We both looked at Loretta hopefully. Lauren did have a point. Not that I had ever planned to hit the slopes on this trip before making my list with Christopher, but it did feel kind of lame being here and never venturing up the mountain.
“We still haven’t found something for Tess to wear on New Year’s Eve. And we have reservations for high tea this afternoon, remember,” Loretta replied.
I exchanged a look with Lauren. Loretta now had on her no-nonsense look—raised chin, lowered eyelashes. There was no combatting that.
“Your granddaughters were nice enough to offer to accompany me, Ms. Sachs,” Carina said, jumping in. “As you know, my father has been otherwise occupied since we got here, and I’m still pretty much a novice. I think having them out there with me will be a tremendous help.”
I stared at Carina. Lauren stared at Carina. What the hell was this? And how did she know my grandmother well enough to start trying to talk her into things?
“Oh. I see. Of course, Miss Granger.” Was Loretta…flustered? “Girls, please do make sure this guest has everything she needs.”
“Um…okay,” I said. “We will, Loretta.”
“Have fun, all of you.” Then she took my hand and held it tightly, looking into my eyes. “And Tess, remember what happened to your friend Christopher. Stick with your sister and be careful.”
“Okay,” I said warily. The intensity she was giving off was weird. And, well, intense. Like she was trying to tell me something else. Something she didn’t want to say in front of Carina, maybe?
She held my gaze for an extra second, until it got really uncomfortable. Then she finally gave us a quick nod and turned to go. She greeted other guests on her way out, as she always did, but something about her posture seemed off. It was almost like she was disappointed—more than that—crestfallen. Was it that big a deal that she was going to miss high tea?
Or was it that big of a deal that she wasn’t going to spend the afternoon with us? Was Loretta…lonely?
Or maybe she was just really worried I was going to get hurt out there. A thought that did not make me any more confident about this whole black diamond idea.
“Okay, how did you do that and can you teach us your magic?” Lauren asked Carina.
Carina smirked, but looked at me. “Let’s go eat before this gets cold. We’re going to need sustenance if we’re going skiing. Plus we need to talk about book one.”
“Over here!” Damon called out from the end of a table nearby, waving me and Carina down.
And together we walked off, leaving my sister behind all by her lonesome.
Not on my list, but for sure another first in my life.
* * *
• • •
I was not dressed for skiing, so I went back up to our room to change, and quickly checked off one more item from the list: Strike up a conversation with a stranger. (Thanks to my big leap on the omelet line with Carina.) Look at that. I hadn’t meant to go in any kind of order, but I’d checked off the first four tasks on the list anyway. The next one was: Make out with a guy whose last name I don’t know. I blushed and shoved the list away. Not quite ready to think about that one just yet. In fact, if I was going in order, that definitely should have been last.
The thing was, I wasn’t much of a kissing person. Or a dating person. Or a person who attracted members of the opposite sex. I’d been kissed before. At a party at my friend Isabel’s last year, we’d played a fairly lame game of spin the bottle where I’d landed on Alex Fletcher, which made basically everyone jealous because he’s the hottest guy in my class. We’d kissed for exactly sixty seconds, and it had been completely underwhelming. All slobbery and awkward. Then, this past fall, I’d gone out with Frankie Pintaro for a whole month, and we’d done some stuff. Nothing super interesting, though. He was sweet and cute, but I didn’t have huge feelings for him or anything, which made the whole thing kind of meh.
So, I wasn’t exactly experienced, and I wasn’t one of those girls who could just see a cute guy at a party, make out with him, and move on. I had nothing against the girls who could do that. I just wasn’t built that way. I was either too shy or too tense or too type A, I guess, for random smooching. I wanted a connection with someone before I kissed him.
Like the connection I had with Christopher. Had he really been about to kiss me yesterday? The more time passed, the more certain I was that I’d imagined the whole thing. But I really wanted to kiss him. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t count for the list, since I already knew his last name.
It seemed I was going to have to get over this whole connection thing. At least I would if I was going to complete my list.
The door to the room opened just as I was pulling on my ski pants, and I gave a yelp.
“It’s just me!” Lauren said, but closed the door quickly. “Sorry. I figured I’d check if you needed help.”
“Getting dressed? I’ve kind of been doing that on my own for a while now.” I zipped up the hidden zipper and tucked my base layer turtleneck in.
“No, I mean…Damon’s totally into you. You know that, right?”
My body heat skyrocketed so fast, I was super glad for the sweat-wicking fabric I’d just put on. “What? No, he’s not. What are you talking about?”
I went into the bathroom to slather sunblock on my face, which already looked sunburned thanks to all the embarrassment. Lauren followed. She leaned against the doorjamb, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yeah, he totally is.” She smiled at my clearly flustered self as I shoved a headband into my hair and it fell right off the back of my head. “Sheesh. Calm down. He’s just a guy.”
“Just a hot guy,” I blurted out. “Possibly the hottest I’ve ever met.”
“After Tarek,” she said, sidling into the room. “Or maybe third, after a certain blond dude in a leg cast?”
She reached for a lip gloss wand and raised one eyebrow at me in the mirror.
Christopher. My heart fluttered at the very thought of him. Maybe I should tell Lauren about the almost-kiss? I bet she’d have some advice. But what if I’d imagined the whole thing? What if Christopher didn’t even know I existed as anything other than a person to distract him from his boredom? He’d bailed right after I’d sung my karaoke song last night and hadn’t texted me all morning. Was that the way you treated someone you wanted to kiss? I tugged my phone out of my side zip pocket now just to check, and nope. Nada.
“I don’t…I mean…I just met Christopher. And I’ve said two words to Damon.”