Page 48 of Just For Her

Tove clicked her tongue and winked her left eye. “You’re catching on.”

Kayla was roped into helping her swap out the handmade quilt and the old but not yet threadbare sheets for the backups she kept in her own house back in Bend. Kayla recognized the black sheets from one overnight stay at Tove’s, but the slate gray comforter was from some different closet. It also brought down the mood of the room, but Kayla wouldn’t complain if it ensured they had something clean to sleep on.

“This way, we take these home with us when we leave. Put the old sheets back on, and boom. We’ve done the bare minimum of following the rules.”

“What happens if we don’t follow them?”

“Oh, God. Aunt Kiersten gives birth to a whole cow.”

“I mean, you said something about people bringing their dates here. Like me.”

“All the more reason to not bring a blacklight in here one day.”

Kayla scrunched up her face. Tove put the finishing touches on the newly made bed before approaching her girlfriend by the balcony door.

“There. All fresh and clean.” Tove loosely wrapped her arm around Kayla and brought her closer to the balcony. “We can now officially start our vacation.”

She was more excited than Kayla, but nobody could blame her. The woman had been working nonstop for the past six weeks. When she wasn’t eating TV dinners at her desk or catching up on new tax research while soaking in the bathtub, she was making quick love to Kayla before getting back to whatever client needed her next.

Now? She was finally allowed to relax and be herself for the next two days. The most surprising thing? How much Kayla appreciated seeing Tove enjoying herself as if she cared about her as more than a friend.

Didn’t she, though?

During what was probably the last major ski weekend of the season, Tove and Kayla headed up to Mt. Hood, determined to make the most of it.

Especially Tove, who lamented she hadn’t been skiing “since January” when she went with some cousin to Mount Bachelor. The skis in the back of her SUV were her own, but she promised to rent some for Kayla, who continued to claim she knew how to ski – and shelovedit.

I’m fucked.

The employee helping her into boots was the first to notice something was wrong. While Tove shot the breeze with a male employee, the woman fitting Kayla’s feet quipped that the black trails were a bit crowded that day. Kayla mentioned that it suited them fine since they wanted to avoid the easier slopes. When the employee kindly reminded her that the black and diamond trails were thehardones, Kayla swore she had said something different.

Crap, crap, crap.

There were several ways to get out of this without fessing up to an elaborate lie in the name of making Tove like her.Tell her you’ve been skiing before, but it’s been a long time.In truth, Kayla had never been skiing before. The closest she ever got was the Snowpocalypse of 2017 when a neighbor loaned his old skis to Kayla and Grady so they could more easily get to the grocery store and back. Kayla still spent most of her trek in ten feet of snow with her face planted in the ground before her.

This? This could getdangerous.

“It’s been a while since I did Heather Canyon…” Tove waited outside, bundled up in her ski outfit while perusing the trail map. “Eh, it’s been too long. I should work my way up to that one again. I still remember when my cousin Willy broke his leg, and he was pretty spry in those days. Never quite walked the same after that.”

Was Kayla’s face as frozen as it felt? Or had it turned beet red?

“Ridge Run is fun. Shall we try that one? I didn’t see too many people heading that way.”

“I’m up for anything,” Kayla said through gritted teeth.

Yet when she took one step forward with her poles, one ski slipped out from under her, and she nearly fell in front of a group of people on their way to the lifts.

“You okay?” Tove asked.

“Fine!” Kayla brushed aside her adrenaline. “Whatever trail you wanna do. Let’s do it.”

Tove’s gaze lingered before she firmly turned away, poles digging into the snow. “Let’s stick to Blue today.”

Kayla had no idea what these colors meant. She was afraid to ask. Much like she was slightly afraid of heights – something she didn’t realize about herself until she was sitting next to Tove and they were lifting into the air.

Don’t look down…Didn’t stop Tove from stealing a picture of the slopes below them. Nor did it stop her from snapping a photo of Kayla beside her. Although Kayla tried to smile, her stomach was so acidic from the harrowing view that she came the closest ever to confessing to Tove that this was a mistake.

“You all right?”

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