“You had it in your hand on our walk here.”
Dammit. “Why are you so concerned with what I left behind?” I deflected. “Don’t you have a black diamond to attend to?”
“Triple black diamond,” Josh corrected. “And I’m working my way up to it.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
His gaze turned assessing. “Wait,” he said slowly, his eyes raking over my form in a way that made my skin itch. “Do you know how to ski?”
“Of course I do.” Josh’s eyebrows rose further as monuments to his skepticism, and I added grudgingly, “Depending on how you define know.”
My ex-boyfriend Max taught me during that weekend when I was eighteen. I hadn’t touched a pair of skis since.
The anxiety expanded and ate at my nerves, but that didn’t stop me from glaring at Josh when he burst into laughter.
Instead of dignifying his mockery with a response, I turned and stalked away the best I could in my stupid ski boots. Angry puffs of snow sprayed up with each step.
“C’mon Jules. You love me, right?” Max kissed me and squeezed my ass. “If you loved me, you’d do this for me. For us.”
“It’s for security reasons, babe. In case he decides to press charges.”
“I promise I’ll never show anyone.”
Sweat trickled down my spine at the memories, but I forced them back into the box where they belonged before they could replay further. I’d already lived them once; I didn’t need to do so again.
“Wait.” Josh caught up with me, still laughing. The sound chased off the vestiges of my unwanted trip down memory lane, and for once, it didn’t make me want to slap him, though the next words out of his mouth did. “You’re telling me you dressed up in a ski outfit, rented skis, and came all the way down here…but you can’t ski? Why the hell didn’t you say anything earlier? You could’ve signed up for lessons or something.”
“I thought I could wing it.” It wasn’t the best plan, but it was a plan. Sort of.
“You thought you could wing skiing?”
My cheeks blazed. “Obviously, I changed my mind.”
“Yeah, good thing you did, or you would’ve probably died.” Josh’s laugh finally tapered off, but amusement lingered at the corners of his mouth and teased the dimple making a half appearance.
My stomach dipped. I’d never faced genuine amusement from Josh before. His smile, absent of sarcasm and maliciousness, was…disconcerting, even when it was only a quarter of a smile.
“I’m spending the rest of the day in the lodge, so don’t worry about me dying.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Maybe I’ll find a guy who can teach me how to ski.”
“Like the one you were eye fucking in the lobby?” he asked, his tone dry.
“Perhaps.” I didn’t deign to acknowledge the eye fucking part of Josh’s statement. He seemed strangely fixated on my brief interaction with a stranger, though the guy had been cute. Maybe I could track him down later. Flirting always perked me up, and I could use some action that didn’t come courtesy of my hand or battery-operated friends.
Josh rubbed a hand over his jaw, his brows tight and his cheekbones like slashes against the snowy background. “I’ll teach you how to ski.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
I paused, waiting for him to crack and gloat about how he’d fooled me, and how I didn’t really think he’d teach me, did I?
But the moment never came.
“Why would you do that?” My stomach swooped low again for no reason. “What about your beloved triple black diamond?”
Josh offering to help me made no sense, especially since he’d been going on about that freaking ski run all morning. If he taught me how to ski, we’d have to stick to the beginner’s bunny slope.
“I’m doing it because I’m a nice person. I love helping my sister’s friends,” Josh said smoothly. Right. And I was the Queen of fucking England. “Besides, skiing is skiing. Doesn’t matter the slope.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.” Even I, a novice, knew that.
Josh let out a long-suffering sigh. “Look, do you want to learn or not?”
“I’ll teach you how to ski.” Max’s teeth flashed white against his face. “Trust me. I won’t let you fall.”
My chest knotted. I hated that Max still plagued me in the present when he should be rotting in the past, where he belonged.
Because of him, I hadn’t gone skiing in seven years. It’d been an unconscious choice, but I hadn’t realized how deep the scars ran until now. Everything that reminded me of Max made me want to hurl, but maybe it was time to replace those bad memories with new ones.
I didn’t want ski lessons from Josh, but I needed them. They would be a distraction, and when I got like this—when my mind couldn’t stop obsessing over the past to the point where I drove myself crazy—distractions were the only lifeline I had.
“Fine.” I rubbed the sleeve of my jacket between my thumb and forefinger, taking comfort in the sensation of thick, sturdy material against my skin. “But if I die, I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you until the day you die.”
“Noted. I’m surprised you don’t know how to ski,” he said as we walked toward the bunny slope. “Thought you grew up near Blue Mills.”
Blue Mills was Ohio’s most famous ski resort, and it was located less than an hour’s drive from Whittlesburg, the Columbus suburb where I grew up.
“My family wasn’t big on skiing.” I zipped and unzipped the top of my jacket to release some of the restless energy pouring through my veins. “We didn’t have the money for it even if we were.”
I wanted to snatch back the accidental admission the second it left my mouth, but it was too late.
A frown carved itself into Josh’s forehead.
He knew I’d attended Thayer undergrad on a need-based scholarship, but what he and even my closest friends didn’t know was how bad it’d been in the early years, before my mother married Alastair. And they sure as hell didn’t know how much worse it got after she married him, even though Alastair had been the richest man in town.
“You don’t talk much about your family.” Josh skipped over the part about us not being able to afford skiing—a tiny kindness I hadn’t expected but was nonetheless grateful for.
“There’s not much to talk about.” I bit the inside of my cheek until a faint coppery taste filled my mouth. “Family is family. You know how it is.”
A shadow crossed his face, dimming the light in his eyes and erasing any trace of his dimple. “I don’t think my family situation is a common one.”
I suppressed a wince.
Right. Psycho father who tried to kill Ava twice and who was now serving life behind bars. Not common indeed.
Michael Chen had seemed so normal, but the biggest monsters always lurked beneath the most unsuspecting guises.
Josh and I didn’t speak again until we arrived at the bunny slope.
“We’ll run through the basics first before going up the hill,” he said. “Don’t need you crashing into a poor child and traumatizing them. Lucky for you, I’m an awesome teacher, so this shouldn’t take too long.”