“Ski? No, not really,” I fumbled awkwardly. “But why do you have four—”
“Our friend Trevor bailed out on us,” Carter cut in. “Last minute.”
“Trevoralwaysbails,” Bodie snorted.
“Seriously,” urged Sawyer. “Come with us, take the extra bedroom. The truck’s fully packed, food and everything. We’re ready to roll.”
“Truck?” I jerked a thumb. “That Yukon outside?”
“Third row bench, heated seats,” Carter smiled. “You can sleep all the way there.”
I was running out of reasons to say no. Actually, I was starting to get excited.
“Six or seven hours from now, we’ll be knee-deep in powder,” Sawyer went on, “and last night will be a bad memory. Even if you don’t ski, you could be relaxing in a soft chair, sipping hot chocolate by a roaring fire.”
Sugarloaf.I’d been to a lot of mountains, but never that far north. The visual of me hanging back while they raced down the slopes made me chuckle, but not for the reasons they probably thought.
“Do they have wi-fi?” I arched my eyebrow.
“Probably not,” Carter admitted.
Slowly I tilted my head back and drained the rest of my coffee. Three strange men. A cabin in the mountains. No way of being found, or contacted, or bothered.
“Great,” I grinned, pushing my mug away. “Let’s go.”
~ 6 ~
HAYDEN
“You sure you’re up for this?” Carter asked, for the third time straight. “I mean… this is the summit.”
“Yeah, the summit,” I repeated innocently. “The top. Isn’t that how you ski? You go to the top?”
The morning light glinted off his multi-colored goggles, as he gripped his poles and stared back at me like I was crazy. Carter looked hot in his gear. They all did. That part was almost as cute as them trying to ‘help’ me onto the ski lift, or try to catch me if I fell off at the top.
I chuckled, inwardly. This was going to beextrafun.
“You’ll want to keep your ski tips pointed together at first,” Sawyer called, from off to my right, “and squeeze your thighs tight.”
“Squeeze my thighs,” I smirked. “Got it.”
“It’s called snowplowing. It’ll keep you from going too fast when—”
“I got it, I got it,” I said obnoxiously. “You three go ahead a little,” I said, settling into my rented skis. “Show me what to do. I’ll watch your form.”
I flexed my arms and legs, shaking them out, getting them nice and loose. It had been a busy morning. I’d slept like a babyacross the Yukon’s heated leather seats on the ride to Maine, and woke up in the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter. There, I was able to buy clothes for the weekend; nothing fancy, just some clean underwear and a few comfy outfits. I piled a new winter jacket on top of that, plus some boots, gloves, even a cute pink wool hat — all thanks to the credit card I kept in my phone case, for just such emergencies.
“Hayden, listen,” pleaded Bodie. “Even the green trails up here can look steep. Why don’t we take the gondola down to the halfway point—”
“Please,” I huffed, trying not to let my smile break into a devilish grin. “Just… go?”
The boys exchanged looks as if they’d done something wrong; like take a complete newbie to the top of the second biggest mountain in the northeast. I couldn’t see Carter’s eyes beneath the tint of his goggles. I knew however, that he was squinting back at me like I was crazy.
“Fine.”
They began snowplowing ahead of me, carving lazy, exaggerated S-turns in the freshly-fallen snow. I let them go on for a while, pretending to pay close attention instead of looking over their shoulder at the scenery.
Ah, yes.
