by Huss, JA
I stop to lean down and whisper into her neck. “It was fucking Loveland, Ashleigh. It’s like our back fucking yard. It’s less than an hour from Denver. I’ve been skiing these slopes since I was seven. It was fucking Loveland. My dad and I did that backcountry run a few times in my teens. This wasn’t some virgin cliff in Alaska. It wasn’t some run you gotta sign a fatality release form for up in the Tetons. I could see the goddamned highway when we started.”
She looks up at me with her red face, chapped and dry from the cold and wind. “Tell me the rest.”
I stare out at the setting sun, a bright orange outlining the mountains off in the distance. “I saw it. We all saw it. There was a crack in the snow near the summit. But the accumulation the night before wasn’t heavy, just a few inches, so we took a vote and it was a go. We hiked up, put on our skis, and I went first.
“I can see it clearly in my mind. Pulling my goggles over my eyes, looking back at my dad as he gave me a thumbs up. And then the rush of taking off in that fresh powder. Everyone followed me, my dad second, then the other guys, but I was way out in front—just hitting that shit hard.
“I triggered the avalanche. My route is what did it. I loosened the slab, heard the crack as it pulled away from the base. And then everyone I came up that mountain with was dead. I was the only one who lived. I didn’t even get buried. I skied off to the side and watched the whole fucking thing happen right in front of my eyes. I saw the look on their faces as they tumbled, then there was nothing but white.”
The only noise I hear is the idling engine of the truck behind us. Ashleigh says nothing.
“We all had beacons. Hell, we all know the dangers—we were all very experienced skiers. So we all had beacons and packs with probes and shovels. Just in case. That’s like famous last words, right? Just in case.”
I stop and take a deep breath as I picture it all in my head again. “And if you’re in an avalanche and you’re not buried, you switch your beacon from transmit to receive. So I switched it to receive and I got my dad’s signal. We had a high-end system with W-link. The other guys had regular beacons, no W-link. There’s a big difference in how you read these signals. So I knew which signal was my dad and I hauled ass down to where it was emitting and started probing and digging.
“We both know how it ends, obviously. But I watched him die on my transceiver.” I look down at Ashleigh and she’s staring up at my face, all thoughts of whatever it was that was bothering her gone as she listens to my story. “W-link detects the movement created by a beating heart.” Her face crumples a little. “He was buried seven feet deep. I got about four feet of snow removed when his heart stopped.”
She climbs up my lap and wraps her arms around me and pushes her face into my neck.
And I let her, because fuck it. I like it. She’s warm and her body is soft. She feels good to me and I probably feel good to her too.
“I’m so sorry, Ford.”
“That’s not the worst of it.”
I stop again, because I’ve never talked about the accident afterward. Not even to rescue officials. I’m trained to say nothing if I’m questioned by authorities because of all the jobs I did with Spencer and Ronin. So when it came time to talk to the ski patrol I just shut the fuck up because I had no Ronin to talk for me. We weren’t even on speaking terms back then.
“I knew where all the other guys were in that group. I could see all their signals on my transceiver. Their beacons didn’t transmit movement, and my dad’s did. So I clearly knew which signal belonged to my dad and which ones belonged to them. And even though I was a lot closer to every one of those guys, and the signals were stronger so they were probably closer to the surface, I decided to dig out my dad instead.”
“Ford—”
I squeeze her a little to make her stop. “Don’t bother. My mom has already said it multiple times. Everyone said it over and over. But none of them were there. If I could dig down four feet, I could’ve dug down three and saved Rob. Or four feet and saved Steve. He was practically right next to Rob. I could’ve saved two people that day if I was rational, but instead I let everyone die because I decided to try and save my dad instead. Hell, I’m the one who caused the fucking slide in the first place. So you can tell yourself I didn’t kill them, but I absolutely did. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it hardly matters to the families left behind, does it?”
Ashleigh has nothing to say to that. And I don’t blame her. There’s nothing to say.
She starts shivering uncontrollably and I haul both our asses up off the frozen ground and lead her back to the truck by the hand. When I open her door the heat rushes out and I check Kate real fast. She’s still asleep so I go around to my side and get in.
“I’m sorry,” Ashleigh whispers. “It sucks. And there’s really nothing anyone can say to make it better. It just… sucks.”
I navigate us back onto the highway. It’s fully dark now, just the headlights out in front to break the black that surrounds us. There are no streetlights here. There are no cars behind us and several minutes can go by before another car comes from the west heading towards us.
“I’m lonely,” Ashleigh says with a sigh. “It’s dark and empty here and that’s exactly how I feel right now.”
“You have Kate,” I offer up. But it’s a half-hearted attempt because I feel the exact same way. Everything sucks right now. I have nothing. At least she has a baby that needs her, depends on her for everything and loves her back.
Ashleigh rubs her eyes to stop the new tears. “I know, and I should be thankful about that. Things can always get worse, so I should just shut the fuck up and be happy with what I have.” She looks back at her daughter and I know she’s crying again, just silently this time. “But I’m so far from satisfied I just want to curl up in a dark corner and die. Because part of making a family is getting to experience life with the person you love. You know?” She looks over at me but I have nothing to say. What do I say? “And I don’t have that anymore. So who gives a shit about her but me? Who do I celebrate all her firsts with?”
“Your parents? His parents?”
“My mom’s dead and my father—” She snorts a little at the mention of her dad. “He’s ashamed of me. And Tony’s parents absolutely hate me. They’ve never even seen her.”
“What? Haven’t they seen a picture?” I don’t get this.
Ashleigh shakes her head. “No, nothing. It’s like…” She stops and looks out into the darkness for a few seconds. “It’s like no one even cares about me. And I think…” She stops again to try and swallow down whatever it is she’s feeling. “I think I’d be OK with that, if I just had him, ya know? I could live with all the rest of it if we were in it together. Is that how you feel about Rook? Like, you could give it all another shot and live through the next day if she was with you?”
Is that how I feel? “No,” I conclude. “No, actually, that’s not how I feel about her at all. I just want her around. I like her company. I want to try normal things with her, like—well, just normal things.”
“Oh.” This defeats Ash and she turns away from me and faces the darkness again. But I can still see her reflection in the window from the dim dashboard lights.
“She’s pretty though, she’s a model.”
“Figures,” Ashleigh snorts. “You’re handsome, Ford, I’m sure your girlfriends are all beautiful, so I’m not surprised.”
I’m not even sure what to say in response. I’ve never had an actual girlfriend and I’ve never had a conversation with a girl about this kind of stuff. Hell, I might never’ve had this kind of conversation with anyone about this stuff. “Well, she used to be a model, now she’s an out-of-work reality show receptionist. But she doesn’t need the money. Ronin has enough to keep her happy forever, I suppose.”
“What’s Ronin do?”
“He’s a model too.”
Ash snorts loudly this time. “You’re totally fucking with me.”
I laugh a little. “No, re
ally. He lives this life straight out of Cinderella, only he’s the fucking long lost princess. I don’t get it. It’s not fair to get handed things so easily.”
“My sister’s like that. She’s got everything. My father gave her a position in the company a few years ago. She’s older than me. Taller, skinnier, prettier, smarter, politer. And she’s got this perfect husband.” Ashleigh stops to stick her finger in her mouth and pretend to gag. “And she never got pregnant out of wedlock, so that’s like the golden ticket to everything as far as my father’s concerned.”
“Yeah, but you have Kate, so you win.”
She looks over to me and smiles through her tears. “I do have her, so I do win.”
A sign for an upcoming town passes by on the road. “We should just stop for the night. It’s not late, but I’m ready to get the fuck out of this truck, how about you?”
“I don’t care what we do, Ford. I’m happy to put off the inevitable forever, I think. I’m not even sure I want to go see him now anyway. It’s not like anything will change. Nothing will change. I’ll still be alone in the end.”
“Let’s forget about LA for tonight.” I pull off at Green River and turn into the first decent-looking hotel they have. There’s not much to choose from, but it will have to do because life just needs to stop for a little while. Just be still and let us breathe.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The hotel lobby is large and clean. That’s always a plus. It’s locally owned, not a chain. And that’s not always a plus.
Ashleigh and the baby are standing next to me at the counter. “Single or double?” the clerk asks.
“Single,” I say. I look at Ashleigh from the corner of my eye to see if she’s gonna contradict me, but she doesn’t.
“Do you need a crib?”
Now I do have to look at her. “Do we need a crib?”
“You seem to be the one calling the shots, why stop now?”
I squint at her, trying to decide if this is her way of being mad, but I can’t tell. “No,” I say to the clerk. “We’ve gotten by without one so far, why change what’s working.”
“We’ve gotten by on separate beds too.”
The clerk raises her eyebrows at us. “Do you want two beds? We have a room available.”
“No,” I say before Ashleigh can. “We’re fine with the single.”
Ashleigh wanders off after that and after the clerk hands us the key card, I grab her numerous shopping bags filled with clothing and crap. We meet up again at the elevator, get in, and she presses the button for the fourth floor.
“So…” she starts as we ascend. “One bed. What’s up with that?”
I look right at her. “Exactly what you think is up with that, Ashleigh.”
“You mean you might actually fuck me tonight?” She’s got a devious grin on her face.
“Probably not.”
“What?”
The doors open and I wave her through. “That’s it,” she says as we walk down the hall to our room. “I’m done with you. I’m drawing a line down the middle of the bed and if you so much as put your big toe over on my side, I’ll kiss you on the lips.”
I use the card to open our room, then flick the lights on and wave her in. “If your lips come in contact with mine, I’ll bite. I’m warning you now.”
She puts the baby down and starts taking off her snowsuit. “I might take my chances anyway.”
I set the clothes on the little table. “Let’s go out to eat. Don’t undress her.”
“No, I need to feed her.” She rubs her breasts and winces a little. “They hurt because I didn’t give her enough time when we were on the road. I need to nurse or they’ll start leaking.”
Holy fucking shit. I just got insta-hard. “Leaking?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she says seductively as she squishes them together a little. Little wet spots appear through her t-shirt. “Oops.” She looks up at me, smiling. “I leaked.”
“Leaked?” My eyes are still on her hands as she plays with herself.
“I guess I’ll have to change my shirt.” She whips it over her head and throws it across the room. Her pink bra also has little wet spots on it. “Oh, darn. My bra’s wet too.” She unhooks the clasp between her breasts and they fall free as she takes it off.
She’s fucking leaking all right. That shit is practically dripping.
She grabs the baby, takes her over to a chair and plops down. Kate is half-asleep but she accepts the nipple and begins to eat. “I’m sorry, Ford. Were you saying something about going out for dinner? I’d love to actually. I’ll be done in a minute.”
“You’re evil.”
She laughs.
“I’m not sure it’s funny. I might have a fetish.”
“Oh, you mean like tying girls up and posing them in front of windows? That kind of fetish? Or spanking them until they cry? You have quite the assortment of fetishes, Ford. I’m not sure leaking breasts even qualify.”
“You enjoyed all of that. You let me pose you in front of the window and you admitted to enjoying the spankings.”
“I did like it. The exhibitionism more than the swats, just FYI. In fact, I think you should pose me in front of this window right now.” She grins an I win smile. Because right now I realize she did know that no one could see her in the window up at the Vail house. Maybe she didn’t realize it at that moment, but she’s on to me now.
“Maybe I will.”
“Go for it. But I’ll get another question.”
Now it’s my turn to grin. “I paid you forward today. I told you how my dad died. I’ve never told anyone that story.”
Her smile falters at this revelation. “No one?”
I shake my head. “Not even my mother. Not even the lawyers. I’m not allowed to talk to the police. Only Ronin is allowed to talk to the police, this is part of the business we have together. So I never gave a statement.”
“Can’t they make you give a statement?”
“Nope. They could arrest me if they suspected foul play, but they didn’t. It was a tragedy and no one wanted to make it worse. Besides, we were all locals. There was too much pain to worry about me. They know I’m a freak. My weird behavior afterward just confirmed it.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds and then she lifts her eyes and stares at me with a small smile. I can’t believe I didn’t think she was beautiful when I first met her, because right now, I’ve never seen a more stunning girl. Sitting here with her baby like that. I just… fuck. I don’t know. I like it. And it’s not the nursing, although I suspect that’s part of it. She’s got some sort of glow to her.
“I think that town loves you, Ford. I think they care about you and were happy to see you come home. I think they worried about you. I didn’t hear anyone call you a freak. They thought you were adorable. Even Mrs. Pearson. She told me all about your childhood up on the mountain. You were quite the troublemaker, and she had this feigned annoyance to all her stories, but to me, she relived your antics like she was fond of you. Like you gave that town life when you were there.”
I just stare at her. For like half a minute at least. Because Ashleigh just told me something I’ve been dying to hear my whole life. “I got one bed because I want you next to me tonight. Touching me. Not sexually, I’d never do that with the baby in the room. But just… give it a try.”
“Well.” She giggles a little. “I was not expecting that. I’m up for some sixth-grade heavy petting if you are. I’ll walk you through it, step by step. From knee-rubbing to hand-holding, I’ll be your teacher.”
Fucking Ashleigh. “Knee-rubbing?”
“Yeah, you know, when you sit next to a girl and you bump your leg against hers and then you both get all tingly.”
I shake my head. “That has never happened.”
“Why? Because you had them bent over with their asses in the air? Or because you never felt that shocking excitement with a girl before?”
“Am I really having this conversation?”
&
nbsp; “Yes. So tell me. Was it because you never got the chance or because you’ve just never found a girl who makes you excited like that? And I’m not talking hard-ons,” she says, nodding to my dick. This makes me laugh. “I’m talking that spark that says this one’s different. You said you were into this Rook girl, if that’s true, then you should’ve felt that feeling.”
I think about this for a moment. “I liked her. I wanted to kiss her.”
“Oh, you might fatally wound me with that admission!”
“I would’ve kissed her if she let me. But not when she’s with Ronin. I can’t do that. He’s too important.”
“Well, maybe that’s as close as you get then?” She shrugs and then notices the baby is asleep. She stands up and gently puts her in the middle of the bed. “I have to express this one,” she says pointing to the breast that got no baby attention. “I’m dying here. Be right back.”
And then she walks off to the bathroom topless to express.
I’m insta-hard again. I want to go in there and give her a helping hand, but I stay put and breathe. Fucking Ashleigh.
“Ford?” she calls from the bathroom.
“Yeah,” I answer back.
“That was your cue to get your ass in here and fuck me.”
I laugh and get up and go stand in the doorway. “I’m not fucking you, Ashleigh. I don’t even have condoms with me. Besides, I like watching you, so I’ll enjoy the view and you go ahead.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “You want me to get myself off in front of you?”
“Why are you talking to me like this? You were so sweet when we met and now you’re all into the dirty talk.”
She leans over the sink and squeezes until the milk shoots out. It even makes a squirting sound. “I’m just trying my best to make you interested, that’s all. If you want me to stop, I will.”
I walk up behind her and lean down so I can talk in her ear. “Just slow down and be patient.”
She turns around so she can look up at my face. “I think once you figure me out, you won’t like me anymore. So I want to rush into it and then maybe you won’t run away when we get to LA.”