Boing.
“—without any snow to cushion me if I fall?”
Boing.
“Princess isn’t making her case well right now since she’s turned into a canine pogo stick,” I say. We all look at the dog in question.
Boing.
“I swear she’ll be professional when we give her the go-ahead,” I promise. “She’s just too excited now.”
“Also,” Hunter says. “Don’t you drive a motorcycle at seventy miles an hour pretty regularly?”
Rory glares at him. “Eighty. Fine. How do we do this?”
Once the next chairlift passes, I give Princess an “okay” and she leaps onto the upcoming bench before it even gets halfway around the bend. I get Rory into position, and when the seat hits the back of our legs, we sit.
Princess barks happily, but the chairlift swings a little as we take off and Rory grips my arms. “Hang on,” I say, “let’s get the bar down.”
Once we’ve got our shoes on the footrest and the bar over our laps, Rory eases up a smidge. Or at least, she lets go of me. I put my arms on the back of the chair as we sail up into the treetops.
After orgasms and breakfast yesterday, we walked Princess before I had to go into work. Fortunately I remembered to tell her at the last minute to keep this morning open to come hang out with my friends. Sunday Funday is a once-a-month ritual we have (yes, there’s even a group chat for it) where we get together and play games over brunch. The October one is particularly special because we time it with the foliage. It’s early in the morning, because most of us are kept busy during the day with the tourists, so that sucks, but it’s worth it to spend time with my favorite people.
Which now includes Rory.
It’s a warm day—no wind, plenty of sun—and the deciduous trees are full of color. Most of the trees are deep green pines on the mountain itself, but behind us, the valley stretches out, flush in yellow and gold.
It’s the perfect day for Sunday Funday.
“Wow,” Rory says, and my chest swells with pride as we rise up the mountain. “Is that where the ski runs are?” She points down below us where there’s a wide, bare path through the trees.
“One of ’em. It’s harder to see the runs when there’s no snow on the ground, and there are some cuts in the trees for utilities and such. Look over there.” I point out to the left, where there’s a sign approaching. “Watch behind us and you’ll see the trail names.”
We both look over our shoulder to see the sign that declares that the winding green, Odyssey’s Path, goes off to the left and the black, Fatal Attraction, heads straight down.
“And then over there,” I point up above the crossing and again to the left. “There’s a small sign. That’s one of the hiking trails that comes through.”
“Are there a lot of hikers?” Rory asks.
“Not as many as there used to be,” I say. “It’s peak season now though, with the fall foliage.” The competition for hiking trails is tougher than for its ski runs; there are many good trails in the area for hiking, but we’re closer to New York City than the other Catskills ski areas.
Rory’s quiet, gazing into the trees and admiring the view. Princess pants to my right side, whining occasionally from sheer excitement. She loves coming up to the mountaintop, especially because she knows Donny, Leo’s dog, will (probably) be there and she’ll get to play largely unsupervised.
“Is that . . .” Rory begins, peering into the trees ahead of us.
I look out and see exactly what she’s noticed. “A bra? Yup.”
“Why on earth would someone take off a bra up here? Wait, did they do it in winter?”
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a tradition. It’s not as popular here as some of the bigger places, where you’ll get whole trees full of bras and panties.”
“Bras and panties?” Rory stares at me, horrified. “How exactly does one get their underwear off in the cold without falling off a chairlift? Or getting their delicate parts frostbitten?”
“Delicate parts?” I ask, dropping my voice down. “Wasn’t very delicate last night.”
Rory flushes and shoves me lightly. “You know what I mean.”
“Huh. Well, it’s definitely trickier when you’ve got all your layers on but let’s see what I can do here.” I start to unbutton my jeans.
