“Oh, uh,” Hailey shot a look at Neil. “That’s okay, you keep it. I think we go faster with the two of us on one.”
I hid a smile. “Right, okay.”
“Wait for us, we need to figure out dinner,” Neil called over his shoulder as the two of them started walking away. “We’ll be back.”
We both turned to watch them trudge up the hill, silently considering what they’d interrupted.
“Probably a good thing they showed up,” Ben finally said in a quiet voice. “We both have too much to lose.”
“Agreed,” I admitted quietly. I closed my eyes, partly because the snowflakes kept getting caught in my lashes, but mainly because looking at him sort of hurt. “And you have to maintain your journalistic integrity.”
“Yup,” Ben said. “Duty calls.”
Neil and Hailey went tearing by us in the sled, whooping with laughter. It made me envious of their freedom.
We watched their successful run and then their slow return up to the midpoint of the hill, where we were still camped out on the snow nursing our aftershocks.
“It sure is taking them a long time to get back here,” Ben said.
They looked like they weren’t moving at all, two parallel, hovering shadows.
“But then again... be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid of standing still,” he added.
“Oh, okay, coach.” I said sarcastically. I glanced down the hill to watch them. “Wait a sec. Are they... holding hands?”
“Fuck,” Ben said. “They are, and the show has a strict nonfraternization policy.”
Securing my own happily ever after wasn’t even a consideration, but I wasn’t about to stand in the way of anyone else’s, even if I didn’t understand the pairing.
“Well, if you think you saw them holding hands, no you didn’t,” I said. I got up slowly.
“Maybe he’s helping her, because it’s icy?”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
The mention of ice was a bitch slap of reality. We probably weren’t leaving tomorrow, at least not on our original flight at eleven.
Neil and Hailey finally reached us, no longer holding hands and a safe distance apart.
“How are the rooms?” Ben asked as we started back toward the inn.
“Shockingly nice, considering how old-timey it looks from the outside,” Hailey replied. “Not one haunted doll or doily to be found. We’re on the second floor, and I think you two are on the third.”
I hoped at opposite ends of the building.
“Any ideas for dinner?” Hailey asked. “I’m starving and it’s not like we have a ton of options with the weather.”
“There’s a pizza place within walking distance,” I answered. “It was still open when we drove by.”
“Perfect,” Ben answered. “The men will brave the elements to go get it.”
“And I was thinking maybe we could screen a little of what we’ve captured so far while we eat,” Neil said. “It’s looking really good, if I may say so.”
“I can get us set up in your room if you want,” Hailey volunteered.
They exchanged a quick look. “That works. It’s open on my laptop. Room two fourteen.” He reached into an interior pocket in his coat and pulled out an actual key with a heavy brass keychain.
Once I’d ditched my bag-boots in the lobby and made it up to the third floor I discovered that my room wasnoton the opposite end of the building from Ben’s. In fact, ours were the only two rooms on the whole floor.
