Page 34 of Just Curious

“Eh. At least I didn’t try to do a backflip.”

“Why did you take so long to ski down? I was getting worried,” asked Willa.

Jackson let out a snort. “I’ve skied with Casey for years, and when Lorne said we’d be jumping, I thought I’d give my buddy here time to get out of the way after he crashed and burned.” Looking back up the slope he added, “And judging from the crater over there, I was right.”

With a put-on sneer Casey replied, “Ha-ha,” and then he joined Jackson laughing. “I haven’t quite mastered the ‘stay loose’ technique. Somehow I always end up on my ass.”

After two more spectacular runs, they decided to call it a day. Their muscles were tired, and a glass of wine in the hot tub was beginning to sound like heaven. Stefan picked them up and dropped them back at the resort, wishing them a pleasant evening.

The rest of the week in Canada was fantastic. Each day was sunny and warm enough to be comfortable, and they traveled farther and farther from the lodge each day to try out new mountainsides.

“I don’t know how I could ever buy another lift ticket after this,” announced Jackson one afternoon. “This is the best way to ski in the world. When we get to my house in Aspen, it might feel like we’re slumming after this experience.”

Casey laughed and said, “I seriously doubt that. When it’s done, that house is going to feel like a palace. And you can always charter a helicopter there too, you know.”

“Maybe I’ll buy one,” Jackson mused. “Nah, on second thought I’ll leave flying to the pros.”

“When is the house going to be done?” asked Willa.

“Probably in August. We can all go stay there for as long as you like. It’s gorgeous there in the summer too. I know how much you love the beach, but it’s a great change of pace. Pretty soon I’ll have to start hiring a staff.”

Willa raised her eyebrows at him.

Smiling, Jackson added, “Hey, it’s a lot of work being ridiculously rich, and I’m still getting the feel of it.”

Some of the guests liked to settle in the comfortable, opulent sitting room off the lobby after the dinner service was over. They congregated around the fire and swapped ski stories and anecdotes. There was plenty of laughter to go around. The various guides loaded their GoPro videos onto a large screen that ran continuously, and they all had a ball pointing out their runs to each other.

Willa, Jackson, and Casey joined the group several nights in a row. They usually sat together on a comfy couch, and although they didn’t really display out-and-out PDA, they looked pretty snuggly. Willa tended to sit in the middle, but if she picked a side, she alternated which of the guys she sat next to. Then someone would get up to get them drinks, and the configuration would change.

Finally, on their fifth night there, the woman who’d approached Willa on the first night apparently couldn’t stand the suspense any longer and asked Willa outright, “Pardon my nosiness, but are you a couple with one of these guys? And if so, which one? You seem pretty cozy with both of them.”

Willa smiled politely and said, “We’re all together.”

“Oh! So, you have two men?”

Casey piped up then and said, “She does, but we also have each other. What Willa means is that we’re a triad.”

The woman gave a tiny gasp and asked, “Like in a couple of your books? Wow.”

Looking at Casey and Jackson and then at the woman, Willa responded, “Sort of like that. I wrote the books before any of this happened, and this is real life rather than fiction, but it works for us. We’ve never been happier.”

“Wow,” breathed the woman once more. Then she locked her attention onto her husband.

He looked back at her wide, questioning eyes, raised his eyebrows, then laughed. “Not a chance.”

Jackson chuckled. “It’s not for everyone, but as Willa said, it works beautifully for us.”

Word spread quickly after that. They got a lot of curious looks from some of the other guests. A few of them got flirty, which made Willa wonder if these folks thought the three of them were down for an orgy or something. Fortunately, no one was rude enough to propose anything outright.

Flirtatious guests aside, most of the other resort-goers seemed unfazed by their arrangement, so the three of them relaxed and got more and more demonstrative with each other. Willa found it to be a relief to be able to express her feelings openly. She often hugged her guys or gave them quick kisses around other people. Jackson and Casey never went so far as to kiss publicly, but one might sling an arm around the other’s shoulders for a while.

The nights in their suite were the best. They headed to their private hot tub as soon as they pulled off their ski gear. It felt so decadent to sip a glass of wine, champagne, or beer, and stretch out their muscles in the steaming, bubbling water. Invariably, they would start smooching and make their way to bed. By the time they had to get ready for dinner, they all had happy, relaxed faces.

After dinner and visiting with the other guests, they would head back to bed and start the fun all over again. It was a two-bedroom suite, both with large king beds, but they picked their favorite room right away and all three of them stayed in it together.

They’d realized early on that Casey tended to move around while he slept, and Willa always needed to get up to pee in the middle of the night, so after much trial and error, it just worked out that Jackson, the quiet one who rarely moved a muscle, slept in the middle. A king bed worked pretty well for them, but Jackson had already decided to have a special, extra-large one built for the Aspen and La Jolla houses. He’d also changed the plan for the master suite’s closet. It would be expanded to service three wardrobes. And he requested, much to the Aspen builder’s confusion, to have three sinks in the monstrous en-suite bathroom. The shower was already enormous enough to provide enough room for all of them.

Casey was thrilled when he heard about Jackson’s plans and responded, “Thank you, Jax. That does a lot to make me feel... well… permanent.”

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