Page 57 of Snowed In

Wait. That doesn’t make sense. I’m still talking to Sheila.

“Oh, great. I think I’m fucking lost,” I moan.

“That’s not funny, West,” she says sharply.

“I’m not kidding.” I press on my brakes, my stomach swooping as I feel my tires slide on the slick road. “My GPS seems to have bit the dust, and I don’t know where my turnoff is.”

“Could you have passed it?”

“I don’t see how!” I exclaim. “There’s literally nothing up here. There’s no way I missed the turnoff for this place unless they have zero signage.”

“Maybe you should just turn around and come back down the mountain.”

I shake my head. “I know I’m almost there. I have to be.”

“I don’t like this,” she says, worry thick in her voice. I hear someone say something in the background, the deep voice no doubt belonging to her fiancé. “Gregg agrees. He says, ‘Your job isn’t worth your life.’”

I roll my eyes, even though I kind of agree with them. “I’m supposed to be the dramatic one here, not you two.”

“West…”

I cut her off before she can convince me to blow up my life and turn around. “I’m almost there. I’m sure of it,” I say again, creeping along the road and trying to find any sign for the Aiguille Resort or a turn.

“Well, don’t hang up until you get there, or else I won’t be able to sleep tonight night. I’ll be worried your car is tumbling down the side of the mountain.”

“Thanks for that colorful image,” I say dryly.

“Well, it’s the truth.”

I can’t help but smile at her shrill tone. “I won’t hang up, I promise. You can keep me entertained until I get there. What are you and Gregg doing for New Year’s?” I ask, trying to distract us both.

“We don’t really have set plans yet,” she hedges, but there’s something in her voice that tickles my brain.

“Sheila Rose, did you just lie to me?”

“…no.”

“Well, that was convincing,” I say. “Spill it.”

“We promised we wouldn’t tell anyone until after.”

“Tell anyone what? Until after what?” I say, straining to see if the curve ahead has the turnoff I’m looking for, and then her words click in my brain, and I gasp. “Are you two fucking eloping?”

The silence is all I need.

I shriek with delight. I’d clap my hands if I wasn’t terrified to take them off the wheel. “Oh my God, you bitch. You’re getting married without me?

She laughs. “Well, my parents said they’re not coming, and his mom is being—” Gregg says something in the background, but I can’t quite make it out. She snorts. “I’m not calling her that, even if it’s true.”

I can only imagine what Gregg, the salty-mouthed tattoo artist, had to say about his rude and controlling mother, especially if she’s turning that rudeness on Sheila, who Gregg loves to an almost disgusting degree.

“I’m sorry your parents still haven’t come around,” I say softly.

Her relationship with them has never been great, but I was still shocked when she told me when we were FaceTiming a few months ago that her parents had basically disowned her because Gregg had gotten her pregnant. I’d known that she’d grown up in a conservative household, but I hadn’t realized just how bad it must have been until that moment. She generally downplayed it, rarely telling me about her family or childhood, and that had been the moment when I realized why.

“Yeah, me too,” she says just as quietly.

“Don’t you still need witnesses?” I ask, unable to handle her being sad at the moment. “I can come with you wherever you’re going.”

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