, he’d be furious. He didn’t worry about the what ifs, it was either you do or you don’t, because there was no going back when it was done. Nevertheless, it was how she felt, and the guilt was relentless. They arrived at the hospital and Baron was immediately rushed to x-ray, leaving Roxy out in the waiting area. After a few tests and x-rays, a woman in a long white coat came out and approached her. Baron had suffered a mild concussion, fractured the tibia and fibula in his right leg, sprained his ankle on the left leg, and fractured a couple of his ribs, and it was considered lucky that the ribs hadn’t broken and punctured a lung. Of course, emergency surgery was necessary for his legs.

  The hours dragged on and on and Roxy was getting restless. She paced back and forth in the waiting room, and it was clear that the other people in the room were becoming agitated by her constant movement. When the doctor returned and informed her that Baron was out of surgery and that she could see him, everyone was more than thrilled.

  The doctor escorted her to Baron’s room and said, “Beware that he is heavily medicated, and you may not get anything out of him tonight.”

  “Thank you,” Roxy replied.

  She walked into the Intensive Care room that Baron occupied. The subtle beep of the heart monitor pinged through the otherwise silent room. His right leg was elevated and sheathed in a plaster cast, his left leg was wrapped is some type of black boot and elevated with a couple of pillows, and gauze covered the right side of his forehead. The color was slightly returning to his features along with the appearance of a few bruises, but all together considering his accident, he did not look as bad as she had feared.

  Roxy pulled the chair closest to the bed and sat as close to Baron as she could. She looked down at his right hand, remembering her hesitant reaction earlier as she gently placed her hand on top of his. She glanced at his face to gauge any response, but he was soundly unconscious.

  “I’m so sorry, Baron.” she sighed.

  Chapter Five

  Baron slowly awoke to the gentle caress of Roxanna’s fingers through his hair. It was one of the greatest feelings, considering the amount of pain he’d been feeling over the past couple of weeks since they’d returned home. Breathing was still a little painful from his fractured ribs, but the doctor advised him to lie on the fractured side to make breathing easier. It hurt like hell, so Baron ditched that idea and went with the pillows for elevation. On top of that with both of his legs practically out of commission, he was completely bedridden. Roxy hardly ever left his side, which was nice, but it wasn’t her typical behavior. Yes, she went to work, but when she got home if he needed anything, she was there to get it for him. He felt like an invalid, and it was not his favorite feeling.

  Lying there, slowly beating down the grogginess of sleep, he looked around their lofty bedroom. After his accident, they’d left the cabin a couple of days early, cutting their vacation short. Baron hated that he couldn’t drive them back because there was nothing but snow, and Roxy hated driving in the snow. To her, snow was good for one thing…looking at. Truly, he was the only one really getting anything out of their ski trips.

  This was one of those rare moments when he knew he had fucked up and the what ifs scratched at his brain. He hated it. If he had not gone for that last ride down the slope, he wouldn’t have taken that dumbass jump. He had questioned his sanity even as he approached the jump. It was going to take about twelve to sixteen weeks to heal, but even after that, he was going to need physical therapy. Then who knew when he was going to be able to go back to work.

  “I suck for this,” Baron whispered. His anger at allowing his ego to get the better of him began to surface. When he saw the jump, he knew he shouldn’t have taken it, but he took it anyway.

  Roxy shifted into his view and her hair fell over her shoulder. “What?”

  “For doing this to you,” he motioned to his legs, hissing and wincing a little with the movement of his torso. “The adrenaline got to me. I shouldn’t have taken the jump.”

  “Stop, this—it’s only a setback. A year of full recovery and you will be back on your feet in no time. Don’t feel guilty, please.”

  Baron turned his head towards her. “Almost a year…”

  “No worries, right? Isn’t that what you told me?” Roxy’s features were pleading with Baron.

  “You shouldn’t have to do this. You shouldn’t have to sit here and take care of me. In a year…I’m still going to be like this,” his voice began to rise and with it, his anger. “And you’ll still be here…”

  “Yes.”

  “Helping me back and forth to the bathroom, giving me sponge baths because I can’t even stand on my own, bringing me food all day. Then what, nurse Roxy? Is that what you want to do?” He was practically yelling by this time.

  Roxanna threw the covers from her body and stood. Baron looked up at her, waiting.

  “Yes, this is what I want. I should have gone up with you, but I didn’t. I should’ve thought less of my fears and more about not being in the company of my boyfriend when he wanted me there. This is my fault!” Baron watched as she turned and left the room without another word.

  She blamed herself for this? Of course. Typical of Roxy to blame herself for things that she had no control over. Baron would have gone after her, but unfortunately, he was lying in bed with two useless legs and three fractured ribs. That angered him the most. He couldn’t be there for his woman when she needed him. In a couple of months, yeah, his ribs would heal, but his legs—even after a year—would not be the same. It was going to take so much work to get his body back in shape, and his legs moving the way he needed them to. How w
as he going to work?

  Baron took a deep breath and exhaled, his ribs screaming. His eyes moved to the little bit of window he could see behind their wardrobe. There was snow falling in Chelsea, and the moon was illuminating each fleck. Just a few steps away and he couldn’t even reach it.

  The door to the bedroom opened, and Roxy stepped in with a glass of water in one hand and an ice pack in the other. He watched her silently empty two pills from a bottle of aspirin and hand them to him along with the glass of water. After he downed them, she took the glass, set it down, and lifted the sheet to place the ice pack on his ribs.

  Baron hissed when the cold pack touched his skin. “Please don’t blame yourself, Roxy. This was not your fault. Remember, no what ifs, babe.” Even though he was questioning himself, he had to tell her something.

  She sat on the side of the bed with her back towards him. Her hair obscured her face from him until she whipped her head around. “I can’t stand to see you like this. It reminds me of before…and I can’t take it. I can’t.”

  Baron knew exactly what went unsaid. She was referring to his reaction to his parent’s deaths. He’d almost been catatonic for weeks—not speaking to anyone. At times choosing alcohol as his best friend, and when he wasn’t out of it, he was angry, taking it out on Roxy. He didn’t want that happening again.

  Her hands went to wipe the streaming tears from her cheeks, but they fell too quickly. Baron struggled to push himself into a sitting position, cursing at the pain in his torso until he rested against the headboard.

  “I’m bedridden, yes. But I’m alive. And considering that most people don’t come away from what I went through in the condition that I’m in, I have to say that I am grateful. Maybe not in the best mood,” he chuckled. “But I am grateful because I get to sit here and talk to my beautiful girlfriend about how we’re not going to cry about this any longer.”