Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

don’t define who I am.
    After getting
knocked out of competitive skiing two years ago, I decided to make
Jackson my permanent home. I’d
spent a great deal of time here, skiing the double-black diamond
slopes as part of my training. I liked the locals and the atmosphere.
I also liked the powder that was always in abundant supply. In
addition, Jake Gearhart, one of my closest friends, made this his
permanent home and opened up a ski shop, so I figured… why the
fuck not? This was as good a place as any to settle down.
    What I did not want
to do was work in or around the ski industry. It’s
not from sour apples or bitterness over my injuries and the early end
to my career. I wasn’t lying to Cat this morning. I choose to
glory in the fact that I had a great career while it lasted. She
didn’t ask about it, but there’s more to competitive
skiing than just winning races. And I’m really talking about
endorsement deals and sponsorships. Like I said before, I could
afford much bigger and better than the tiny apartment where I live as
I made a fuck of a lot of money during my heyday. But I don’t
need more, so my money is banked, along with my gold and silver
medals, in a secure lockbox. I spend my money if I want something,
and I still buy my mom Louis Vuitton and my dad expensive cigars.
    Most of my early
training was done on the East Coast, as I’m
a native Vermonter. I attended prep school with Jake at the famous
Carrabassett Valley, which is a private alpine skiing, snowboarding,
and freestyle academy that has produced many Olympic and World Cup
champions. It sits at the base of Sugarloaf and I cut my teeth there,
but after I turned eighteen, I moved to Park City, Utah to train with
the U.S. Ski Team. In between training for competitions and recovery
of my injuries, I lived a great deal of time in places like Tahoe and
Jackson where I’d spend weeks, sometimes months, working my way
back up to championship level.
    I met my buddy and
Westward Ink owner, Pish Malden, here in Jackson when I got my first
ink during one of my numerous stays in the area. He was someone I’d
grown close to over the years. After I moved into the apartment above
Jake’s garage, Pish and I were
casually talking one day as he was working on some ink on my arm and
he ended up offering me a job. Not as a tattoo artist, mind you, but
really just helping to run the shop to start out. I also took a
part-time job bartending at The Wicked Horse last year, which then
earned me a one-way ticket to my role as a Fantasy Maker at The Silo,
but I’m
content helping Pish out here for now. It keeps me busy and I like
busy.
    While I’m
not a tattoo artist, I am an artist of sorts. In fact, in my late
teens, my parents were proud to see I excelled at two things. Skiing
and drawing. I had mad skills at both. But they gently pushed me
toward skiing, since honestly, there was just more opportunity there.
So I became a competitive alpine skier who drew and painted in my
spare time. When Pish learned this about me, he would often take some
of my doodles and designs and put them in his tattoo template book.
So yeah… I might not actually do the ink, but there are many
people who walk around with one of my designs on their bodies.
    Pish offered to
teach me how to tattoo, but I’m
just not interested. For one, it takes a long time to get good at it
and, honestly, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m
pretty sure it’s not working at a tattoo shop forever. Besides,
I end up spending a lot of time at The Silo and I’m not
interested in working more hours at Westward. So Pish settled on me
being sort of a manager of the shop, coordinating schedules of the
other artists and keeping things running smoothly. I’m in
charge of opening every day except on weekends.
    In his spare time,
he taught me how to do piercings. That isn’t hard at all and
while Pish did my tongue, I’m proud to say I did my own nose
and eyebrow. So if someone walks in and