Christopher looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but then his face shut down and he looked away. “You know what? Forget it. It’s nothing. Have fun.”
“No, no, no. There’s no ‘forget it’ now.” There was a tight, panicky feeling rising in my throat. “Christopher, what’s going on?”
He glanced over at the door, then shifted forward slightly on the couch and leaned toward me. “He’s the guy,” he said urgently, his voice low.
“What guy?” I asked, baffled.
“The guy who ran me off the mountain,” he said. “The guy who broke my leg.”
My heart completely dropped. “What? No! Damon?”
“Sorry, but it’s true.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my mind whirling. I had pictured the guy who ran Christopher off the mountain. In my head he was a big, jock-y jerkface with a square chin and an evil laugh. He was completely not Damon. “Why didn’t you mention this last night?”
Christopher’s cheeks went pink. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in front of the guy. Besides, I didn’t think you were going to end up skiing with him. I mean, of all people.”
“This is insane,” I said. “I just can’t imagine—”
“You don’t believe me?” Christopher demanded. “Because he—”
Suddenly he clamped up and sat back against the couch cushions again. I felt someone walk up behind me and knew it was Damon before he even said my name.
“Tess! You ready to go?” He glanced dismissively at Christopher. “What’s up, man?”
Christopher said nothing. I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe that I was finally going to ski a black diamond, and I was going up the mountain with a reckless jackass who had not only caused a serious injury, but seemed to have no remorse about it. He hadn’t apologized to Christopher at karaoke last night. He’d barely said anything.
Was it possible Christopher had somehow misinterpreted what had happened on Christmas? Maybe this whole thing was just a misunderstanding and Damon was entirely innocent.
“Come on, Tess!” Lauren and Carina shouted from across the lobby, their voices echoing off the high ceilings.
I stood up slowly. If I stuck with my sister, I’d be okay. Besides, it wasn’t like Damon was some psycho out to injure everyone on the mountain. If Lauren was right, and he really did like me, he wasn’t about to hurt me. I just had to get through today, and then Christopher and I could talk more about this later.
“I guess I should…go,” I said.
“Yeah. Uh…have fun,” Christopher said.
“We will,” Damon told him, draping his arm over my shoulder.
Christopher’s jaw clenched, and my face burned. “I’ll see you later,” I promised Christopher. “Have a good day.”
It felt like the lamest thing to say ever, but I couldn’t think of anything else.
Christopher refused to look me in the eye, firing up his laptop and pretending to be riveted by whatever he was watching on his screen.
“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”
Damon turned and started to walk away, and I followed him slowly.
“And Tess,” Christopher said, forcing me to turn back around. “Be careful,” he added.
I headed for the door, wishing he hadn’t sounded quite so ominous.
“I can’t believe you’ve never skied a black diamond before. This is gonna be epic! Do you want me to ski behind you and take video?”
Damon hadn’t stopped talking since we’d boarded the ski lift to the top of the slopes ten minutes earlier. So far I’d learned that he lived two towns over with Tarek and his parents—Damon’s aunt and uncle—because his own parents were always traveling for work. He and Tarek went to the same high school and were even in the same grade, because they’d been born only three months apart. Both of them wanted to be traveling ski instructors once they graduated. The plan was to start out in Vermont and learn as much as they possibly could here before moving on to Colorado, where they had heard you could make a killing teaching wealthy people how to ski in Aspen or Vail.
“You only have to work like five hours a day, tops. And you’re sitting pretty,” he’d said. “I can spend the rest of my time skiing, playing video games, or just, like, napping. It’s gonna be amazing.”
Honestly, I thought it was cool that he had a life plan, and that he and his cousin wanted to stick together. My dad would have said that aspiring to work five hours a day wasn’t very ambitious, but they were both working their butts off now at Evergreen Lodge, saving up enough money for their first apartment in Vermont. I admired all of it.
And I really couldn’t imagine this smart, well-read person-with-a-plan could purposely run someone off a ski trail and into a tree. But did that mean I didn’t believe Christopher? No. I had to believe Christopher. He was my friend. He was my…maybe more-than-friend. And whatever happened up there, I believed that he believed he was telling the truth.
Honestly, though, by the time we reached the top of the ski lift, I had no idea what to think.
Although, a tiny suspicion had worked its way into my mind. Maybe Christopher wasn’t just upset that I was skiing with Damon. Maybe he was upset that I was skiing with any guy that wasn’t him. Could he possibly be…jealous? But it wasn’t as if I’d sought out Damon and made a plan to spend the day alone with him. He just happened to be along for the ride while I tried to eliminate another item from my to-do list. And, okay, he was hot and thought my singing had been amazing. (He must have been tone-deaf.) But that didn’t mean Christopher had to be so surly. Except for the whole maybe-Damon-had-tried-to-kill-him thing.
Could he be jealous after knowing me for two days? The thought gave me butterflies in the pit of my stomach. It felt good to have someone jealous over me. I wished I’d spent a few more minutes talking to him this morning. I hated the way we’d left things.
“Are you telling me you can ski a black diamond while filming on your phone?” I asked Damon now, as our chair edged closer and closer to the drop-off point.
He laughed. “No way. Are you kidding? I’ve got a GoPro.”
Out of his pocket he pulled a tiny little camera on a strap that he quickly secured to the crown of his head. I’d seen them now and then at skateboarding competitions, when skaters wanted to make first-person videos of their tricks.
“All right, then. Film away.” The chair reached the top of the mountain, and we skied off, joining Lauren and Tarek, who were already waiting for us, their ski goggles pushed up on top of their helmets, the sun shining on their fresh faces. It was actually a perfect day for skiing. The wind was nonexistent and the sun was fairly strong, warming any exposed skin. It wasn’t even that cold, even here at the top of the slope, where I usually found it to be freezing.