We both giggled. Mickey and his wife had the greatest sense of humor. Their compatibility made them such a joyful couple to be around.
“Listen, Mick. The kids were right. You need to work on your core skills some more. Why don’t you and Claire trade places? Spending a little more time on the basics might do you some good.”
Mickey didn’t question a thing. “Sure, darling. And then I’ll give you a foot rub tonight if you promise not to make me sleep on the floor. Capeesh?”
They were both cackling as he gave her a kiss and nodded to me to switch.
“Thanks, guys. Mickey, which instructor are you with again?”
“Trevor. Black hair, white boots. You can’t miss him.”
And Mickey was right; I couldn’t miss him. In fact, I was a little worried that I hadn’t seen him until just then, given that his pants were neon tie-dyed.
“Trevor? My name is Claire. If you don’t mind, I’ve just switched places with Mickey and would like to join this lesson for the duration. I’m still a beginner, though, so it’s okay if you have nothing for me.”
Trevor pointed to the chairlift. “All the kids are going up. There’s two ways down: take a right for the green run. I’llbe right behind you.” For having such a fun way of dressing, he sure wasn’t exuding joy to talk to.
Filled with nerves, I lined up to get on the two-seater chair. I had to choose between facing Tara and confronting the pain of betrayal or taking on a more challenging slope than the bunny hill. I went with the second choice. To my horror, I realized they weren’t loading any single riders up. None of the teens were around, meaning I would have to ride up with a stranger. I counted all the riders ahead of me, and it worked out that I would ride up with the woman ahead of me. She had baby pink pants and a purple coat. She was about my mother’s age and looked cheerful. About a second later, a friend joined her in line.
“There you are. One more run?” The woman nodded.
I peeked over my shoulder. The man behind me was Timothy, Blake’s friend. He was totally immersed in his phone and didn’t look up from it. Okay, that wasn’t so bad, I guessed.
When it was our turn to get on the chair, things were moving slowly and the lift tech informed us it was because a group of kids were riding the lift. “They need extra time to offload.”
“And how would I go about getting extra time?” I laughed, nervously.
“Just do this motion.” He showed me a bobbing thumbs down.
“Thanks.” We gently took off upward, and Timothy put the bar down on our laps. “Timothy, right? I’m Claire. Blake told me about you and your upcoming wedding. Congratulations.”
He grinned ear to ear. “Ahh, yes. Thank you. I can’t wait. It was cool for Blake to bring us out here for the week. Or, his dad, anyway.”
My ears perked up. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean, his dad owns the place, so he just had to make a phone call to the front desk, and we had three rooms and a week’s worth of ski passes. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask me. His dad is the greatest. He was like a dad to me growing up. Can’t ski to save his life, but loves the idea of it, so he buys up all these resorts.”
I was at a loss for words. Blake didn’t think to tell me any of this earlier? “Is his dad… James Walker?” The CEO at my job. At myoldjob, that was.
“Yes, that’s him. Do you know him?” Timothy looked me dead in the eyes.
“I do. Well, I know of him. I just got fired from the design firm for Sage Mountain Resort and Airport because he wouldn’t have liked my ideas, actually.”
“Ouch. I’m sorry about that.”
My mind was racing. Did that mean Blake worked with his dad, too? Did he already know about me, my designs, my firing? This was feeling painfully weird.
“There’s Melanie.”
I followed Timothy’s gloved finger’s direction to a woman with eyes of emerald that were so dazzling that I could see them from the chairlift. She was at a standstill as she looked at her watch. Her goggles sat around her cute, fuzzy hat and her long, thick, brown hair was perfectly spilling over her white coat. She was gorgeous in every sense of the word, and the feelings of dread came creeping back. Part of me didn’t want to know this woman, as I was feeling emotionally damaged, and she was like looking into the sun. I’d half expected her to be Theo’s new girlfriend if he wasn’t already linked with the stunning Tara, but alas, I was a curiouscreature. I turned back to Timothy and croaked out a minor question. “Who’s Melanie?”
He squinted his brow together. “Blakes ex… Didn’t he tell you? She’s here skiing with her family.”
My heart sank to the bottom of my gut. It felt like it was pressing on my bladder, or the hot chocolate consumption had finally caught up to me. Either way, I didn’t feel good about any of this. “No, I guess not.”
Timothy nodded at my reply. Not that he needed to tell me—Blake didn’t owe me any explanation whatsoever. We’d only just met. Still, the triple whammy of information I’d just uncovered was sickening.
Before I could contemplate asking any more questions, we made it to the top, and I’d forgotten all about the signal for the lift techs to slow the chair down. Thankfully, Timothy hadn’t forgotten, and we came to a glacial pace.
