And now here I was, empty again. Running on pure adrenaline, as I raced to the bottom of the mountain, and sweetvictory. The bet had been Carter’s idea. He’d suggested some kind of stakes if one of them were able to beat me today, and I’d readily accepted. Only we had no idea what to bet. That is, until Sawyer suggested that the loser grants the winner’s wish.
“But it’s three on one,” I’d told them. “Those stakes don’t add up.”
“Fine,” Sawyer had said, with a shrug of his sculpted shoulders. “If you win, you get three wishes, then.”
That had sealed the deal for me, especially because I was feeling good. I’d rented a board I’d used a thousand times before. My boots fit snugly, my bindings were perfect. The wind was at my back. The mountain was glass. Everything was exactly as it should be, except…
As I skidded to a stop at the base of the mountain, my mouth dropped open in shock.
“HOW!?”
Bodie was there, arms folded, ski poles already stuck in the snow. Shit, he wasn’t even breathing heavy.
“But you never passed me!” I cried.
He laughed. “Nope.”
My eyes narrowed, skeptically. “You took a different route down, didn’t you?”
“Sure did. Hayburner to Candy Side. Less moguls. More speed.”
“That’s cheating,” I grumbled.
“I beg to differ,” Bodie replied calmly. “The bet was ‘first one to the base of the mountain.’” Pulling his gloves off, heflashed me his dimpled, ladykiller smile and shrugged. “I’m first.”
I wasn’t sure whether to hate him for winning, or admire his out of the box thinking. But the longer I looked at him, the less angry I was.
“Shit,” I conceded with a grunt. “I had my wishes all picked out, too.”
Bodie’s grin widened. “Lucky for you, the others are sweet on you.”
“Meaning?”
He shrugged. “Play your cards right, and maybe you’ll get one or two of them anyway.”
I shook my head at the thought, and swallowed my pride.
“And what about you?” I asked, my pulse quickening a little.
His handsome, Superman-like expression was all innocence. “What about me?”
“Are you sweet on me, too?”
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out his glasses and slipped them on. In his best Clark Kent voice, he fumbled:
“Oh, I don’t know, Lois. Am I?”
Just then the others skidded up, spraying snow everywhere. Sawyer looked furious. Carter, on the other hand, noticed I still had my gloves on… and Bodie did not.
“Youbeather!?” he noted, excitedly.
“By at least half a minute,” Bodie preened.
His look dared me to call him out for cheating. My return glance laughed at him for even considering it.
“He wins,” I sighed, stepping out of my bindings. “So I guess, you all win.”
Sawyer clapped his hands together. “Good shit!”
