Page 16 of The Season
There’s no point in denying it, not when he works in kids’ ski school with me. Except, unlike him, I actually love teaching kids. Especially the little ones, like the class I had today. Little four-year-olds who follow you around like happy ducklings. Little kids with helmets so big, when they look up at the sky, they fall back like bowling pins in the snow. Little kids who can’t put their own fucking gloves on, but can learn to bomb a black diamond in a matter of weeks if you teach them right.
I took extra training back in New Zealand just so I could teach kids under five—learned how their little minds work and what techniques to use to get them skiing. How to use play and games and even damn nursery rhymes to teach them how to get from a wedge christie to parallel turns.
“Quel bordel,” Antoine mutters, his arms resting on the table. “I’m so sorry.Putain. I can’t even imagine…”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Good for fucking him. Glad he can’t imagine it. It’s all I can think of at the moment.
The sound of the kids’ mum as she came running up from the base of the learners’ slope, the feel of her fists against my chest again and again. The sound of the snowmobile as mountain patrol arrived, their meaningless words as they tried to calm that poor woman down…
“Is there anything stronger to drink than this shit?” I ask, tapping my fingers on the beer in front of me. “I’d rather drink horse piss than fucking Utah beer.”
Antoine furrows his brow, then shakes his head. “No. We’d need Seth to go to the liquor store if you want something else. It shuts at 4 p.m. though.”
Of course. Because apparently grown-ass adults aren’t allowed to buy alcohol in this country, and both Antoine and I are on the wrong side of twenty-one.
I give what I mean to be a grunt of dismay, but it catches in my throat.
“I’ll text him.” Antoine assures me. “Ask him to go past the liquor store on the way from the mountain. It should still be open…”
He pulls out his phone, long fingers tapping furiously. “We should really have a group chat,” he muses. Because of course he’s one of those freaks who can text and talk at the same time. “Just for our flat. To organize things like this.”
I snort, because Seth was saying the same thing last night, and I distinctly recall Antoine peering up from whatever science-fiction novel he was reading and saying: “Why would I want to hear what all you idiots are texting each other? You know I would just mute that shit.”
Good to know the sight of me solo drinking shitty beer is terrifying enough to make Antoine change his mind.
Antoine fires off a couple of texts, his phone pinging in reply a moment later.
“Seth said he’ll pick up bourbon. He’s catching a lift home with Lily and Matty.” Antoine’s fingers drum nervously on the table, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that he’s not texting. “They should be home in the next half hour.”
That’s right. I forgot everyone else was moving in today. Lily, Tom, and Liam. My stomach clenches at the thought of having to face any of them. Of letting them—especially Liam—see me like this.
I scrub one hand over my face.
Antoine’s phone pings again, brow dipping as he reads the text before releasing a shaky breath. “That was Seth.” Antoine gives me what he probably thinks is a reassuring smile. “He said to tell you the two kids are stable. Apparently, everyone is talking about it at ski school, and management agrees it wasn’t your fault. You did everything by the book…”
His words fade against the ringing in my ears.
Stable. Stable.The word brings with it the beeping of hospital machines, the smell of bleach and Listerine, sneakers squeaking against linoleum, the flicker of fluorescent lights, the pinch of tape from my IV line...
I tip back the last of my beer, swallowing back half the bottle at once, even though I might as well be drinking water. Even though it’ll just make me feel full without taking the edge off.
It certainly won’t be enough to erase the childhood memories I’ve spent the past twelve years trying to forget.
“I’m gonna go sort out my room,” I mutter, interrupting whatever it was Antoine was saying, rising so abruptly, my thighs clip the edge of the table. “You know, make sure there’s space for Liam to move his stuff in.”
* * *
By the time Seth,Matty, and Lily arrive, I’m just getting off a call with my manager—the same Kiwi who recruited me to come to Utah for the season, as luck would have it. She tells me what Antoine did—that I’m not in trouble, that the mountain is handling everything, that I’m not allowed to talk about the “incident” to anyone outside the ski school and, most importantly, that the kids are going to be okay.
Okay. Okay.
I run that word over and over in my head, even as I want to scream at her. Especially when she tells me the extent of their injuries. How will they ever be fucking okay after what happened to them? Even when their little bodies heal, they’ll have the memories with them forever.
Like I do.
“You can take a couple days off,” she tells me, her voice pitched low with sympathy. I know she means it too. She’s one of the good ones. “Take some time to recover from everything.”
I grit my teeth, holding my phone a little too tightly as I take in her words. Taking time off is a bad idea. The last thing I need is more time alone with my thoughts.
