Love Today Page 10

  “When do I get to be your snow princess?” Maggie eventually asked.

  Zack had to stop in mid-sentence, but Maggie’s question got a few chuckles.

  “Uh, right now, actually,” Zack told her. “Let’s just get to it, huh?”

  He got up with Maggie and picked up a pair of snow bibs that looked about her size. “You’re cool with purple, right?” he asked. He pretended to pray silently for her answer and we all smiled.

  She just took the pants and said, “Do we get to go outside?”

  “If that’s what you want to do, then sure. Uh, you gotta ask the boss though,” he added, nodding to me.

  “I thought I was only the assistant?” I smirked. I felt comfortable joking with him since the room seemed to be pretty light-hearted.

  “Well, I meant that you’re my boss.”

  Maggie only glanced at me while everyone else was entertained, but she was totally into putting on snow clothes for some reason and went right to work sticking her feet into the pants.

  While Zack hardly had to help her get dressed, he offered product specs, and when he put her into boots and selected a board for Maggie, he briefly went over the information and answered a few questions.

  I guess the most impressive thing was that Maggie could easily get into the boots and into the bindings by herself, and even though I didn’t know too much about snowboarding equipment, I could tell by the responses of two people in the room that this was a notable thing. But I could also tell that the meeting was specifically designed for a certain attendee that was present—obviously a big time boarder—and a lot of the questions from his representatives (and himself) had more to do with advanced performance. Maggie’s participation was merely a secondary aspect, but it seemed to make the meeting a little more interesting as it displayed more of the brand that Zack was marketing.

  Maggie’s favorite part was the selection of hats she had to choose from. And I thought it was pretty odd that there were so many of her size and the colors she liked until I realized that a lot of the stuff there was actually for her. Apparently Zack’s shipping order included an entire snowboarding wardrobe for my niece.

  Part of the meeting consisted of the attendees looking over the merchandise—handle it, try it out—and while Maggie de-boarded herself, Zack told them to take what they could personally use for themselves as a gift.

  “At Secure I want only the best,” he concluded with. “I want my family and friends to have the best products on the mountain so they can enjoy their experiences to the fullest. I wouldn’t put the people I care about in or on anything else. I fully back everything I design, and I’ll do whatever I can to make the products that you need for your career,” he concluded, directly speaking to the boarder at the other end of the table.

  With a smile the guy saluted and said, “See you on the mountain.”

  “See you on the mountain,” Zack nodded.

  The meeting adjourned after that. Zack continued casual conversations with a few of the people as they left with armfuls of gear, and while Maggie asked me if we could go play in the snow, Zack motioned me over to meet the “see you on the mountain” guy.

  “This is Taryn,” he told him, putting an arm around me. “Taryn, this is Scotty Grosse, champion of last year’s World Tour.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “And congratulations on your success.”

  “Thank you,” he smiled. “Unfortunately it’s a title that Zack would have held by now.” I glanced at Zack, unsure of what to say, but Scotty added, “So what do you think of his company, Taryn? You think it would be a wise endorsement for me?”

  “Uh, well, I’m not an avid snowboarder, so I have zero expertise on that. But…I do have inside knowledge about a certain someone’s character,” I said with a smile, glancing at Zack. “And I’d have to say that alone is a perfect choice.”

  Scotty slightly nodded his head. “Totally agree with you on that.” He patted Zack on the arm and said, “I’m starving; I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Bring your best game.”

  “Certainly will have to. Bye, Maggie,” he added with a chuckle, waving as he left.

  Maggie returned the wave, and it was then that I noticed why Scotty had laughed. She had on what looked to be about four different hats.

  “Hey, you might start a new trend,” Zack told her.

  She had no idea what that meant, but she laughed when he pulled the bottom hat over her entire face.

  “I’m starving too,” he told me. “Are you girls hungry?”

  “I am,” I replied.

  “Me too,” Maggie said, finally removing all of the hats. Her hair had been in two braids, but now it was full of fuzzy strays sticking up everywhere.

  While a crew came in and packed up the remaining merchandise, the hotel employees cleaned up the coffee mugs and straightened the room. Maggie still had on the bib overalls, and I was carrying her shoes in my hand. While she walked to the elevator in her socks she asked, “When can we play in the snow?”

  “How about after we eat?” I told her.

  “Okay,” she shrugged.

  While Maggie was busy checking out the pockets on her pants, I looked at Zack, smiling at me.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Nothing,” he shrugged, trying to hide the smile.

  I kind of chuckled at him but asked, “So did the meeting go okay? Are they all that…casual?”

  “Casual? Oh, I think there were a couple of ties present and maybe a skirt.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I smiled.

  He laughed but said, “Yeah, it’s usually pretty laid back. I don’t think I could do it any other way.”

  I glanced down at his clothes and said, “I assumed that you were heading back to the room to change before you went.”

  “Cargo pants and Vans aren’t meeting attire?”

  “I guess in this case they are.”

  He smiled and put his arm around me as the elevator stopped, and then we headed for the Steak Pit. “Well thanks for joining me.”

  “I didn’t want to. We really were just looking around the lodge.”

  “I know. But I’m glad you found me. I was going to invite you to come, but I didn’t think Maggie would be interested. But once I got there and saw all of her gear… Well, it was a little too late for the idea. Or so I thought.”

  “So…is that what you do every time you go out of town? You meet a room full of people, go over the products, and then have them test ‘em out the next day?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. The testing part is the best part,” he smiled. “But most of those people in the meeting are just the business end of it, and that’s taken care of with Rusty. Like tomorrow, all I care about is Scotty and his buddies liking what they use on the mountain. Even if they don’t sign with my company, I know they’re going to use those products anyways. I know for a fact he will sign, but that’s beside the point.”

  “Oh?” I chuckled. “Isn’t that the point?”

  “Well…yeah, it is. But it’s not something I really focus on.”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t that your job? To market the products to sell?”

  We’d entered the restaurant by then and were taken right to a table. As we sat down he replied, “Yeah, it’s been my job for the past few years, and I like doing it myself because it gets things done how I want, but I don’t really have to market the products myself. I have other reps.”

  “Zack, isn’t marketing your job? What do you mean you have ‘other reps’? To do your job? Uh, isn’t that what gets you paid?”

  “Uh, well, I guess I’m actually an entrepreneur.”

  “What?”

  He paused for a few seconds while I answered Maggie’s question about the bird outside, and then asked, “Have you ever heard of Secure Snowboards?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I chuckled. “I just saw about a dozen of them ten minutes ago. And they are nice boards, by the way. Or so I’ve h
eard.”

  He kind of laughed. “Thank you.”

  It took me a while to understand what he meant, and I finally said, “Wait a minute. I know you do the marketing for those boards, it’s the company you work for, but…”

  He smiled, but it seemed a little mysterious.

  “Am I missing something?” I asked.

  He kind of shook his head but said, “No, nothing that you should be aware of, I guess. Uh… Secure is my company. I’m the, uh, CEO.”

  “The what?” It’s not that I didn’t know what a CEO was, but I didn’t really understand what he was telling me.

  “Secure is a board—a brand—that I engineered and marketed myself when I thought I’d never compete again. They kind of turned out pretty well, and for the past four years my company has expanded a bit.”

  “A bit? Secure Snowboard is a multi-million dollar company!” I hissed.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Jeez, you read up on your business stuff, don’t you?”

  “Zack, are you kidding me?”

  “About what?”

  I didn’t even know if I had a specific question, but I didn’t say anything at first. Maggie was back to pointing at the birds outside, so after a minute of conversing with her, I turned my attention back to Zack.

  “You really founded Secure Snowboards?”

  He barely nodded, studying me carefully. It was almost like he was trying to read my thoughts, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. I was a little shocked that he was the CEO of such a successful company. Now a lot of the comments that he’d made over the past few weeks finally made sense to me, and it must have been funny to him every time I mentioned his “boss.” I guess the most entertaining time was when I’d taken him lunch at his office and he took me into the “boss’s” office. He assured me it was fine, even saying that his boss was a pretty cool guy.

  “I’m getting a weird vibe from you,” he finally said to me. “Are you actually mad at me?”

  I looked at him and sighed. “No, I’m not mad at you. I mean I’ve been to your office, I’ve been to your house, I’ve been in your car…”

  “And? What does all that mean?”

  I paused for several seconds and looked him over quickly. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it.

  “I don’t seem like a millionaire?” he finally said.

  “No, that’s not it. No, actually that is it. That’s totally it. You don’t. And even the things you say and how you act and…”

  “That disappoints you?”

  “What? No,” I said quickly. “I mean the opposite. I’m really glad that you’re just…Zack. Wait, I don’t mean to make that sound insignificant—”

  I stopped when he laughed and held his hand up. “No, I’ll take ‘just Zack’ any day.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’d like to say that my boyfriend’s millionaire status wasn’t going to get in the way of our relationship, but it made me feel even more insecure about him paying for things, if that even makes sense. Now that it was out in the open, Zack asked me not to object to anything he ever offered to pay for. But now I was worried that he’d just always been leery of girls taking advantage of his finances, and that made me feel really uncomfortable because I felt that he’d tried to keep it a secret from me as well.

  I guess I understood that, so I wasn’t upset about the lack of full disclosure—it wasn’t my business anyway—but I was honest with him and told him how I felt. He wasn’t surprised, even claiming that he knew I’d feel that way. He also joked that I could have all his money, but for some reason, I got the impression he wasn’t kidding.

  Friday Zack spent the morning with Scotty while Maggie and I went swimming, played in the game room, and played in the snow. We didn’t do any snowboarding just yet because I knew that Zack was really looking forward to teaching Maggie himself. We came in from the snow around one for lunch in our room, and we just sat down at the table with sandwiches when Zack returned too.

  “Perfect timing,” I told him. “You hungry?” I held up a sandwich for him as he dropped some of his gear onto the floor.

  “I’m so hungry I could eat Maggie,” he said, pretending to bite her head.

  “No!” she squealed. “Eat Taryn!”

  He stopped attacking her and smiled at me. “Good idea,” he said, meeting me in the kitchen.

  Maggie was expecting something a little more violent I guess, so when all he did was kiss me, she said, “Ew.”

  I shook my head with a smile as Zack sat down in front of the sandwich on the table.

  “Everything go well?” I asked him.

  “Went great,” he replied before taking a bite. He took a few seconds to chew and then asked, “You know who Ben Mackey is?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Another big time boarder. He actually lives around here and his family owns an outdoors store near Park City. But he ended up joining us, which was fun, but he also talked to me about carrying a contract with Secure. They carry some of my stuff indirectly, but he wants to change that.”

  “Wow, that’s cool.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s totally cool. I love working with smaller companies.”

  Maggie had finished most of her sandwich and she wandered over to the couch to watch cartoons. Zack asked what we did that morning, and while I explained our day so far, Maggie was zonked out within five minutes. He finished his sandwich and downed the rest of his juice, and as he announced that he was going to take a quick shower, he noticed Maggie was sound asleep.

  “Uh, I said ‘I’m going to take a quick shower,’ ” he repeated to me.

  He was headed for the other room with a smile, and I jokingly said, “Okay, have fun.”

  He rolled his eyes playfully, but a minute later I did cover Maggie with a blanket and made my way to the bedroom.

  Later that afternoon we did make it to the bunny slope. I wasn’t that great on a snowboard—I’d only done it a few times—but watching Zack with Maggie was pretty cute. I mainly took pictures, but not with my expensive equipment because I didn’t want to fall and break anything—a camera or myself.

  I was actually kind of worried that Maggie wouldn’t like snowboarding, and I was afraid that Zack would be disappointed with that. But he knew just how to take the intimidation out of it by falling first and showing her it was okay. I could tell he was going to be a great teacher for her.

  The two of them had a blast, even though Maggie really didn’t get to the point where she would go down the hill on her own. She wanted Zack to face her and hold her hand every time, but he was thrilled that she would even do that.

  “It’s your turn,” Maggie told me an hour later.

  “My turn?”

  “Yep. Zack gets to teach you now.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he smiled, holding his hand out for mine.

  “Go, Taryn!” she encouraged. “It’s fun!”

  “Okay, but maybe you should hike up the hill with me, okay? Then you can make sure I do it right.”

  “Okay,” she shrugged.

  As we walked up the hill with our boards Zack whispered, “That’s sneaky.”

  I smiled and said, “I just want to see.”

  “I know; it was my next step.”

  “Oh, then go ahead and—”

  “No, we’ll just see,” he smiled.

  We didn’t go as far up on purpose, and I told Maggie that I was afraid to go any higher.

  “Maggie, just show Taryn how easy it is. You can even do it by yourself. Taryn, Maggie could do it all by herself and then you’ll see how easy it is. Show her Maggie. Just coast down the hill a little ways and show her how.”

  I almost thought that she wouldn’t do it, just because she looked a little afraid at first. But Zack held her board while she stepped into it and she said, “Put your hands out like this and kinda sit.” She did just that as she started to slide a few feet and added, “And just balance.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I said, covering my m
outh with my hand. She was doing it all by herself. There wasn’t much of a hill to go down, but she did it all by herself.

  When she came to a natural stop she said, “That was slow!”

  We both laughed and Zack said, “Then get back up here and we’ll make Taryn go even higher!”

  While Maggie trekked up the hill, I looked at him and shook my head. “How is it that she’s getting to be so outgoing?”

  He came closer to me and kissed my cheek. “Because you’re giving her the opportunities.”

  We did hike up the hill a little further, and we just followed as far up as Maggie went. She stopped about where she and Zack had been starting from and said, “Okay, Taryn. It’s your turn.”

  “Okay, I’ll go by myself if you go by yourself.”

  “You’re gonna go by yourself?” she asked, totally surprised.

  “Yep, I’ll try. But only if you do it at the same time with me.”

  “And Zack, too?”

  “Yes, definitely Zack, too,” I nodded. “He’ll have to pick me up when I crash.”

  She giggled at that, but we did all agree to go at once. Maggie did the “ready, set, go!” for us, and as we started our descent, Zack said, “I’m going to push you down just so I can fall on you.”

  That made me laugh and I almost fell on my own. But Maggie was close to me and I quickly righted myself. But Zack did board right behind me and he wrapped his arms around me as we coasted down the hill and watched Maggie. This was comfortable to me because I trusted him entirely, so I just relaxed and let him kiss the side of my face and neck. When we came to the end of the slope he released me, and because he knew it was going to happen, he turned toward Maggie to help her stop just before she might have crashed.