Falling In

“Hey, we gotta leave,” my boyfriend told me. “Signing is in two hours,” he said.

“Gotcha,” I said as I straightened the last strand of my hair and put it down, and turned around to give him a kiss. “Good morning,” I smiled.

“Morning,” he grinned. “Let’s get going,” he said as he grabbed my phone off the table and pulled me out the door.

We arrived at the venue, and we were surrounded by cameras. The coordinator put me in my seat, and Ethan next to me as we waited for the conference to start. It had been about two weeks since Ethan and I talked and everything and so far so good.

“10 minutes guys,” the coordinator said.

I turned to Ethan and looked at him nervously. “You’ll be fine,” he assured me as he took my hand and gave it a kiss. The doors opened, and the reporters and photographers started piling in. I sat there gripping onto Ethan’s hand as everyone gave their attention to me.

“I’m about to have a panic attack,” I said to him.

“You’ll be fine babe, you’ll be fine,” he assure as he squeezed my hand tighter.

We did the introductions, and then they started some kind of speech.

“Stella Grace Descenzo, well we’ve been watching this tough cookie for a few years now. 4 or 5 years now? To begin with she was already a crazy chick, and having Shaun White and Travis Pastrana as endorsers, we’ve already have a lot on our hands and we were talking about adding another one to our lists,” Matt, the CEO had announced. “After the Mt. Rose competition when she won gold with a broken arm, well that’s when we thought we should snatch her up before somebody else does,” he laughed and everyone else laughed with him. “We saw her genuine personality and her determination on the ice. It’s the kind of attitude we look for in our athletes, and we’re here to present the contract for a five-year sponsorship with us,” he said and pulled out a folder from somewhere and placed it in front of me.

I looked at it with the giddiest smile on my face as I gripped onto Ethan’s hand even tighter. He squeezed my hand, and I could just feel the mutual feeling that radiated off both of us.

I picked up the pen with my free hand, and slowly and delicately signed my name on the piece of paper, not making a mistake and each stroke perfect. Once I put the pen down, they started to clap. I looked up and saw that the cameras were flashing once again, and everybody cheered. I looked beside me and saw Ethan had the proudest look in his eyes and his smile was about to rip his face in half.

“Stella Grace Descenzo, I officially welcome you to Red Bull,” a familiar voice said over the speakers. I looked at Matt, but he was nowhere near a microphone. Heads then turned towards the door on the side of the stage, and out walked Travis Pastrana. My mouth fell open.

Travis came up to us and held out a hand for me to shake. “Travis Pastrana, a pleasure to meet you Ms. Descenzo,” he grinned at me.

I clumsily stood up and shook his hand with my clammy one and started tripping over my own words. “I- uh- puh-uh- pleasure’s all mine,” I finally got it out and blushed, realizing how crazy I sounded.

He smiled at me and turned his attention to the figure to my left and his smile turned wider. “Well well well, who do we have here. Hello, Versace,” he smirked. My jaw dropped to the ground, not expecting that the guy I looked up to knew the guy I was fucking in love with and I didn’t even know!

“Well Pastrana, you seem to have gotten my girlfriend stuttering over her words,” he laughed as they gave each other a manly hug over the table.

“You should start worrying Versace,” Travis teased as he sent me over a wink. I instandly blushed and looked down at the paper in front of me.

“I’ll have to tell Lyn-z on you,” Ethan laughed as he wrapped his arms around my shoulder.

Travis just gave off a laugh and turned his attention back to the pres. “Well, it’s a pleasure for me to welcome another crazy bitch into this crazy company,” he laughed as he smirked at me. “But seriously, Stella Grace is one crazy chick. And come on now, coming from me that means a lot,” he said to the crowd, and they just mumbled their agreements.

We just went on with the pres conference for awhile, and they asked about Ethan and I and we did confirm that we were together and whatever but we didn’t take it any further than that. I told them that I had been invited to next year’s Winter X-Games and I will be competing against Jamie Anderson and Kelly Clark and they’ve all been asking if there was a possibility if I would be competing in the Olympics in 2014. I just told them that I was only getting started and I’ll be taking it one step at a time, but if I did get an invitation, then I wouldn’t be crazy enough to turn it down.

The questions eventually died down, and the pres were all led out of the building. I smiled triumphantly at Ethan before I let out a small giggle and pulled him by the collar of his shirt and planted a small, but sweet kiss on his soft pink lips.

“What was that for?” he asked me with a raised eyebrow, but with a smile nonetheless.

“Nothing,” I said shaking my head and hugged his waist as he let out a small chuckle and wrapped his arms around me.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” he admitted. I looked up at him with a curious look. “You didn’t freak out and I didn’t have to kiss you to calm you down.”

I threw my head back and laughed, shaking my head at him. “I think that would just make me even more nervous, so…,” I trailed off.

He chuckled at me as he planted a kiss on my forehead.

“Damn Versace, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Travis laughed as he greeted Ethan once more, and looked down at me with that goofy grin. “Don’t know why you’re with him, really.”

“Hey man, low blow,” Ethan chuckled as he gripped onto my shoulders tighter.

“Seriously though, congratulations,” Travis Pastrana said to me. “In more ways than one,” he winked.

We met up with my brother and Kyla whom just got back home for a meeting for me over in LA for some photo shoot one of the designers that wanted me to do the photos for them.

“Okay, so I cut down your photography gigs, you just have the Victoria’s Secret and Versace photo shoots to do. Then you’ll have the Red Bull commercial to shoot,” Kyla said first thing when she slid into the booth in front of me.

“Babe, let my sister breathe, okay?” Jacob asked with a laugh as he slid in after her.

“Hi bro,” I smiled as I gave them both a hug over the table. Ethan got up and said he needed to use the bathroom, and I just nodded at him.

“Have you heard?” he asked me.

“Heard what?” I asked.

“Who’s in town?”

“Yeah,” I nodded at him.

“She dropped off an invitation for you this morning,” he said to me.

“Why?” I asked with furrowed eyebrows.

He just shrugged at me. “Maybe she wants to make up for what she did? It doesn’t matter now anyways. You and Ethan are together.”

“I guess.”

We all finished up our food and went back home. Ethan had stuff to attend to for his mom and I was lounging in my room when an envelope caught my eye. I took the silver envelope in my hands and carefully opened the flap.

I took in the elegant writings and the imprint that was on the page. I then took the time to read it. My voice caught in my throat and I let out a horrified scream.

“What happened?!” my brother barged into my room.

My lip quivered, and I dropped the invitation on the ground, but the words that were on the paper were imprinted in my brain.

Heather Cheyenne Malone & Ethan Jay Versace