None of them stood a chance.

None of them were her.

I shoved the thought back as far as I could get it in my head—and slammed the door shut. The minute I opened it I was useless, barely functional, and I wasn’t going back there anytime soon.

“Well, we’ll see you on board,” Erin said, giving me a pretty obvious once-over before heading back to the easier slope with her friend.

“You didn’t seem too interested,” Pax said as he pulled down his goggles.

I did the same, the world taking on the sharpened hue that my specialized lenses gave it. “It’s because I’m not.”

“Ah.” He nodded slowly, like he understood.

He didn’t understand shit.

“Ah, what?” I asked, briefly checking around us to make sure the camera crew was out of mic range.

“Maybe you’re ready to stop fucking around?”

“Hardly,” I snapped.

He shrugged. “She was pretty.”

Blond hair. Blue eyes. Yeah, she’d been an eight.

Problem was I wanted an eleven, and I only knew of one in the entire fucking world. One with hair blacker than night, a tight, toned body that had fit mine to a T, and almond-shaped chocolate eyes that made me forget my name, but never hers.

“Yeah, well, she isn’t what I want.” Let it go.

He nodded. “Okay.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I said, okay.”

“That’s not what you meant.”

“Stop reading into shit. If you don’t want the girl, I really don’t care. I wish you’d stop self-medicating, because it’s eating you up. But that’s none of my business, right?”

My jaw locked. “Let’s just go.”

“You’re a pain in my ass,” he said, then rocketed down the hill.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my mind, but once she was in it there was no going back.

I tried to think of the blonde, to fill my head with her face, her offer, the same way I could use her body later to fill the hole in my soul for a good hour or so, but it was no good.

My head swam with her face, her eyes, her incredibly smart mouth. She would have tossed me a kiss and headed down the hill with Pax. She would keep up with me move for move, pushing me farther, faster.

Two and a half years and my chest still felt like it was caving in whenever I thought about her.

Rachel. I let her name roll through me, allowing her in for just a moment. Just this ride, I promised myself as I launched down the run. If I gave myself these thirty seconds with her memory, I could shut off the tap once we hit the bottom.

I moved with the run, wondering where she was, what she was doing. Did she still hate me? I hoped so. I deserved it.

Lord knew I hated myself enough for the both of us.

The problem with love was that once it was gone, there was no filling that hole, no substitute for that euphoria. Losing love came with withdrawal symptoms for which there was no known relief.

At least none that I’d found, anyway.

I crouched on the board, gaining speed.

At least sex dulled the pain momentarily, but maybe… Damn, maybe Paxton was right. I was no closer to moving past her than the day I stupidly walked away from her.

Maybe it was time to man up and deal with the shit hand I’d dealt myself.

Just ahead of me, Paxton waved up at the glass, and I looked up, doing the same as I neared where Leah stood watching. She waved to him and then to me as someone came to stand next to her.

Holy shit. It can’t be.

Her hair brushed her delicate shoulders, the streaks of purple evident from down here. My head swiveled, trying to keep her in view as I passed.

That pixie face, those angled cheeks, that pert nose, those perfectly curved lips—I’d know them anywhere.

Her hands pressed against the glass—

Wham! My legs were jarred a millisecond before I slammed into the wall. I bounced back, landing on my ass.

“Watch out!” someone yelled in English right before they hit me with their pole.

I’d seriously fallen in the middle of the surface lift—the only ski lift in the park that pulled the riders up the slope by rope and pommel.

I pushed back, getting the hell out of the way, and looked over to where Leah stood at the window. Alone.

“Are you okay?” she mouthed, her eyes wide with worry.

For fuck’s sake, was I hallucinating now? The moment I let my memories rule me for a few seconds, she started appearing?

I nodded to Leah and got to my feet. Was I so far gone that my brain was seeing what it wanted?

“You okay?” a girl asked as she slid by me on the pommel, her skis coming within a foot of my board.

“Yep, thank you,” I said, tipping my head. That’s right, ladies, I have four X Games medals, three of which are in snowboarding, and I ran into a goddamned wall.

Get a grip. I headed down the slope and met up with Pax at the bottom of the slope.

“You take a detour?” he asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” I replied, knowing he hadn’t seen me make an utter ass out of myself. No doubt he’d see it later when Bobby—the director of our documentary—got his hands on the footage.

Pax didn’t question me, just gave me a what-the-hell look. “Time to get back. You game? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

They were the only words I spoke while we got out of our gear.

“Landon, are you okay?” Leah asked, racing over to me as we walked out of the frigid air into the dry desert heat.