My mouth parts to answer. I spent years resenting my lips.Too full. Too much.I can still see the fish doodles kids scrawled across my notebooks, can still hear the whispers that followed me down hallways. I grew into them, but every glance in the mirror drags me back to that girl. The one who learned at an early age that most people only used you for target practice.
I finally shift back to them. “What?”
Punk giggles. “You took me to pierce my nipples when I was fifteen.”
I cringe. Jesus. What happened to keeping that one under wraps? “We got matching, so it’s not like I let you go through it alone.”
The side of my face burns when I realize I just announced to a few people, most I would rather not announce to, that I have pierced tits. Great.
Luce’s arms fly up. “Ah! I am supposed to be that aunt, not her! She’s the one that bails you out of jail!”
Jord snorts. “Hell no! I know you ain’t talking about Ivy. She’ll beinthe cell beside her.”
Parker remains absorbed in his phone, disconnected from the conversation. It’s perfect. It’s what has made this marriage so bearable.
My frown slips when I land on Asher. He towers over everyone else at the table by a few inches, his body tight and trained, kept lean from his athleticism.
Why is he staring at me like that?
He catches the corner of his lip with his thumb, shifting his attention back to Camille, pulling her in and kissing the top of her head.
I'm happy for him.I am.
So why does it taste like soured milk?
***
Sleep is a lost cause, so I peel myself from the sheets at four-thirty.
My robe drops, and I do my best to hurry, squeezing into a bodysuit that chokes every curve. After tugging a beanie with its stupid pom pom over my hair, I sling my white goggles and ski mask around my neck.
Gear stacked in my arms, I drift through the hallway and down the stairs. Thankful that I didn’t wake Parker. Honestly, I’d rather not explain to him that the reason why I’ve become so reliant on that mountain is because it’s comforting to know that someone has folklore as lonely as my own.
I punch the elevator button. Again. Useless piece of shit. This is why someone needs to live here. Every electronic in this place withers away without daily attention.
Like me.
Footsteps clap against marble, and my hand stalls halfway through wrestling my glove on. Shit. Maybe I did wake him.
But the shadow is too large, too wide, too… Jameson. It could be Asher or Atlas. Impossible to tell without seeing ink. Half his face disappears behind a ski mask, already locked and loaded while my jacket sags open at my waist, clipped to my overalls. I look a dysfunctional mess.Valid.
He rips the mask to his neck, closing the gap between us. “I know why I'm out at five a.m.” His head cocks as he slides free from the shadows. “What's yours?”
Asher.
Forcing a laugh, I clear my throat. “Well, I'm a famous snowboarder, you see, so naturally I sneak out to shred at night and stash secret girlfriends away from my friends…”
His lip twitches. “Ah, she's got jokes.” Each step forward sucks the oxygen from my lungs, his proximity crushing the air between us. This here, this is why I need to re-evaluate my current friendship with him, because yes, okay, we have almost kissed a couple times, but this—all of this—somehow feels different. “And I didn't tell you because you never fucking asked.”
I’m going to ignore that jab.
My chin lifts after finally wrestling the glove over my knuckles. “You coming down? I mean, you do still remember the passcode from last year, right?”
He turns over his shoulder before resting back on me.
Please come with me.Even to just spend a moment convincing me that I didn’t imagine who you were before you went weird.
“Yeah, I do, but…”
