Page 23 of Wishing on Snowflakes

Carly… can be a lot. She’s my sister, and I love her. That said, I can only handle her in small doses. She’s never had the best self-esteem and is more than a little boy crazy. She’s a slave to pretty much any guy who will show her attention and will fall apart in a fit of dramatics when it blows up in her face.

Me:Where are you?

I’m merely double-checking at this point. The Silver Lining is pretty much the it place for us locals.

Carly:The situation likely.

Drunk Carly and autocorrect do not get along.

Looks like I’ll be consoling Carly instead of playing trivia while I wait for Gwen.

Sure enough, when I arrive, Carly is sobbing into a White Russian in a giant glass mug.

“I’ve doneeverythingto sthow him that I’m a keeper!Hic!” Carly laments between sobs and hiccups while I awkwardly pat her shoulder and signal to Shawn. He’s already got an IPA in his hands. Must have known I was coming.

There. There.

“I even let him in my back door to show him how mush I care!” she wails a little too loudly, and I try not to vomit into my IPA.

“Shh! For Thor’s sake!” I look around with both hands out, signaling she should lower her voice. Drunk Carly also has no volume control.

“Why don’t men love me?” she sulks, taking hold of her straw. “Wasth wrong with me?” Her face crumples as more tears stream down her splotchy cheeks. She’s also not a pretty crier.

I sigh and rub small circles over her back. She’s a well-meaning person underneath. She’s always been kind, and she’s talented on the slopes. She caught on to snowboarding even quicker than I did when we were kids, and never once did she rub it in my face. She’s just seriously got to learn to love herself. She does whatever men want while they walk all over her, hoping that being in a relationship will give her some kind of self-worth.

“Carly…” I look for words I can string together for a reassuring, empowering speech, which I suck at. Maybe Gwen can help when she shows up. “Look,” I try again. “You’re a good person, and you put up with too much from people. You’re good-natured and an excellent snowboarder. You’ve got more going for you than you think.”

“I gith killer blowjobs.” She sniffs.

This time I do vomit in my mouth a little.

“I can thuck a ping-pong ball—”

“For fuck’s sake, Carly. If you don’t stop with the sex talk, I’ll just drop you at a fire station and let them deal with you.”

“Okay! Thorry!” she protests, wrapping her arms around my bicep. “Don’t go, justh thay here and tell me everything will be okay!” She snots on my shoulder while I roll my eyes to the heavens, taking a long pull of my beer. “I just thought we had something, but he won’t shtop trying to get back with histh ex. He says it’s just becuzth she has his snowboard, but—”

Wait a minute… this sounds way too familiar.

“Are you fucking serious?”a voice that normally sounds like angelic wind chimes in Rivendale shrieks from behind me, causing me to choke on my beer and sputter, raining IPA droplets all over the bar in front of me. I absentmindedly take a napkin from a nearby bar patron as I turn to the commotion and come face to face with a goddess… in space buns!

My dick is rising in my pants but frantically waving side to side, confused about which direction to go because this otherworldly vision does not look like she wants to do nice things to him.

Carly looks up at Gwen, squinting one eye as if she knows her from somewhere, the alcohol more than slowing her down.

“Hey, baby…” I test the waters, confused as shit about why my lovely girlfriend looks like she’s going to yank my sack off. Then Carly squeezes my bicep, reminding me that she’s stuck to me like one of those little red monkeys in a barrel.

“Ohhh…” Her beer goggles calibrate.

“I cannot believe this is happening again. Not only twice in one month,” Gwen rants on, gesturing at Carly for some weird reason, “but with the same sorry little hooch—”

“Hey!” Carly slurs. “Wasth the name-calling, you meanie!” She points a poorly aimed finger at Gwen, who ventures forth in her tirade.

“What are you, some kind of board bunny who’s gunning to see how many snowboarders she can bag?” she snaps, then she shifts those fierce green eyes to me. “And you. I’ll give you five seconds to explain what you’re doing here with her.” She throws her arm out, one finger pointed in Carley’s face.

My heart shatters when her ferocious front slips. Her plump pink lip folds under her teeth, and her eyes fill with tears.

“She’s my sister!” I sputter, dabbing at the beer still dripping from my chin while trying to get the words out in the precious allotted time she gave me.

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