1
A Frosty Welcome
My grip on the steering wheel tightens as I brace myself for sudden death at any moment. I’m used to the snow and the cold. Winters are brutal where I grew up. Hell, the winters at Columbia University the last three years weren’t kind to me either. But up here, making one small move on the side of a mountain could be the end for me.
My flight didn’t get in until nine, so I haven’t seen the vast wonderland of one of Colorado’s most luxurious ski towns. I can barely see the road in front of me. After a two-hour delay in New York, a near four-hour flight, a three-hour layover in Denver, and another hour connection to Aspen, I’m done with traveling for a while. Luckily, I have two weeks before classes start back up, and I get to do this all over again on my return flight.
Turning down another dark, snow-covered road, I can almost hear my pulse hammering in my chest. The directions on the dash tell me to turn right, but all I see is a snowbank twice as tall as my rental car.
Suddenly, blaring chimes fill the silence in the car, and I squeak in surprise. I grab my phone out of the cupholder and slide my thumb across the screen.
“Henry?” I answer, waiting for the warmth of my friend’s voice to greet me.
“Hey, Aspen. You finding your way all right?”
I throw my head back against the headrest in frustration, releasing an audible sigh.
“I take that as a no?” He laughs. “I told you, you should’ve flown in with me yesterday. Then, you wouldn’t be driving in the dark.”
I stubbornly refused his free first-class ticket out here when he invited me. Just because Henry is a rich trust-fund baby doesn’t mean I feel any more comfortable taking his handouts. That’s not how I was raised. My parents’ income didn’t include the extra zeros like Henry’s and his friends’ parents have. I can never shake the idea that other people’s money comes with strings even though I know Henry would never use it for manipulation. Staying at his family’s cabin for winter break still fills me with this uncomfortable guilt of not being able to return the favor, but I’m glad I don’t have to spend Christmas in my dorm. Besides, Henry is more like family to me now anyway.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“GPS is telling me I’ve arrived, but unless your cabin is a giant bunker of snow, I think I’m lost.”
“Shit. I forgot the plows were out earlier today. They must’ve blocked the main driveway. Keep going up around the hill. Take your next right and then the right after that. That’ll bring you in the back way. It should be cleared.”
“Well, I didn’t bring my snowshoes if it’s not.”
He chuckles. “I’ll come out there and rescue you on my skis if I have to.”
I turn the car ninety degrees to continue where he directed me. After I pass over the hill, warm twinkly lights covering dozens of trees begin to lead me up a driveway to a …house?
This issonot a house. This place should be pictured on the front cover ofLuxury HomeMagazine, Christmas edition. Either that or in some Hallmark movie.
“Um … Henry?”
“What is it? Are you okay?”
“I knew your family wasn’t going to have a quaint little log cabin in the woods butcome on. This is just showing off.”
“Aye, I see you!” he says eagerly. “I’ll be right out.”
As I shove my phone into my coat pocket, I scan the “cabin” in front of me with my mouth pretty much in my lap.
The door opens, and Henry jogs toward my car in a thick knit sweater and winter boots with untied laces.
“I’m so glad you made it,” he says as I climb out, quickly wrapping his arms around me. “Go and get out of the cold. I’ll grab your bags.”
“Oh, it’s just the one for me.”
I pull my duffel from the passenger seat, and he quickly takes it.
“You pack light.” Henry swings it over his shoulder.
The wind picks up, and I squeeze my arms tightly in front of me, trying to trap my heat.
“Come on, come on. It’s freezing out here!”
