Page 38 of Born in the Spring

I got ahead, of not just myself, but of her, with my longer legs and overeagerness, and had to slow down when the crunch of snow became louder in her catching up.

“Why aren’t we taking the lift?” She asked with a tone like she understoodwhywe weren’t, but wanted to hear my different thinking from my brother’s. Which told me she wasgoing to let him take her up to Cyrus’s Bow for his own benefit.

I scoffed over Shepherd, then teased her overhisthought process. “Not unless you want me to just push you down from the top and see how it goes.”

Her laugh was deadpanned. “That must’ve been in Shepherd’s plans.”

I nodded, playing off of her. “He has a lot of faith in you.”

She looked at me with side-eyed skepticism, and I was already smiling at just the sight of it. “So this means you don’t.”

“None.”

Her laugh now was real, bringing out mine, and when I glanced back at her, after getting ahead again, I couldn’t see any traces left that she’d just been let down.

“This is the beginner slope,” I told her, with more scoff in my voice and less tease over my brother, as I flourished the wide open, flatter and calmer area of Emmy’s Blanket.

“I know,” Elara said, confirming my assumption, with some amusement still on her face, but now with an edge that told me I should probably tame my mocking of the night she was supposed to have.

But I couldn’t.

“I’m giving you a real lesson,” I added. Not aboyfriendlesson—verytouchy-feely, with more horsing around than actually learning the board.

Thatis what I assumed were Shepherd’s plans.

Elara placed her board down on the snow, then eyed mine with a curve in her lips I always had to fight against softening with my own. “It was that time, huh?”

I held my board out between us with her attempt to draw me to it, but I was too drawn to her, to the fact that she noticedI’d gotten a new one. A new one that looked very similar to my old one. I had a type. And I’d been riding it harder, and it was getting flat, the edges worn down. I couldn’t keep the control. . .

She noticed.My thoughts sang, sayingthat Shepherd might have held Elara’s gaze the most out here, but her eyes were also following me.

She tugged the board from my grip, her hand running over the finish with such an admiration, I almost chuckled. I’d also never wanted to be a board more in my life.Everup until that point.

I stepped into her space as my hands joined hers on the board, and she blinked up at me, her caressing motions halting and giving me back some sanity. I kept my eyes connected with hers as long as I could, because I knew she wouldn’t. “I kind of need this.” My voice was air around the gibe as she took my breath from me. Her gaze was next, as she handed off my board with an agreeing smile and a nod, my hand sliding closer to hers, until that was gone too.

I stepped back, my next breath a cold blast to my lungs, and we got started.

To practice, I had her strap in her dominant foot, leaving her other free to walk with the board, to get her accustomed to the feel of the board on the snow.

After dragging this out for a minute, she gave me a look that said,really?And I laughed, moving us into both feet on the board for the basics.

I showed her how to lower her heels to increase speed, and how to move onto her toes to stop. Her hand was in mine the entire time, as she lifted her feet and went into her skids, our skin warming by the contact with each other’s. My body washeated by the sheer concentration in her eyes, the focused bite of her lip, the smile that stretched both, that she pointed up to me, the more she learned.

I didn’t need the fire at the main lodge. Elara was the fire. She was every beat and every break of my heart. My love for her never lessened just because my brother had her. If it were any guy but him, I would’ve done everything I could to steal her away. And not just for a night on the slopes.

But we still had those moments like this. I still stole her away in small ways. Stole herback, in this case, on this night.

Once her skids transitioned into smooth slides, I walked with my arms out to catch her in case of a slip. Which came back-to-back as we moved on into turns.

I never outwardly laughed when people fell on the board. Face and ass plants were something that gave me that knee-jerk amusement, but I kept it down when I was in teaching mode. There were enough educators inside four walls that made kids and adults feel like they weren’t good enough, or they wouldn’t get what they were being taught, and I wasn’t bringing that to their time with me.

But Elara howled every time she fell over, her joy echoing through the night, and into me. She gave up—or gave in to not mastering turns tonight, and leaned into the fun she was having flopping all over the place.

I started falling too, and it wasn’t all on purpose just to keep her smiling. She was a beautiful and, at this moment, chaotic distraction that had me following all of her leads now.

Our final fall was onto our backs in the snow, her shoulder touching mine as her laughter sputtered out toward the moon. Our helmets were off, and her fanned out hair tickled my nose as I watched her. My ear was in the snow and I again couldn’tfeel the cold.

She turned her head my way, meeting my eyes for a second before she looked back at the sky. “That was fun.” The words were breathed with the rising and falling of her chest, her throat bobbing on a swallow. “How’d I do?” she asked with more strength, cheeky, that put creases in mine with the trace of her chaotic joy that unhinged me.

---