Bail | LRH

Chapter 10: a conversation

Am I not allowed to do that? I told you already I think we should be civil with each other. This whole back and forth thing we've been doing for years isn't going to work and I don't think the RB people would like it.

I just pulled all of that out of my ass, and it sounded incredibly believable. There's absolutely no way she's going to tell me that I can't be nice to her, or at least treat her like a regular person because if she did she would sound quite literally insane.

It's weird.

It's different. Hell, I'm not even used to all of this yet but I have to adapt my behavior to the circumstances, and I was going to do just that. Every time I wanted to pick up a snowball and throw it at her, or make some snarky comment, essentially just insult her to her face, I would think about the bigger picture and would swallow all of that down. I couldn't risk falling behind on this plan when I was on a time limit.

It doesn't have to be. Look, I'm not saying we have to become best friends overnight or anything but putting the snowballs down and turning the insults and side comments down a bit is a good start.

It was true though, after I basically stopped retaliating, she was coming at me even more trying to get something out of me. I wouldn't budge though, no matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn't.

What are you trying to get out of this? Why are you trying to be my friend after all these years? If you're just trying to get a friendship out of me to get to my dad, I suggest you stop now because that won't work.

She was skeptical about my intentions, which was a valid response to everything. It's great to be coached by Scott and everything, and obviously I would love to have him coach me some more but that wasn't what I was doing this for. I wasn't using the girl to get to her dad, but that was her top concern. She didn't care about herself, she cared about her dad.

What? Your dad? Adrian no I'm not using you to get to your dad that's so stupid. Yeah it's cool to get some tips and everything from your dad but I have my own coach and team and everything. Like I said, are we not allowed to be friends?

I had to get her to believe that I was genuinely in this for her and not as a stepping stone for her dad to coach me.

I don't really do the whole "friends" thing

This was a good opportunity to get in there and strike. She just opened the door for me to slowly ease my way into this.

How come?

Straight to the point. If I knew why she didn't want to become friends, I could certainly change her mind.

You're not getting through that easily. Nice try though.

Shut down. Utterly and completely defeated again. I always underestimate her and after years of knowing her I should really stop. I should have known she wasn't going to give in that easily, and that was yet another dumb mistake on my part.

All I'm saying is, it wouldn't be the end of the world if we were civil with each other. And from there who knows... maybe friends, maybe not. Just think about it.

I saw her typing. She wanted to respond to my text, but the little typing bubble disappeared along with our conversation. She backed out of it. Hopefully whatever I said got through to her and she was reconsidering her approach to me as a person. I know that whenever I talked about what was a good image for her and what these big brands would and wouldn't like I got her attention.

Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a fake person. She was never the person to put on a whole façade for the media and pretend to be this person she wasn't. Everyone knew her and I had some kind of trigger when it came to the other, but people who didn't personally know us, knew to what extent. She was a genuine person who kept her private life private, no matter how many times the media wanted to pry into her life and make her into some big social star mixed with being a professional athlete, she didn't budge.

She could be traveling to all of these places, making all of these brand deals and getting even more free stuff than she already does but for some reason she stays here in Park City. Honestly, she probably thinks she's too good for all of that stuff.

I was getting lost in my thoughts thinking about that lost response. What was she about to say? My phone began to ring and I was pulled away from those thoughts and I tore my eyes from my computer in front of me to look down at my phone to see that Calum was calling me.

"What's up dude?" I said into the phone as I held it against my cheek.

"Nothing, just wanted to know how, you know, the p-l-a-n was going?" he asked, spelling out the word plan as if someone was eavesdropping on our conversation and was going to pick up on what we were discussing.

"It's rough, man." I said running a hand through my hair. "She's a lot harder to get through than I thought, but I think I'll be making some sort of breakthrough soon."

"What did you expect?" he rhetorically asked while laughing to himself. "Did you think that after one day you guys would be sucking each other's faces off? Obviously it's gonna be difficult man."

"N-No, I didn't expect that but just getting her to even consider me to be a friend is hard enough as it is. I don't know how I'm going to get through this one."

"Dude, you're telling me. When we got stuck up on that lift together that one time, it took like thirty minutes before we actually got a good conversation going because I didn't even know what to say to her, and she definitely wasn't going to talk to me first due to my pure association with you. She's actually really talkative once you get her going though, and she's pretty funny too." Calum started laughing again before he continued. "What if– Oh my god that would be so funny."

"What if, what?"

"Nothing, it's really stupid"

"What if, what Caulm."

"What if you just got stuck on the ski lift with her so then she would have to talk to you. Like she's not just gonna sit there and ignore you the whole time."

"That– That's actually pretty smart. That could work! But wait– how are we going to know when the lift breaks down like, we can't just predict that happening."

"I mean, I have my ways of getting things, if you actually wanna do this, leave the ski lift part up to me. I'll take care of it. When we see her tomorrow at the lifts, because we will, we always do, wait for my signal."

"Got it"

After that I hung up the phone call with Calum as I was being called downstairs for dinner. Things were either going to go my way tomorrow, if Calum's plan works out, or things will end with her pushing me off of the ski lift. There's really no telling, but I'm hoping for the option that doesn't end with me falling to my doom.

I wouldn't hesitate to push that mf off the ski lift if I were her either but we'll see how that goes