“Talked.” Eve's eyebrows hit her hairline. “Girl.”
“We did! We talked and it was—” I stop. Blow out a breath. “Intense. It was intense. He's pushing and I'm?—”
“Running?” Holly offers, too sweetly.
“Strategically retreating.”
“That's just the name-brand version of running. Don’t hate on us generic girlies.” Charlie says.
Holly watches me with that patient, knowing expression. She's not asking the questions everyone else is. She's just... waiting. Letting me get there.
Because she already knows. The photos. The history.Everything I've hidden behind that faulty panel for over a decade.
“He said I've been making all the calls for eleven years,” I finally admit. “That nobody's had to choose anything. Including me.”
The silence that follows is pointed.
“Well.” Eve takes a long sip of champagne. “He's not wrong.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always yours.” She shrugs. “But I can be on your side and still acknowledge when a man has a point.”
“These men,” Holly says, shaking her head but smiling. “I swear, it's like emotional intensity is their love language. Who can be the most overwhelming, the most?—”
“Unhinged?” Dixie offers.
“I was going to say devoted, but sure. Unhinged works.”
Charlie shifts in her blanket cocoon, one hand resting on the swell of her belly. “Nick literally cannot walk past me without touching me somewhere. Like he has to verify every thirty seconds that I'm real and still carrying his spawn.”
“Chance does this thing where he just... looks at me.” Holly waves her hand vaguely. “Like he's running tactical assessments on my emotional state. It should be exhausting. It's annoyingly hot.”
“It's the military training,” Eve says. “He's checking for threats. You're the asset.”
“I'm the asset?” Holly snorts. “That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said about my marriage.”
“You're welcome.”
Dixie laughs, but there's an edge to it. “Must be nice. Having someone that tuned in.”
The shift in her tone makes us all pause.
“Unlike some people,” she mutters into her champagne, “who show up once a year, decide they're experts on everything, and spend the whole week telling you how to do the job you've been doing just fine without them.”
Holly's eyes narrow. “And which 'some people' are we talking about?”
“No one.” Dixie takes a long sip. Too long. “Forget I said anything.”
“Wait.” Eve sits up straighter. “Is this about Roman? Sierra's brother Roman?”
Oh no.
“It's not about Roman. Roman is just—” Dixie's grip tightens on her glass. “He's been a partner for five minutes and suddenly he has opinions about how I run the ski school. Like building fancy log cabins in another state somehow makes him qualified to critique my teaching methods.”
I drop my head into my hands. “What did he do?”
“You say that like you already know it's bad.”
