I shifted directions to go help her up, but instructor Ken made it there first. I saw him try to explain how to get up, then watched as she tried and failed a few times.
He then stood in front of her skies, grabbed her hands, and pulled her up. She shot up quickly and scrambled for purchase, which she found in his arms.
She noticed me coming and pushed off quickly, which pissed me off even more somehow. “How are the lessons, darling?” I asked.
She looked shocked for a moment, but didn’t say anything.
“You must be the boyfriend,” instructor Ken said. “She told me about you.” Something about that made my chest heat, but itwas probably the anger I was still feeling seeing his arm around her waist.
“I am. We’re taking a break if you want to join, then I’ll come ski with you. I don’t think we’ll need your service anymore.”
They both looked confused. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I was scheduled for the whole day?”
“I can take it from here,” I assured. “And whatever else you had scheduled with us. It’s not needed.”
I could figure out how to teach her how to ski. How hard could it be?
He turned to Juniper. “I’ll be around all day if you need any more help.”
She opened her mouth, but I snapped out, “She won’t.”
He left and it was just the two of us there. She was glaring at me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t like the way he looked at her, the way he touched her, the way he breathed in her direction. I didn’t like any of that.
“You didn’t need to be rude,” she insisted.
“I wasn’t rude,” I said.
“You were rude,” she said. “You were rude to him and to the worker yesterday. You should try being nice sometimes.”
I scoffed as we began to walk towards the lodge. “I’m plenty nice.”
“Sure,” she drawled, rolling her eyes.
“I’m nice to you,” I pointed out. And I was. Mostly.
“When you feel like it,” she agreed. “You could try it with others.”
I huffed. What had being nice ever done?
We reached the lodge and traded our ski boots for regular ones as we met everyone at the bar. They were all there, sipping spiked hot cider.
“There you are,” Rachel said to Juniper. “I was worried this one carried you off like a caveman after seeing you with skiinstructor Ken. He really looked like you could buy him straight from the shelf.”
Even Rachel thought he looked like a Ken doll. I could feel my face heat, glad we’d come in from the cold so it wasn’t obvious.
Juniper gave me a side glance, but didn’t say anything more. “No, I just needed help getting my skies off,” she said, joining the table. It was nice that she covered for me and didn’t bring up my angry outburst.
We ordered drinks and hung around chatting. Juniper really got along with everyone. Rachel loved her, which made sense because they were both so social. Samuel loved reaming me and she would join in easily, which made them get along. She even talked to Arthur about tech-y stuff. I was surprised she hadn’t brought her app up to him yet.
It was strange. I’d never considered anyone I’d dated would meld well with my family. I knew they would smile when they should, and laugh when they should, but I assumed that would always be fake. But Juniper just fit so seamlessly. Though what mattered was the fake part, just a means to an end, it was nice to pretend, even if only for a little while.
“I don’t know how you guys went more than once,” Juniper said, pulling me from my thoughts. “I only went down twice and my calves are on fire.”
“Yeah, my thighs are feeling it,” Rachel commented. “Wait! We should all go into the hot tub! It’s the best way to recover from skiing.”
“Sounds nice,” Juniper said. “We can use the one at our place. It’s out on the deck.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Ours is in the room and we probably don’t want to go there. We’ve already used it.” Rachel said with a wink.
