“Then I’m your first.”
More blushing because we both know it’s not about breakfast. I want to fuck her, and I breached her space bubble. “Cheers.” I lift my cup and sit next to her.
She clicks her cup with mine and drinks her orange juice, then puts it down, and smacks her lips. “Forks.”
Fuck. I groan and stretch over the bar, looking underneath, finding packed plastic cutlery in a bowl I left here last time I stayed. I sit down and catch her lifting her eyes from my ass up to my face. She was checking me out. This is going well for me.
We eat quietly because we’re both hungry and because we’re strangers. I presume some of the reality has set in for her while I’ve dealt with mine and moved into action already. Most people take a while to process their reality. I’m not most people, or I’d be dead.
Isla cleans up, tossing the leftovers into the garbage, then joins me by the window.
The snow stopped falling, the skies cleared, and the sun shines over the infinite white landscape interrupted by the few people skiing down the professional route not a mile from the house.
“Stefan,” I introduce myself.
She nods, and as I watch her profile, she stares ahead. “What now?”
“We hit the slopes.”
She turns her head sharply, her eyes wide. “I can’t ski or snowboard. Maybe we can sled?”
I purse my lips. “I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”
“It’s fun.”
“Let’s do it.” I find my phone in my pocket, get it out, and call Mr. Homer, then tap my foot when I’m sent to voicemail. I call again. I call three times before he finally picks up.
Isla looks at me expectantly. She’s nice and pretty, and I pick up a lock of her hair, winding it around my finger, treating it like a yoga exercise so I don’t bark at Homer for making me call a hundred times. “Did you go to the store?” I ask him. I pay him to care for the house and to get shit stocked for when I come back.
“Not yet, Ludi.”
“Grab things for dinner too.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I mute the line. “Do you have any allergies?” I ask her.
She widens her eyes, then shakes her head.
“She eats everything,” I tell him and hang up.
Isla laughs as I grab her jacket, throw it over her shoulders, and head for the door. “We’ll get the snowsuits and other shit at the bottom.”
She pushes her arms through the jacket sleeves, follows me out the door and down the steps, and we’re off to the slopes.
“What and where is the bottom?”
“You’ll see.”
The bottom iswhat I call a tiny town set up exclusively for tourists. Two motels, three private lodgings, a few shops, and amain house with a restaurant attached to a place where people can rent or buy everything they need for their winter vacation. We’re in line with families.
Excited kids run around everywhere, and I’m just waiting for one of them to slip and fall or run into my leg and knock his or her teeth out. Isla hops in place, and although we’re indoors, her breath fogs the air as she blows into her fisted hands.
I move her to stand in front of me, grab her hands, and, along with mine, shove them into her pockets. Her body, pressed against mine, goes taut, and I slide my thumb over her smooth cold skin. I know I’m coming at her like a semitruck, but she’ll get used to it, and frankly, she can always tell me to fuck off. I accept fuck-offs, though if she told me that, I’d try a little more and a little harder.
I like her. She rolls with the day and her circumstances. I can appreciate that.
The girl at the counter wears a beanie. Purple locks stick out from under it. She smiles as we step up. “How can I help you?”
