“I wouldn’t have had to lie if you didn’t make things so difficult for me all the time.”
His eyes narrow a fraction, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Why are you so horrible to me?”
“Please.” He laughs once. “Don’t think you’re so special. I’m horrible to everyone.”
“You’re not that horrible to Jesse, Luke, or Henry.”
“They don’t count.”
“There’s not one person in this world you care about other than yourself?”
Baylor looks down at his hands for a moment in thought and then quickly returns his attention to me with an even colder stare than before. If there is someone he does in fact care about, he isn’t going to share it with me.
“So, you don’t know how to carve?”
I sigh, shaking my head.
“How to stop?”
I shake my head again.
He nods because he already saw my graceful display and then stands up in front of me like it’s nothing. His hands grip my elbows, and I balance on his forearms as I get my board underneath me again.
“What are you doing?” I ask, sounding more ungrateful than I should.
He frowns. “Helping you.”
“Toward the nearest cliff?”
His lips tighten in a line as he suppresses a smile. “I mean, that’s one way off the mountain, isn’t it?”
I jerk my arms away from him.
He throws his head back and laughs. The sound he makes causes my stomach to flutter. “I’m joking! Come here.”
“Why? You got yourI told you somoment. Why aren’t you leaving me in your dust?”
“It’s either this or I have to explain to Henry how I left you up here. I don’t think that scenario would be good for either one of us, would it?”
He’s right. Henry would scold us both—Baylor for leaving me up here, me for putting myself in the situation. I’d get the worst of it because Henry wouldn’t have expected this from me. The only time I have ever lied to Henry was when I told him I’d never played poker, but that was also how we met, so he ended up seeing that as a positive memory, not a negative one. It’s an even better memory for me because I beat him.
If I don’t get down this hill soon, Henry will probably come back up here to get me, if he isn’t already on his way. I have no idea how long it takes to get down a freaking mountain. In my case, I might just have to accept the fact that this is my new home. I live here now. At least the view is nice.
Baylor smacks me once on the helmet. “Do you want to get off this mountain or not?”
I stare at him for a moment, anticipating him to burst out laughing because I fell for another one of his games but it never comes.
“So what you want to do is keep your weight centered. You ride goofy, so when—”
“Hey!” I frown.
“It’s not a bad thing, Aspen. You either ride regular or goofy. It just depends on what end of the board you lead with.”
“Oh.” I’d blush if my cheeks weren’t already red from the cold.
“I’m going to slide with you, and when I lean, I want you to lean with me.”
