She’s the second woman I’ve ever slept with, and I’m amazed at how easy it is. Later that week, I do it again: Natalie. Then again. Then again.
It doesn’t fix what’s wrong with me, but at least I’m good at it.
Chapter Forty
Seth
Present Day
Delilah comes to a hard, full stop, her skis scraping the snow beneath them.
Ten feet later, I finally halt, feet in full pizza position with my toes in and heels out.
“You doing okay?” she asks, pushing of her poles and gliding up to me, then stopping with no fuss at all.
“Great,” I tell her, and try for a charming, winning smile. “You having a good time?”
“We can head back if you want,” she says, pulling her goggle from her face, a smile around her eyes. “You seem like you might be done.”
She’s right. We’ve been skiing since the morning, and the sun’s now hovering over the mountains, all of Snowpeak, West Virginia bathed in light that’s still more gold than orange for now.
It’s the second time I’ve been skiing in my life. Growing up, I had four brothers and there was no money tree in the back yard, so the one and only time I’ve been was for a friend’s birthday in college.
Skiing is hard. I’ve fallen down more times than I can count, have a bruise blossoming across one knee, definitely did something funny to one elbow. I run and lift, so I’m usually prepared for physical activity, but muscles I didn’t even know I had are begging me for mercy.
“How about I head back and you do a few more runs?” I offer. “You’ve been babysitting me all day, go have some fun.”
“I wasn’t babysitting!” she protests, laughing. “You made it down that intermediate slope all by yourself, you’re doing great.”
“I lost a ski halfway down, and after you got it back, it took me four tries to get back on my feet,” I point out.
“That’s because getting up is the hardest part,” she admonishes, gently. “Aside from getting off the lift. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had face-planted doing that.”
Well, it was zero this trip. I, on the other hand, skiied into a tree and fell over the first time I got off a lift while four-year-olds zipped past me like they were born to it.
“Go,” I tell her, nodding back at the mountain. “I’m going to shower, grab a beer, and get in the hot tub. Come join me when you finish.”
“Seth, are you incentivizing me to make it fast?” she laughs.
“Just saying I’ll be slippery and wet when you find me,” I say, lowering my voice. I am, after all, literally surrounded by families.
“And disappointingly off-limits,” she teases.
“Says the woman who brought a white tank top to sleep in,” I remind her.
Delilah’s eyes crinkle, her goggles on her forehead. Except for her eyes, her face is deathly pale with some sort of specialty sunscreen, and she looks a little like a strangely-colored raccoon.
Still fucking gorgeous, for the record.
“I didn’t mean to,” she says. “I thought I brought an appropriately black, oversized shirt, but I’m pretty sure it’s still on my bed waiting to be packed.”
No matter what she intended, she still wore a white wife-beater to bed last night, over rainbow pajama pants. Yes, it was practically see-through. No, she didn’t wear a bra to bed, and yes, I think I deserve a gold medal for self-control.
“Ski a couple black diamonds and then come find me,” I tell her.
“All right,” she says, and offers herself for a kiss.
The moment our lips touch, I slide away.
“Fuck!” I mutter, trying to maneuver my feet into a triangle.
“Use your pole!” she says, and there she is, gliding alongside me.
I jab one into the ground and come to a stop. Then I give her a look, and she closes her eyes, laughs.
“Right here, with all these people around?” I say, low enough that no one but her can hear.
“Well, I’d rather keep it all for myself,” she says, and puts one gloved hand on my chest. Kisses me, both my ski poles firmly jabbed into the ground.
“I can live with that,” I murmur when she pulls back.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Just go enjoy yourself,” I tell her, and wave her away.
I wait until she’s turned and headed back for the lift before I make my way very, very carefully and slowly, toward the end of the slope.
Back in the condo, I toss my key onto the kitchen counter, leave my coat and ski pants in a heap, and collapse on the couch.
I don’t move for at least half an hour, and secretly, I’m glad Delilah’s not here. It was bad enough that she practically had to hold my hand for most of today while I fell down a mountain, everyone else zipping by; she doesn’t need to see me collapse in an undignified pile.
Especially since I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that I’m the first boyfriend she’s had to teach to ski.
I push the thought away and do some mindless scrolling on my phone. I play some dumb games. Check Facebook. Text my brothers’ group chat about how much skiing hurts, and get back several sarcastic replies about my terrible free vacation.
Finally, I get off the couch. Walking doesn’t feel wonderful, but at least I don’t feel like my legs are rubber any more as I wander through Delilah’s condo, turning lights on and off as I check the place out a little more thoroughly.
Two bedrooms, two bathrooms: one in the master suite, one off the living room. A stone fireplace and leather couches; a small but gourmet kitchen; a balcony; a dining area.
And tiny, tiny traces of him. A man’s razor in a bathroom drawer. A single sock in a closet, neatly folded, on a shelf next to a pillow. A cigar, probably stale as hell, in a kitchen drawer next to some spatulas. They’re all things that were obviously overlooked and left in corners, but those whispers of his presence tickle at my brain, like I’ve walked through a spiderweb and can’t get the strands off completely.
Her life has whispers of him, but not of me. We were together for six years before she even met him, through high school and college. Big years. Important years, and yet I’m nowhere to be found. It’s as if she’s washed me away completely.
My phone dings, pulling me out of it.
* * *
Delilah: I’m gonna do one more run & then head in. You still in the hot tub?
Me: I will be.
* * *
She texts a bathtub emoji, and I put my phone back on the charger. Drink a glass of water. Rub my eyes, remember that I should shower before I get into the hot tub, and open a closet to find towels.
It’s top-to-bottom white linen except for a single, solitary cardboard box on the floor. The corners are ripped. There’s black marker on the side, text scribbled out so hard that it’s unreadable. It looks worn, old, and it’s so incongruous in this otherwise sparkling place that I can’t help but bend down and open it.
I don’t know what I’m expecting. Cleaning products, maybe. Old sweaters. A broken toaster, though none of those expectations account for the weight in my chest as I pull back the cardboard.