New Year's Kiss

by Lee Matthews

  “Oooh! You have an accent!” Lauren said, excited. “What part of Britain are you from?”

  “The cool part,” Carina shot back.

  Lauren barked a laugh. “I like her,” my sister proclaimed. “Fine by me.”

  “Sweet!” Damon said. “Let me grab some grub. I’m starving.”

  He turned and walked over to the carb station. Tarek gave my sister a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezed her arms. “I just have to check my schedule for next week before we go.” Then he bounded off, too.

  “Go where?”

  I jumped again. This time it was Loretta. Was everyone in my family this good at sneaking up on people?

  “Loretta!” Lauren exclaimed with a big smile. “Tess and I were just making plans with Tarek and his cousin to go skiing for the day.”

  Loretta’s lips formed that thin, stern line I was getting so used to seeing on this trip. “Girls, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Lauren asked. “This is a ski resort, isn’t it? And we haven’t been skiing once since we’ve been here.”

  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.”

  “Well, all he could talk about was how amazing you were at karaoke last night,” Lauren said, leaning in to apply her lip gloss. “I’m sorry I bailed, by the way.” She met my eyes for half a second. “Loretta just kind of pissed me off.”

&nbs
p; “Yeah. I picked up on that.” I couldn’t believe Lauren was apologizing to me for anything without being forced, but I decided not to harp on that for now.

  She put the lip gloss down and turned around, leaning her butt against the countertop and bracing her hands on either side of her hips. She stared down at her boots and, for the first time in forever, actually looked vulnerable. “This divorce stuff sucks sometimes, you know? And it just hits me out of nowhere. Like, I’ll be fine and then boof, it hits me that nothing’s ever going to be the same again.”

  I froze. This was the first time Lauren had ever talked to me about how she really felt about our parents’ split. I was worried that if I moved an inch, I’d burst the tenuous bubble that had formed around us and she’d clam up. My pulse thrummed in my wrists. I really needed to talk to her about this. I couldn’t let the moment pass us by.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I said quietly. “It’s the same for me.”

  She was quiet for a second, and then she lifted her chin. “Sometimes I wish they’d just suck it up, you know? They’re supposed to be the adults in this family. They’re always telling us to be responsible, so why can’t they?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they must just be so unhappy that responsibility doesn’t matter anymore?”

  “Then screw it. We shouldn’t have to be responsible, either.”

  She grabbed a lipstick out of her makeup bag, uncapped it, and brought it toward my face. I leaned back, away from her. “What are you doing?”

  “You need lip color. You look like a corpse.”

  “Thanks a lot!” I said with a laugh.

  “Just trust me on this, okay? For once?”

  I looked into her eyes. We were actually occupying a small room together and not fighting or snipping or mocking each other. The least I could do was seal it with her lipstick.

  “Fine,” I said.

  I let her apply the lipstick for me, then looked in the mirror. She was right. I did look much less corpse-like.

  “You can talk to me about Mom and Dad, you know,” I told her. “Anytime.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I thought our bonding moment was over, but then she said, “Thanks. Maybe I will.”

  And we were off.

  * * *

  • • •

  Down in the lobby, I couldn’t help glancing over at Christopher’s usual couch near the fireplace as I tugged on my gloves. Sure enough, there he was, all set up with his stack of books, his laptop, and what appeared to be a steaming cup of coffee. Tarek and Damon were waiting by the door with our skis and ski boots ready to go, but I hesitated, feeling nervous and…was that guilt tinting my veins? It just felt wrong, going out for a fun day on the slopes while Christopher had to sit here by himself and do nothing. Part of me wanted to just forget it and go camp out by the fire with him. Would that be so wrong?

  Answer: Yes. Yes, it would be so wrong. Because I had committed to completing my list, and I wasn’t going to let myself down.

  I wished he hadn’t broken his leg so he could come with us. But then, if he hadn’t broken his leg, there was a decent chance I never would have met him. Life was weird that way.

  “Give me a second,” I said to Lauren.

  She leveled me with a knowing look. “You could always strap him into a baby carrier on your back and bring him with you,” she joked.

  “I’m laughing on the inside,” I said flatly.

  She air-kissed me, then traipsed over to join the guys.

  “Hey!” I said, coming up behind Christopher, who was leaning back against the arm of the couch.

  He craned his neck to smile up at me. “Hi! I was just doing some research for your list. Turns out there are not one, not two, but three sushi restaurants within a ten-mile radius of this Podunk town. Who knew?”

  “Really? Cool.” I felt even guiltier now. He’d been sitting here, working on my self-improvement project, and I was going to leave him alone all day. I sat down in my usual chair, adjacent to the couch, and leaned forward. “So, good news, I crossed something else off my list.”

  “No way. Which one?” he asked, sitting up a bit.

  “I talked to a stranger.” His face clouded unexpectedly, and I wondered if he was remembering the whole Damon thing last night. “Her name’s Carina,” I added quickly. “And we have the same taste in books.”

  “That’s cool.” Christopher grinned. “So, four down, six to go. I’m impressed.” Then, for the first time, he seemed to notice my outfit. “Are you going skiing?” he asked.

  “Yeah. My sister was all over me about it this morning,” I said, pointedly leaving out any mention of Damon and Tarek. “And Carina wanted to go, too. I figured I would try to ski a black diamond.”

  “Wow. You’re really on a roll.”

  I gave a comical bow of my head. “I do what I can.”

  “Tess! You coming?” Lauren called out.

  I looked up and saw that Carina had joined my sister and the guys, all decked out in a pink-and-white ski jacket and matching helmet and gloves. Christopher turned, too, and the second he saw the group near the door, his expression shifted.

  “They’re going with you?” he said, facing me again.

  I knew exactly who he meant by “they.” The two fairly handsome ski dudes wearing professional-looking gear and laughing like they hadn’t a care between them.

  “Yeah, it was supposed to be the four of us until I invited Carina,” I told him, wanting to prove that it wasn’t like I had angled to spend the day with Damon.

  “Like a double date?” he said with forced casualness, looking back at his laptop.

  “No. Nothing like a double date. I mean, yeah, my sister likes Tarek. Like, a lot. So, it’s probably a date to her. But not for me. I’m mostly going to hang out with Carina. I don’t even know Damon.”

  I tend to ramble when I’m nervous.

  “You’re right,” Christopher said, his expression serious. “You don’t know Damon.”

  Something about the way he said it set off little alarm bells at the back of my neck. “Do you know Damon?” I asked. Last night at karaoke, they hadn’t seemed to know one another, but had I read that whole conversation wrong?

  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 co
uldn’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.