Shooting for the Stars (15 page)

That was a pretty good stretch of the truth. He was making films for a tiny part of his living, but on the other end of the line, some several thousand miles away, Christian made a small noise of interest. And that was enough to boost Bear’s confidence. Because the company Christian worked for made video cameras.

“I have contracts with a couple of ski mountains in Vermont,” he began. Another stretch of the truth. But a necessary one. “Those are for small films. But I’m putting together a big one — a feature-length film. And I wanted to offer you the chance to get involved.”

“That is interesting, dude. How do you envision our role?”
 

“It really depends,” Bear said, in as casual a voice as he could muster. “I’ve been using your equipment since it first came to market.” This was true. Bear and Christian had once gotten into an hours-long barstool conversation one night after a tour event. The line of OverSight helmet cameras had recently launched, and their mutual love for photography had won Bear one of the first sponsorships OverSight had ever given to an athlete.

It was the business arrangement Bear was most proud of, actually. Because it had never had a thing to do with Hank.

“I could make this movie the way most snowboarding pics are filmed,” Bear went on. “Mostly big cameras and heli aerials. But I think it would be really neat to do something different, you know? You’ve got those drone cameras now, and I don’t see much marketing of drone cameras to the sporting crowd. If you were a major investor in the film, I could really show off your product. People need to know that drone cams aren’t just a gimmick. They’re more useful than people think. I want to feature them.”

There was a silence on the end of the line, and Bear held his breath.

“That is the most interesting idea anybody has brought me lately,” Christian murmured.

Bear waited for the “but.”

“When did you want to make this thing?”

“I want to shoot it this year and edit over the summer.”

Christian whistled into the phone. “That’s aggressive.”

“So am I.”

“Well…” Christian cleared his throat. “You’ll have to send me something, like, yesterday if you want me to take this to the board.”

“I’ll do that,” Bear promised.

“Before the end of the week, okay?”
 

“No problem,” Bear said. Even if it meant he wouldn’t sleep the next three nights.

He said his goodbyes and shoved the phone in his pocket.
Damn
. He took a moment to just stand there grinning. He should have made that call three weeks ago, immediately after he got the idea. It had been foolish to wait. But after Hank had shot down the idea, Bear hadn’t felt ready to try to sell it to anyone else.

Maybe, just maybe, this would break his way.

Tucking his phone away, Bear braced himself for the evening’s next tricky conversation. When he pushed open the door to Travis Rupert’s bar and grill, Stella was the first person he spotted. She was busy washing glasses behind the bar. As she worked, Bear couldn’t help but notice how the clingy black top she wore exposed a whole lot of cleavage. He averted his eyes, wondering if her other customers would be as gentlemanly.
They’d better be
.

Damn. He’d better get over any proprietary feelings he had over those. Over
her
, he meant.
God
. He felt like slapping himself.

Bear took a stool at the end of the bar. Stella didn’t make eye contact with him, but still, he was certain she’d clocked him the moment he came in the door. If she wanted to make him wait, he guessed there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“Excuse me!” someone piped up from a few seats down the bar. Bear turned his head to see the speaker was a frat boy wearing a polo shirt and a big frown. “I asked for a Bud Light and a Coors. You brought us a Coors Light and a Bud.”

“But I wrote down…” Stella pulled a pad from her apron and squinted at it. She flinched. “Oh. Sorry. Give me one second.” Stella turned her back on him to grab a couple of glasses off the overhead racks.

The grumpy customer elbowed his buddy and then shook his head, saying something under his breath that Bear could not hear. The other guy chuckled in a way that Bear did not like.

“Hey,” Bear said to them before stopping to think it through. “You got a problem?”

“
No.
” The kid’s tone was belligerent. “Do you?”

Stella finally looked at him, one eyebrow raised. She put two fresh beers down in front of the frat boys. Then she slid down to stand in front of him.

“Hi,” he tried, hoping she’d be friendly.

“Hi,” she repeated. “Can I get you a beer? Otherwise…” she drummed her fingers on the bar.

“I’d like a Switchback, please,” he said, watching as she bit her lip.

“Coming right up,” Stella sighed.

She turned away to get his beer, delivering it a minute later without a word. Bear drank it slowly. His budget didn’t allow for lingering at the bar. He’d called his Park City realtor this morning, hoping for good news. “We’ll snag a buyer come winter,” the realtor said. Meanwhile, he wrote checks once a month to cover the taxes, the maintenance fees and the electricity. If he took that job in Colorado, none of that would even be a hardship.

And yet…

Bear watched Stella work. She wasn’t the best waitress, and he had to bite back a smile when she spilled a beer onto the bar. Eventually, the rush of customers slowed, leaving Stella to studiously ignore him by scrubbing invisible dirt off the bar.

“Stella,” he said when she wandered past him. “Talk to me.”

She turned to him with a glare. “What about?”

“I’m just wondering why you’re here.”

“I don’t know?” She gave an exaggerated shrug. “To earn a paycheck? Why do
you
work?

He sighed. “I meant, why did you leave your dad’s foundation?”

“Ah. That’s everyone’s new favorite topic. I should just print up an outline and pass out copies.”

“Look, I’m not trying to bust your balls,” he tried.

Stella threw the rag on the bar. “Good thing, because I don’t own a pair. And you verified that first hand.”

Bear winced. “Look, did you quit because of me? I don’t have to show up there so often…”

Her eyes popped wide. “Vain much?”

“No!” Now he’d really stepped in it. “I just…”
Can’t be in the same zip code as you without putting my foot in my mouth
.

“Lady, can I get a beer sometime tonight?”

Bear turned his head to verify that the rude customer was the same frat boy from before. “I’m going to kill him.”

“That’s really going to improve my tips.” Stella left to serve the dick who was drinking the cheapest beer Rupert’s served.

Bear put a ten dollar bill on the bar, and shrugged on his jacket. He assumed their conversation was over. But Stella walked back over to face him one more time. “I quit because my parents weren’t getting the message,” she said quietly.

“What message?”

She rolled her eyes. “That they don’t own me. Okay?”

Bear wanted to ask more questions, but something about Stella’s defiant stance stopped him. Her arms were crossed, her hair tossed to the side. But there was a whole lot of frustration burning in those big brown eyes, and a dollop of pain, too. He wished there was something he could do about that. But he knew there wasn’t. They were stuck like this — both frustrated by circumstances, unable to get what they needed.

And unable to have their easy friendship back.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said.

“You’ve said that before.”

Christ, he had. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

She was busy pulling another beer for someone before he made it out the door.

Fourteen

T
HE
NEXT
NIGHT
,
RETURNING
from another electrical job for his father, Bear clocked Stella’s car behind Rupert’s again. But this time, he kept on driving.

The 4Runner climbed the hill where Hank lived without too much effort. He let himself into Hank’s house in the usual fashion. He didn’t like what he saw. There was a half-filled whiskey bottle on the table.
Uh oh
. He heard the sound of a toilet flushing from the direction of the master suite, and felt a prickle of unease.

“Hey man!” he called out. “Are you back there?”

Hank rolled into view a minute later. “Hey,” he said as Bear looked him up and down. Sweatpants. No socks. The T-shirt said “Bob’s Sno-Cat Lodge,” this time. Hank transferred to the sofa, hiking his useless legs into place with one arm before looking up at Bear.

His gaze was steady, and Bear felt himself relax. “What’s shakin’?”

Hank lifted an eyebrow to indicate the ridiculousness of the question. Then he spread both heavily-tattooed arms wide. “The usual nada. Why?”

So Hank was ornery, but not wasted. Things could be worse. Bear toed off his shoes and took a seat on the other side of the L-shaped sectional. He propped his feet on the coffee table, nudging the empty glass with his toe.

“The parents were here earlier,” Hank said. “I treated myself to a little nip after they left.”

“Ah. How are the ’rents these days?”

“Exhausting. My mother is all fired up about this new mobility study at the hospital. I’ve had exactly two hours’ worth of the new therapy, and she’s already looking for a progress update. I pity the people in charge.”

Bear chuckled. Hank might be ornery, but he had his mother pegged. Mrs. Lazarus was a tough cookie. “Maybe the doctor running the study needs the scotch worse than you.”

“Have you met her? Callie Anders?” Hank asked.

Bear shook his head. “You mentioned her a couple of times before, though.” He watched Hank carefully.
 

Sure enough, Hank twisted his head to the side, hiding a smile. “She’s a hottie. It’s one of the only things I don’t hate about the program. She’s easy on the eyes. And I’m going to be there seven hours a week for a year.”

“I can get you out of it,” Bear offered.

“How? Kidnapping?”

“Sort of. Come out west. Make a film with me.”

Hank didn’t meet Bear’s eyes. “I thought about it.”

This was progress. Bear held his breath.

“I heard what you said, okay? That both of us have to figure out something to do now. I heard you loud and clear, and you are not wrong. And I have no fucking clue what my act two looks like. It’s just that I don’t think I can… face that. Not right now.”

“Okay,” Bear whispered. His throat felt thick. He’d needed Hank to hear him out, and consider the movie, and his friend had done it. The answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but, hey, a little more bad news wasn’t exactly a surprise, was it? “So can I ask you about something else?” Bear prompted.

“Anything,” Hank said.

“The blue-book value on your 4Runner is about nine thousand dollars. Do you want to sell it to me? I could pay you two grand now, and a couple hundred a month going forward.”

Hank was so indifferent that he could only be bothered to lift one shoulder. “Keep it, man. In case you didn’t notice, I can’t drive it anymore.”

“Dude, I can’t just
keep
it. It’s not the same as passing me a used snowboard, you know?”

Hank looked him in the eye finally. “You need the money for your movie, right? Consider this my contribution.”

Bear’s pulse jumped in his temple. “I didn’t
ask
you for money. I’m going to convince OverSight to fund it.”

Hank held up two hands in submission. “That’s cool. And I know you didn’t ask me for money. But you need that truck and I don’t. And even though I didn’t ask
them
for it, my parents gave me a house worth more than half a million dollars with a roll-in shower and speakers in every room. I’m giving you a rusty truck with a broken speedometer. People do shit for each other sometimes. Someday we’ll be dead, Bear, and arguing about this is wasted breath.”

Bear was uncomfortable again, emotions rolling through his chest he couldn’t express. “I fixed the speedometer,” he said, stupidly.

Hank raised his arms and then dropped them into his lap. “See? She belongs to you already.”

Bear sighed. His conversations with Hank never went in the direction he’d planned. “Look, I’m going to pay you nine grand for the truck, and maybe you should think about giving the money to Stella.”

Hank’s eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“She needs the money for travel.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Your parents don’t want her competing this year. So they won’t help her.”

Hank scrubbed his forehead. “That’s insane. Why didn’t she tell me?”

Bear did not answer that question. He just folded his arms and waited.

His friend sighed. “Nobody tells me shit anymore.”

“They don’t think they can, man.”

“My ears aren’t broken.”

No, just your attitude. “
Stella quit her job, too. Did she tell you that?”

Hank’s chin snapped up. “No, she did not. What the fuck?”

“She’s pouring beers for Travis now, but I think the pay sucks. I think she’s trying to tell your parents that she won’t be bossed.”

At that, Hank threw his head back and laughed. “That’s my girl. You can’t make her do
anything
.”

Bear smiled, because that was easy to do whenever he thought of Stella. “You should call her. Or just drop by Rupert’s to see her in action.”

Hank grabbed a Nerf football wedged between his body and the armrest and threw it to Bear. “I haven’t been paying enough attention to my sister, have I?”
 

Bear tossed the ball to Hank without weighing in on the question. It was obvious Hank had not paid enough attention to
anyone
lately.

Hank tossed the ball back. “I can’t see Stella being very good at waitressing. She can be kind of a klutz when she’s not on a snowboard.”

True. Bear had been watching Stella his whole life. All he had to do was close his eyes and call her up the image of her smooth hands fumbling with the cork on the bubbly she’d poured him that night when they were teenagers. He could visualize her walk, and the way she tossed her hair to get it out of her face.