“Hey, the second you say you’re done, we leave.”
“I’m done,” she joked. “Can we go get pancakes instead?”
“Just try,” he urged. “Come on. Let’s get you locked into your skis and see how it feels to just…glide around. Sound good?”
Actually, it sounded horrible, but she followed him to the snow-covered hill where people were lacing up their bindings and shuffling to the lift lines.
The morning sun peeked through the frosted pines, casting a soft glow over the pristine white slopes of Deer Valley. Snow clung to every tree branch like thick icing, and the air sparkled with the crisp magic of early winter.
“I forgot how much gear was involved with this sport,” Nicole muttered, fumbling with her two—yes, two—layers of gloves and shoving her neck warmer over her braided hair. “You have to bring a suitcase-worth of clothes just to get out here.”
Jack stood a few paces away, adjusting his gloves and laughing softly. He looked every inch the former Olympian, even at sixty—still tall, still confident, still radiating that unshakable peace she remembered from her childhood. He’d always seemed unbreakable on skis, despite the injury that derailed his competitive dreams.
He hadn’t let that stop him from skiing again.
She, on the other hand, felt like she was about to unravel nineteen years after…that day.
She scanned the mountain, which was peppered with skiers and teeming with the excitement of a big early season snow.
Her gaze fell on a section of trees, and her heart rate kicked up. She remembered the feeling of going face first into a tree well—not there, but much, much higher. She easily recalled feeling trapped, stuck,terrified. She hadn’t broken anything, but the fear had calcified in her bones.
Jack looked over and smiled. “You good?”
“Yeah. Fine. I’m guessing you want to start by going up Carpenter?” She nodded toward the set of main lifts—Carpenter and Silver Lake.
“You think you’re ready for Success?” he asked, referring to the quintessential green run that took beginner skiers down from the top of Carpenter lift to the base.
“It’s a long green,” she said, the knowledge more from conversations she’d had with Brianna and customers than her dimmed memory.
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “Why don’t we start with Snowflake?”
She chuckled softly. “I’ve never seen anyone over the age of five take that lift.”
“It’s perfect.” He skied over and crouched beside her. “We’re taking it slow this time. Just the bunny slope. We’re not even doing turns yet—just relearning how to shift your weight and get used to the skis. You’ll be fine.”
Nicole nodded stiffly.
He gestured up the hill where the tiny, two-seater lift took beginners to the top of a mostly flat, wide slope. “Come on, Nic. It’ll be fun.”
Of course, Snowflake had no lift line, so they got right on.
She let him guide her onto the lift. It wasn’t steep. It wasn’t fast. The other lift riders were all younger than Benny.Muchyounger than Benny, who could ski, but didn’t really have a passion for it.
It wasn’t anything like that black diamond run from two decades ago. And yet her palms were sweaty in her gloves.
At the top of the hill, the world opened up in soft curves of snow.
Nicole stepped off the lift and skidded slightly, her boots clunky in the bindings, her legs leaden and stiff on the skis.
The slope below wasn’t steep, but from up here, it looked vast—an untouched sheet of white stretching down toward the base, dotted by a scattering of toddlers in neon snowsuits and parents crouching behind them.
The cold nipped at her cheeks, but sweat was already prickling under her layers. Around her, ski instructors called encouragement, poles clicked, and laughter rang out, carefree and echoing—so opposite the weight dragging in her chest.
Before they started, Jack stood at the top of the rise, squinting at the bottom.
“Five bucks?” he said, fighting a smile.
She smiled, too, remembering their old bet—his first form of bribery to get her to take a run that scared her. They always bet five bucks on who’d get to the bottom first.
