Page 3 of You, Me, & Après-Ski
“Spent too much time thinking about things I shouldn’t,” she replied, then finished off my whiskey with a harsh swallow.
“Ah.” I knew what that meant. What it promised. And the front of my pants tightened in response. When we slept together, it was to sate a need. To fill a void. To forget. To feel something other than utterly alone. So no, we weren’t in love, but we were only human. Cressida was sweet. Familiar. And the only ally I had in this entire mess. Between everything that had happened earlier and now this, my nerves were fried, my patience was thin, and my dick was rock hard.
I wanted her. Right the fuck now.
Tipping her chin up with a finger, I asked, “Tired?”
She regarded me for a moment, considering. “Not yet.”
“Get upstairs.”
Flashing a knowing smile, she did as I said.
We’d have our fun and drown in each other for the night like we had on so many other nights. But it didn’t change the fact we were both prisoners in this relationship, and the price of escape was far too high.
Chapter 2
VAL
“You’vegottobekidding me.”
“You’re the best we have, Val. It has to be you,” said Tess. “Besides, Nolan Keller’s grandfather asked for you specifically.”
Grumbling, I shoved a pair of rental ski boots onto the rickety shelf in the storeroom. It was three days after Thanksgiving and Hale’s Peak had just opened for the season. I frowned at the meager pile of returned rental gear. After days of consistent powder, we should have had more skiers.
“You think buttering me up is going to work?” I asked. It might. I liked Tess, my manager at Hale’s Peak for the past five years. I called her my honorary hippietía—she was always wearing colorful, billowy shirts and a tie-dyed bandanna to wrangle her copper ringlets. And Arthur Keller had taught me everything I knew about my beloved Hale’s Peak over countless coffee chats in the library. So while I loved the doting older gentleman like my ownabuelo, I didnotwant to babysit his playboy billionaire grandson.
“You’ll get a raise,” Tess said as she tossed some raggedy ski poles into a nearby barrel javelin-style.
“Of course I will. And I want a new board.” I rapped my knuckles against my old faithful Burton snowboard I’d inherited from my older brother. “Time for this one to retire.”
“I’ll try to negotiate but no promises,” said Tess. “And save your sass for Frankie. We need to make a good impression with Nolan. Keller Resorts has big plans for us, I hear. Maybe the life-changing renovation kind.”
My eyebrows slowly raised. That was new intel. Hale’s Peak had been slowly fading into the background for years, outshined by newer builds closer to Big Sky. But widespread updates could entice more tourists—which meant more tips. And boy, did I need the money. I heaved a long-suffering sigh at the prospect of toting around a straitlaced, butthead CEO, but it was half-hearted and Tess knew it.
Smiling at her victory, she said, “Lock up on your way out.”
Twitchy with agitation, I finished putting away the few rental supplies. I wanted to help Arthur, but being Nolan Keller’s personal guide? I wasn’t up to the task. Nolan had never shown his face here, and from my best friend Frankie’s daily gossip column recaps, I didn’t want him to. With a reputation for being a righteous asshole who’d fire someone for breathing too much—not to mention his notoriety for running through women and discarding them with the same frequency as a punctual German train, at least before he’d met his recent fiancée—I’d put Nolan Keller squarely in the “heartless billionaire” category. That was the lastkind of energy I wanted to douse myself in this season.
But even though Tess hadtechnicallyasked me, it wasn’t a request I could refuse.
Resigned to my fate, I zipped up the vintage ski jacket Tess had gifted me from her thrift store giveaway pile and ventured out into the cold. The Rocky Mountains pierced the snow-swollen sky and small groupsof skiers trickled into the bar for après-ski. I smiled at the familiar bench where mypapáhad first helped me lace up my snowboard boots, the little café where I’d tried coffee for the first time, the sandwich place wherepapáwould take me and my brothers after a day on the slopes.
Hale’s Peak was my one shining beacon in a childhood mired in sorrow. I loved it like a cherished family member. So yeah, maybe Tess had a point about me being the right person to show Mr. Stuffy CEO around.
Crunching down the shoveled walkway, I headed toward employee housing. When I stepped into the lobby, a blast of heat hit me like a wall. A fire roared in the hearth, and clusters of cushy chairs and couches sprawled about. Since it was after dinnertime, many of my coworkers lingered, chatting and playing games.
“Val!” Frankie called from a seat by the fire.
“Hey, how was it today?” I asked, shedding my jacket as I plopped into a vacant chair.
Frankie made a face as she poured me a glass of wine. “Abysmal. I was stuck with a pack of little hellions who didn’t know their left from right. I had to bribe them with Skittles to get them to stop calling me a poop head.”
I laughed into my drink. “Did any of them successfully ski down the hill?”
Tapping her manicured black fingernails against her glass, Frankie said, “No. But one of themdidsuccessfully take out my legs, and we all fell in a heap. Took me forever to disentangle our equipment. If I had known being a ski instructor meant working with kids all the time, I would’ve asked Tess for literally any other assignment.”
“You could work more shifts at the bar with me.” A tall teddy bear of a man in his mid-thirties slid into the seat next to Frankie. Between his flannel shirt and big beard, he resembled a true lumberjack.
