“It wasn’t—I didn’t even mean to send it. I was spiraling, but we… we worked it out.”
“Clearly,” Sky said, gesturing vaguely at the couch with a traumatized expression, “Thoroughly. On the furniture. Where people sit.”
“My couch. I can use it how I want,” Teddy said, earning a disgusted groan from the girls.
“Gross, Dad,” Addie muttered before narrowing her eyes at both of us. “Seriously, we tried calling and texting y’all like a hundred times, and when no one answered, we thought you two must have gotten into some massive fight.”
“So naturally,” Teddy said, crossing his arms, “you decided to drive five hundred miles from Lubbock. Makes sense.”
“About that,” she started, then stopped, clearly trying to figure out how to explain. She and Sky exchanged a look that put me on high alert immediately. I recognized that guilty expression—it was the same one they’d worn after spilling a bottle of red nail polish on the living room carpet.
Something wasn’t adding up. I’d sent that text hours ago, right before Teddy distracted me with his declaration of love and invitationto move in. They would have had to have left Lubbock the second they received it.
“Wait. Did all the special orders get delivered?” I asked, my internal mom-manager mode kicking in despite everything.
“Kels, there are folks still stranded out at DIA,” Teddy said, staring at me like that was supposed to mean something. “Even if the girls miraculously found a flight on Christmas Eve, I-70’s shut down at the Eisenhower Tunnel.”
I raised my shoulder in a half-shrug, trying and failing to make the connection in my sex-addled brain. “Not sure what the airport has to do with customers in Lubbock getting their orders.”
“Because the girls weren’t in Lubbock,” he said gently, his eyes tracking between our daughters and me. “It’s a nine-hour drive in good weather. 50, along with damn near everything else south of Summit County, is shut down; they’d have made it as far as Pueblo before having to turn around.”
Sky suddenly became very interested in the tree, and Addie’s face went through several expressions—panic, calculation, resignation—before she straightened her shoulders. “Okay, fine. We haven’t been in Texas.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Teddy replied dryly. “Care to tell us where you actually were?”
“We’ve been here,” Addie admitted with a heavy sigh. “In Summit Ridge.”
The words hung in the air for a moment while I tried to make sense of them. “You’ve been... what?”
“We got in the day before you did,” Sky added, wincing. “We’ve been staying at the ski resort.”
“The ski resort,” I repeated slowly, feeling like I was still several steps behind in a conversation I should have been helping Teddy lead.
Addie nodded. “We just—we had this plan, and we thought if we could get you and Dad in the same place for a few days, you could reconnect. Really reconnect?—”
“Mission fucking accomplished,” Teddy muttered, sidestepping me before I could elbow him in the ribs again. “You commandeer a snowplow as part of your little con, too, Addie Grace?”
“No, a Sno-Cat!” Sky answered, her face lighting up with the glee of someone who—according to her—’had the tea.’
“You what?” I exclaimed, already mentally working out if Teddy’s connections would be enough to keep our daughters out of jail for auto theft or whatever the hell a Sno-Cat would be classified as.
“Cal gave us a ride on his Sno-Cat,” Sky said, then shot a pointed look at her sister. “From the resort. He was very concerned about Addie’s safety.”
Addie made a show of adjusting her glasses to hide the red creeping into her cheeks. “He was being polite. He works there; it’s his job to?—”
“Yeah, I didn’t see him offering to let any other guests take a ride on his Sno-Cat.” Sky waggled her eyebrows suggestively, just in case no one in the room understood the euphemism. “And on Christmas Eve afternoon, when I’m sure he had about a million other things to do.”
“Shut up,” Addie hissed. “He’s just a stoner ski bum.”
“A cute stoner ski bum, though,” Sky continued, undeterred. “He’s, like, this blond mountain god type with really good bone structure—like Chris Hemsworth playing Thor if he gave up Asgaard for snowboarding. And I think he’s in love with our little Addie Waddie.”
“He is absolutely not. I barely interacted with the guy.”
“Barely interacted? Yesterday, you talked for three hours straight about books. He has opinions about Dostoevsky, Addison! Dostoevsky!”
“I will murder you in your sleep.” My eldest daughter—always so composed, always so in control—was completely unraveling over a ski bum with opinions about Russian literature.
“Cal drove you,” Teddy cut in. “As in, Callan Wright?”
