Everyone else must be ready because Tod returns to us. “Aliah, you got your sunblock on?”
“No,” Sam answers for her. “She decided white is unfashionable, and she'd rather be bright red.”
The albino in question shakes her head. “Yes, I have my sunblock on. And extra in my inner pocket where it won't freeze.”
“Good.” Tod smiles like he's checking something off a mental checklist and a few minutes later, we're trudging across a field. We sink less than in just boots, although there's still some slipping into the snow. It's both surprisingly easy and surprisingly awkward.
“So...” I struggle along between Sam and Aliah, whom I suspect of going slower than they usually would on account of me. The half of the group ahead of us is steadily gaining in their lead, although Tod and one of the freshmen are only a few yards up. I get the impression the adorable Japanese girl he's helping isn't much more experienced with this than I am. “Last night...”
When I got back yesterday, Sam stopped by to invite me on this hike, but didn't hang out for long because she was going out with her favorite polar bear.
“Where did you and Bryce go?” I ask.
Sam's eyes narrow in annoyance. Did he do something, or was I not supposed to mention she was with him?
“We just went shopping.” Her voice is matter-of-fact.
“Shopping for what?” Tod asks without turning around. Dang it, I'd thought he was far enough away not to be paying attention to us. I have got to get used to how well weres can hear.
Sam glares at his back. “He wanted a present for his sister's birthday. Thought a girl could help him.”
“So he didn't ask you to the dance?” one of the younger foxes behind us asks.
“Don't be ridiculous,” she snaps. “We're just friends.” The look she gives me borders on petulant. “I would rather hear about why you smelled so strongly of wolf.”
Okay. Guess that's payback for me asking about Bryce in front of everyone.
“I should have smelled like leopard too,” I tell her.
Tod makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
A blush heats my ears. That sounded sluttier than it should have.
“Seth was showing me what there is of the town when he got a call about Simone blowing out her knee,” I tell the den in general. “He thought he'd be right back, but I wound up at Denali's for a few hours until Warren could bring me home.”
Tod glances back again. “You do know we have a car, right? That you could have called us?”
I blink. “Yeah, of course.” Saying it never occurred to me to call Tod would be the truth, but I'm not sure it's a polite one. “It's not like I was in a hurry, though, and Warren was being civilized. Let me beat him at pool and everything.”
“So he's not scaring you anymore?” Tod asks.
“Not too much,” I answer, my lips tugging upward. “Most the time.”
He glances back again. “And the rest of the time?”
I shrug. “He got a little weird at the end, but...” I nearly say I gave him reason to be, but thinking back I'm suddenly not sure it was me. His mood changed when I wasn't around to see why. “He said he had wolf business after he dropped me off.”
Aliah makes a sympathetic noise. “Wolf business can be upsetting, you know?”
“Can it?” I ask her. “More so than other were business?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam answers.
Tod protests, “Hey, dealing with fox stuff is stressful!”
“Of course it is,” his sister agrees with syrupy sweetness. “But when's the last time you had to condemn someone to death for eating people?”
“What?” My jaw drops as I stare at her. “You're not serious?”
“Last summer?” Aliah nods. “There was a rogue?”
“Yeah.” Sam's expression grows even darker. “And Warren's dad made him issue the sentence.”
“Why?” I ask, appalled that someone would do that to his kid.
His head is bent as Tod nods. “It's part of leading wolves. Part of leading any weres, but Sam's right. Foxes just don't do the shit wolves do.”
“We could!” someone behind me objects, apparently offended.
“Yeah, right.” I can almost hear the sneer the person answering must be wearing. “You could kill somebody? You can't even slaughter a rabbit.”
“What do you know?” the first voice asks. “You're a vegetarian.”
Which sort of makes the point, really. A fox that won't eat meat is odd, but I can't for the life of me imagine a vegetarian wolf.
The topic of conversation switches off of me and wolves, moving on to the little dramas and comedies that make up school life. The foxes banter easily with each other as I listen in amusement. I can see why Seth was surprised they would be taking an outsider with them. The atmosphere is much like a family outing, the jokes frequently inside ones that they don't explain except when I ask them to. I don't have to do anything to be included; just by being there, it's like I'm a fox.
The mood is shattered when we get back to the storage shack and find Lyly waiting for us, her arms folded and her features pinched. The glower she wears should make her ugly, but somehow fails to. She must have sold her soul to Satan to be able to pull off that sort of expression and still look gorgeous.
“Oh, expletive,” Sam mutters as her brother's sometimes-girlfriend bares down on us.
As Tod bends down to remove his snowshoes, Lyly plants herself before him in a way I can only describe as menacing. “You left without me!”
He blinks at the onslaught. “We didn't think you were coming.”
“I said that I was!” she snarls.
He looks closely at her, his face lacking in all expression. “You said that last weekend.”
“So?” Her arms are crossed so tightly it's amazing she can breathe.
He just looks at her, silent and wooden.
“Oh.” She doesn't even have the grace to look embarrassed by the reference to their breakup. When Sam asked me to come on this, the first thing I asked was if Alysia would be there. I was assured she wouldn't be because she never hangs out with the den when she's abandoned Tod. Apparently, a long time ago she put it to them that they would have to chose between him and her. They chose him. “Well, I was still going to come.”
Tod picks his snowshoes off the ground and turns toward the building. “Sorry.”
I'm not sorry.
And as the others busy themselves with their own equipment, I get the impression no one else really is either.
Chapter Eleven
Predictably, Simone makes a big production of needing to be helped everywhere she goes, even though the swelling in her knee has disappeared, and despite how she doesn't actually look like she's in much pain. Poor Seth has to follow her around toting her things and letting her lean against him while she pretends to be off balance. Which is probably why he rushes off to the ski slope the second he's out of class Monday and skips Calculus to go straight there on Tuesday.
Also predictably, Warren is back to staring at me from afar. That bothers me a lot more than Simone's behavior.
He's the teacher's assistant in my camouflage and flight class, just like in tracking, but this instructor chooses to let me struggle behind the freshmen in peace, without inflicting Warren with the odious task of tutoring me. That leaves him free to alternate at will between ignoring me and glaring at me without having to bother with pretending to be civil.
Yet... Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I can swear I see him smiling at me, laughing when I'm silly and nodding in approval when I get something right. But he always stops before I can focus on him. Always.
He would probably frown at my senselessness if he saw me now, standing at the top of my first blue slope on Thursday afternoon. Or at the top of the slope that would be my first blue if I were actually good enough to survive going down it, I should say. I could have sworn I was ready to move on to tackle intermediates, but I didn't realiz
e how steep they are.
Clearly, my fantastic ski instructor was off her rocker to suggest I should come up here. I'll have to tell her after I walk down.
“Need help, kit?” Seth glides to a rest beside me and gives me a heart-stopping grin.
I stifle a sigh. Not only am I standing here like a nitwit, but here is between a lift and the slopes my friends do. Like I wasn't humiliated enough without people I know seeing me. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Is there a green way down?”
“Green?” He shakes his head. “No, not from here. But that's an easy blue.”
“Which is not the same thing as being an easy slope.” I twist around, looking for my binding release.
“What are you doing?” Squinting at me, he looks absolutely bewildered.
“What do you think?” I roll my eyes. “I'm taking my skis off so I can walk down this stupid cliff.”
He laughs, and suddenly, I like him a lot less than I usually do. “You can do this slope. I bet you could even do it with your eyes closed.”
Yeah, right. I can't even manage to get my stupid foot out of my stupid binding.
“You can follow me. Go where I go. You'll be fine.”
Biting my lip in consideration, I stop messing with my ski. It'd be embarrassing to have to walk down. Not to mention the fact it will be tiring and painful and will take a very long time. I'm already half frozen; can I even handle staying out here long enough to trek to the base?
“Trust me, kit.”
I look into the most wonderful eyes in the world and feel myself nod.
Seth grins. “Great.”
Glancing at the slope, he turns around and creeps towards the lip.
“What are you doing?” it's my turn to ask.
Slowly, he slides downhill for a few feet. “Showing you the way to the kiddie slopes.”
“Backwards?”
The laugh is gentle. “Don't worry about me, worry about you.” He pauses. “No, don't worry about you either. Just keep your eyes on me, and you'll go where I go, alright?”
Lovely. I'm stuck on the side of a mountain, freezing to death, with a madman. “Sure,” I grumble.
Locking my eyes onto his, I hope he's not overconfident in me.
His eyes move further away and with a yip of dismay, I dig my poles into the snow to push off after him.
“It's alright,” he calls up, starting a wide turn.
I watch his eyes... And I turn!
He leads me in a lazy snake downhill, taking up the whole slope with a traverse pattern that keeps our speed slower than what I would do on an easier slope.
“See?” He reaches an arm around my waist when I pass him at the very bottom. “I told you so.”
“You did,” I admit, my heart racing from either the thrill of getting down or from being held. The difficulty I'm having breathing is almost certainly all Seth's fault.
His eyes are very close to me now. Very, very close.
“Go again?” he asks, his tone light, but his expression seeming to hold the promise of something that isn't at all related to skiing.
“Sure,” I whisper.
The wind hits me when he pulls away, but I'm strangely warm despite it. Even sitting on the lift fails to chill me, not with Seth so close beside me. Our bodies almost, though not quite, touch. The gap between us seems to thrum with energy.
Riding a lift has never been half this interesting before.
We take the slope he found me on another three times before heading into the coffee shop. The first time, he lets me gaze into his eyes again, but the other two he actually forces me to go first. He says some helpful things though, and I have more fun than I have any other day I've skied here.
No one bothers us while we sip coffee together. And even more luckily when Seth offers me a ride back down, no leopards appear to steal my seat. I thank him before hitting the shower back at school. I wash as quickly as I can, eager to head to dinner. But as I'm debating if I'm brave enough to try to sit with Seth or not, my landline rings.
“Hello?” I answer, confused. I just talked to my dad last night, and no one else has called me since I've been here. Possibly because I didn't bother giving anyone else the number.
“Michaela!” comes a hysterical sob.
Shoulders slumping, I resign myself to the possibility of missing dinner. “Hey, Mom. What's wrong?”
“It's Grandma.”
For a half a second, I think my grandmother is dead. It doesn't upset me half as much as I feel it should.
But then my mom goes on, “She's threatening not to come if we have an open bar!”
Oh, good grief. Another wedding crisis. I sit in my desk chair and pull my feet up onto the seat. “Why?”
“She says it will just encourage people to drink,” Mom whimpers.
Um... Isn't that the point of having an open bar?
“She says alcohol is sinful,” Mom goes on. “And I'd be playing into the devil's hands.”
“That sounds like Grandma.” I can't say I'm surprised either. Every time I see her, she tries to give me a new pamphlet about how my entire generation is evil. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy she has a religion that makes her happy. I just wish she'd stop using it to make everyone else miserable.
“I knew she wouldn't approve. But not coming at all?” She sobs. “And Chaz says there's no way he's giving in to her.”
Mark it down in the record books, I seem to be agreeing with my future step-dad on something. “It's your wedding, Mom. And Chaz's. It's not hers.”
“But I want her there!” Mom whines.
“I know.” Closing me eyes, I take a deep breath. “She's probably bluffing. Like when she swore to cut you off if you got divorced.”
Which is when I stopped talking to the old bat. I wasn't happy about the break-up either, but Mom didn't deserve to be treated like that by her own mother. By Dad, sure. But not by her mom.
“Maybe...” She doesn't sound like she believes me, but I can't hear her crying anymore.
“You really think she's going to give up the chance to feel all superior to Chaz's family?” I ask.
Mom laughs. “True.”
“And now she can tell all her friends how awful her daughter's fiancé is because he's willing to let his friends drink Scotch.”
“She'll enjoy that...”
At least we're able to laugh about it.
“Michaela?” The timidity in Mom's voice makes me nervous. “Do you think you could ask your dad to talk to her? She's always listened to him.”
“Mom...” Does she not see how awkward that would be for me? Does she actually expect me to call Dad up and ask him to smooth over the wedding arrangements of a woman whom I'm pretty sure he's still in love with? Does she just not realize how he feels, or is she really that insensitive?
“Please?”
“No, Mom.” I feel bad about it, but if I have to chose which parent's emotions to be worried about, I'm siding with my dad. “Leave Daddy out of it.”
“Alright. I have to go.”
And just like that, I'm dismissed.
My appetite gone, I curl up in bed with Leo and my English assignment. Nothing will put a person to sleep faster than depression and Dickens.
Mom might not need me if I'm not actively helping her, but my new friends here do. The Foxes have me cheered up within the first minutes of breakfast. The happy mood sticks until I make it to hunting and find myself alone with Warren again.
“I saw you with Seth yesterday.”
“And?” I follow him through the forest. He's supposed to be finding tracks for me to look at, but he doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the ground.
“He's not a trained instructor, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Chuckling softly, I dunk under a branch. “I kind of got in over my head, and he helped me out.” I shrug. “Then he hung around to help me out some more.”
A grunt is all the response I expect to get, and the only one I do receive for about two minutes. Th
en Warren suddenly asks, “You ever tried boarding?”
Stumbling a little, I answer hesitantly, “No. I've never gotten around to it.”
My guide stops and looks down at me, his eyes unreadable. “Would you like to?”
Would I like to snowboard? “Sure.”
He blinks ever so slowly. “Now?”
“Now?” I repeat, startled. “We're in the middle of class.”
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