by Ana Huang
I knew it technically wasn’t my fault that Michael tried to kill Ava, or that my mom committed suicide, or that Ava fell in love with Alex. But that was the thing about guilt. It didn’t give a damn about facts or reason. It sprouted from the tiniest seeds of doubt, slipped through the cracks of your psyche, and by the time you realized what the ugly darkness oozing through your veins was, it’d already burrowed itself so deep you couldn’t dig it out without losing a part of yourself.
“Josh.” Jules’s voice sounded muffled and far away. “Josh!”
It was louder and clearer this time, enough so it yanked me out of my thoughts and back into the sun-drenched terminal.
I blinked, my heart slamming against my ribcage with such force it rattled my bones. “Yeah.”
The notch between her brows deepened, and something akin to concern passed through her eyes. “I’ve been calling your name for the past five minutes. Are you…okay?”
“Yeah,” I repeated. I raked a hand through my hair and forced myself to take deep breaths until my heartbeat slowed to a normal rate. “Just thinking about some things.”
It was the lamest reply I could’ve given, but Jules didn’t call me out on it. Instead, she stared at me for a minute longer before she flicked her eyes over my shoulder and said, “Alex and Ava are here.”
I twisted my head in time to see the couple in question come into view.
“Hey!” Ava broke away from Alex and hugged me. “You’re on time.”
“Why does everyone think I’m not punctual? I am,” I grumbled.
I swear, you’re late to one party and suddenly everyone thinks you make a habit out of it.
“Sure.” My sister patted me on the arm before she addressed the group at large. “You guys ready to board?”
“Yep.” Jules stood and tossed her empty drink into a nearby trash can. “Let’s do this.”
She and Ava fell into step ahead of me and left me with Alex, who I greeted with a stiff nod. “Alex.”
“Josh.” His face was blank, per usual, but the tense set of his shoulders suggested I wasn’t the only one who had qualms about this weekend.
I could only hope we all made it out intact.
By the time we landed in Vermont an hour and a half later, I’d drowned my anxieties about the weekend with two mimosas, hold the orange juice, courtesy of the private jet service.
A black Range Rover waited for us outside the airport, which was only a thirty-minute ride to the resort, and Ava spent most of the drive detailing the resort’s luxury amenities: a world-class spa, two gourmet restaurants, the famed triple black diamond, and a bunch of other things I tuned out.
All I cared about was the ski trail. My first triple black diamond. It was going to be epic.
I was itching to drop off my luggage and hit the slopes, but unfortunately, we hit our first snag before we even checked in.
“What do you mean, the lodge is occupied?” Icicles dripped from each word as Alex glared at the poor front desk assistant. Henry, according to his name tag.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Volkov, but it appears there was a mix-up in the system, and we double-booked this weekend.” Henry gulped. “The other guests arrived last night and checked in.”
“I see.” Alex’s voice dropped another ten degrees. “So where, exactly, are we supposed to stay, considering I already shelled out a considerable sum of money for the Presidential Lodge?”
Henry gulped again and tapped furiously on his computer.
Ava tugged on Alex’s hand and whispered something in his ear that caused his shoulders to relax, though he kept his glare pinned to Henry.
I leaned against the counter, not dumb enough to open my mouth while Alex was on the warpath. Even Jules was silent, though that might be because she was too busy eye fucking some guy across the lobby.
I gave the guy a quick once-over. Blond hair, unnaturally white smile, the same pale blue shirt and khakis as the rest of the resort staff. I’d bet my last dollar he was a ski instructor. He just had that annoying, eager look.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth, JR. You’re drooling.”
“I don’t drool.” Jules smiled at Ski Bro, who smiled back.
Irritation curled in my stomach. It was the resort’s grand opening weekend, and he was loitering in the lobby, flirting with guests. Didn’t he have a job to do?
“There’s one VIP lodge left,” Henry said. “The Eagle Lodge isn’t as big as the Presidential Lodge, but it has the best view and the same amenities. Of course, we’re happy to refund you for the difference in pricing as well as include a complimentary meal and spa gift card to make up for the inconvenience.”
If Ava weren’t here, I was sure Alex would’ve ripped the guy a new one, but all he said was, “How much smaller is the Eagle Lodge?”
“It has two bedrooms instead of four. But the couch in the living room can be converted into a bed,” Henry hastened to add when Alex’s brows lowered.
“It’s fine.” Ava placed a hand on Alex’s forearm. “It’s just for the weekend.”
Alex’s nostrils flared before he acquiesced with a short nod. “The Eagle Lodge is fine.”
“Great.” Henry’s relief was palpable. “Here are the key cards…”
I shifted my attention back to Jules while he gave instructions on how to get to the lodge.
“You done having sex in the lobby?”
Jules was still silently flirting with Ski Bro, but she tore her eyes away from him at my comment. “If you think I’m having sex right now, it’s no wonder women leave your room unsatisfied.”
Touché.
A small smile played on my lips. If adventure sports were my physical release, sparring with Jules was my mental one. Nothing else gave me quite the same rush.
“Women leave my room feeling all sorts of things, but I guarantee unsatisfied isn’t one of them.”
“That’s what men always think,” she scoffed. “I regret to inform you they’re probably faking it.”
“I can tell the difference between a fake orgasm and a real one, JR.”
“So you’re saying women have faked orgasms with you.” Her voice was all sugar and arsenic.
“My first few times.” I wasn’t embarrassed by the fact. Everyone started at zero. “But practice makes perfect. Maybe you’ll find out for yourself one day, if you’re lucky.”
Jules gagged as we followed Alex and Ava out of the lobby to our lodge. “Don’t make me throw up. We just got here, and I despise vomit.”
A laugh rumbled in my throat. She was so fucking easy to rile up.
But when we arrived at the lodge, my laugh died in the face of hiccup number two: the pullout couch was not, in fact, a pullout. It was just a damn couch, which meant there were only two rooms for the four of us, and every possible pairing sounded worse than the last.
“I can room with Jules.” Ava slanted an apologetic glance in Alex’s direction. “You and Josh can share.”
“No.” I would rather swim naked in the icy river bordering the resort than room with Alex.
“What’s the alternative?” she argued. “I don’t want to spend all day debating room assignments.”
There were only two other options. I could room with Ava or Jules. If I roomed with Ava, Alex and Jules would have to be roommates, and that was fucking weird.
“I’ll share with JR.” I jerked my head in Jules’s direction. “You and Alex take the master. The guest bedroom has two beds, so we’ll make it work.”
It wasn’t ideal, but it was the least terrible choice.
Jules echoed my sentiment with as much enthusiasm as a mouse entering a snake’s cage.
“You sure?” Ava was fully aware of the animosity between us, and she was probably picturing us murdering each other in our sleep.
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Yep. Let’s just get this over with so we can hit the slopes.” We wouldn’t be in our rooms much, anyway. I could just turn in for the n
ight and pretend Jules wasn’t there.
Unfortunately, the universe and its fucked up sense of humor had different plans.
When we opened the door to the guest bedroom, we were greeted with hiccup number three, AKA the worst thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“No fucking way,” Jules said at the same time I growled, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Because sitting smack dab in the middle of an otherwise beautiful room, piled high with fluffy pillows and a luxurious navy comforter, was a four-poster bed.
Bed. Singular. As in, there was only one.
And I had to share it with Jules Ambrose.
Kill me now.
11
JULES
God was punishing me for wrongs I’d committed in my past life. That was the only explanation I could think of for why I’d been subjected to my predicament.
Josh and I both refused to back down and take the couch, so we were stuck in the same room, the same bed, for the next two nights. A gentleman would’ve offered to sleep elsewhere, but Josh wasn’t a gentleman. He was the spawn of Satan…one who was currently staring at me with narrowed eyes as I tried to finesse my way out of skiing.
“You guys go ahead,” I told Ava, making a pointed effort to ignore Josh’s suspicious gaze. “I just remembered I left something at the cabin.”
“You sure? I can go with you.”
“Nah. We already wasted enough time with the room situation, and I might hang in the lodge for a bit first.” I waved a breezy hand in the air. “You go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” Ava sounded doubtful. “We’ll be here.”
I held my breath and waited until Alex and Ava disappeared on the ski lifts before releasing it. A prickle of anxiety wormed in its way into my system as I eyed the vast expanse of snow before me.
I didn’t think I would be this affected, considering it’d been seven years since my last ski weekend, but that trip had spawned so many awful memories. Plus, there was the tape—
Don’t go there.
“What the hell did you leave at the cabin?” Josh interrupted my reverie. For someone who’d been so excited about skiing, he didn’t seem in much of a hurry to hit the slopes.
He was fully decked out in top-of-the-line ski gear—black pants, a blue jacket that stretched across his broad shoulders, and ski goggles he’d pushed up so they sat on top of his gray cap. The outfit lent him a rugged, athletic charm that had half the woman in the vicinity eyeing him with interest.
“I left my phone.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and gripped the phone nestled at the bottom of the right pocket.
“You had it in your hand on our walk here.”
Dammit. “Why are you so concerned with what I left behind?” I deflected. “Don’t you have a black diamond to attend to?”
“Triple black diamond,” Josh corrected. “And I’m working my way up to it.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
His gaze turned assessing. “Wait,” he said slowly, his eyes raking over my form in a way that made my skin itch. “Do you know how to ski?”
“Of course I do.” Josh’s eyebrows rose further as monuments to his skepticism, and I added grudgingly, “Depending on how you define know.”
My ex-boyfriend Max taught me during that weekend when I was eighteen. I hadn’t touched a pair of skis since.
The anxiety expanded and ate at my nerves, but that didn’t stop me from glaring at Josh when he burst into laughter.
Instead of dignifying his mockery with a response, I turned and stalked away the best I could in my stupid ski boots. Angry puffs of snow sprayed up with each step.
“C’mon Jules. You love me, right?” Max kissed me and squeezed my ass. “If you loved me, you’d do this for me. For us.”
“It’s for security reasons, babe. In case he decides to press charges.”
“I promise I’ll never show anyone.”
Sweat trickled down my spine at the memories, but I forced them back into the box where they belonged before they could replay further. I’d already lived them once; I didn’t need to do so again.
“Wait.” Josh caught up with me, still laughing. The sound chased off the vestiges of my unwanted trip down memory lane, and for once, it didn’t make me want to slap him, though the next words out of his mouth did. “You’re telling me you dressed up in a ski outfit, rented skis, and came all the way down here…but you can’t ski? Why the hell didn’t you say anything earlier? You could’ve signed up for lessons or something.”
“I thought I could wing it.” It wasn’t the best plan, but it was a plan. Sort of.
“You thought you could wing skiing?”
My cheeks blazed. “Obviously, I changed my mind.”
“Yeah, good thing you did, or you would’ve probably died.” Josh’s laugh finally tapered off, but amusement lingered at the corners of his mouth and teased the dimple making a half appearance.
My stomach dipped. I’d never faced genuine amusement from Josh before. His smile, absent of sarcasm and maliciousness, was…disconcerting, even when it was only a quarter of a smile.
“I’m spending the rest of the day in the lodge, so don’t worry about me dying.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Maybe I’ll find a guy who can teach me how to ski.”
“Like the one you were eye fucking in the lobby?” he asked, his tone dry.
“Perhaps.” I didn’t deign to acknowledge the eye fucking part of Josh’s statement. He seemed strangely fixated on my brief interaction with a stranger, though the guy had been cute. Maybe I could track him down later. Flirting always perked me up, and I could use some action that didn’t come courtesy of my hand or battery-operated friends.
Josh rubbed a hand over his jaw, his brows tight and his cheekbones like slashes against the snowy background. “I’ll teach you how to ski.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
I paused, waiting for him to crack and gloat about how he’d fooled me, and how I didn’t really think he’d teach me, did I?
But the moment never came.
“Why would you do that?” My stomach swooped low again for no reason. “What about your beloved triple black diamond?”
Josh offering to help me made no sense, especially since he’d been going on about that freaking ski run all morning. If he taught me how to ski, we’d have to stick to the beginner’s bunny slope.
“I’m doing it because I’m a nice person. I love helping my sister’s friends,” Josh said smoothly. Right. And I was the Queen of fucking England. “Besides, skiing is skiing. Doesn’t matter the slope.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.” Even I, a novice, knew that.
Josh let out a long-suffering sigh. “Look, do you want to learn or not?”
“I’ll teach you how to ski.” Max’s teeth flashed white against his face. “Trust me. I won’t let you fall.”
My chest knotted. I hated that Max still plagued me in the present when he should be rotting in the past, where he belonged.
Because of him, I hadn’t gone skiing in seven years. It’d been an unconscious choice, but I hadn’t realized how deep the scars ran until now. Everything that reminded me of Max made me want to hurl, but maybe it was time to replace those bad memories with new ones.
I didn’t want ski lessons from Josh, but I needed them. They would be a distraction, and when I got like this—when my mind couldn’t stop obsessing over the past to the point where I drove myself crazy—distractions were the only lifeline I had.
“Fine.” I rubbed the sleeve of my jacket between my thumb and forefinger, taking comfort in the sensation of thick, sturdy material against my skin. “But if I die, I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you until the day you die.”
“Noted. I’m surprised you don’t know how to ski,” he said as we walked toward the bunny slope. “Thought you grew up near Blue Mills.”
Blue Mills was Ohio’s most famous ski resort, and it
was located less than an hour’s drive from Whittlesburg, the Columbus suburb where I grew up.
“My family wasn’t big on skiing.” I zipped and unzipped the top of my jacket to release some of the restless energy pouring through my veins. “We didn’t have the money for it even if we were.”
I wanted to snatch back the accidental admission the second it left my mouth, but it was too late.
A frown carved itself into Josh’s forehead.
He knew I’d attended Thayer undergrad on a need-based scholarship, but what he and even my closest friends didn’t know was how bad it’d been in the early years, before my mother married Alastair. And they sure as hell didn’t know how much worse it got after she married him, even though Alastair had been the richest man in town.
“You don’t talk much about your family.” Josh skipped over the part about us not being able to afford skiing—a tiny kindness I hadn’t expected but was nonetheless grateful for.
“There’s not much to talk about.” I bit the inside of my cheek until a faint coppery taste filled my mouth. “Family is family. You know how it is.”
A shadow crossed his face, dimming the light in his eyes and erasing any trace of his dimple. “I don’t think my family situation is a common one.”
I suppressed a wince.
Right. Psycho father who tried to kill Ava twice and who was now serving life behind bars. Not common indeed.
Michael Chen had seemed so normal, but the biggest monsters always lurked beneath the most unsuspecting guises.
Josh and I didn’t speak again until we arrived at the bunny slope.
“We’ll run through the basics first before going up the hill,” he said. “Don’t need you crashing into a poor child and traumatizing them. Lucky for you, I’m an awesome teacher, so this shouldn’t take too long.”
“Your hilarity is only matched by your modesty,” I deadpanned. “Okay, awesome teacher, let’s see what you got. And remember.” I pointed at him. “If I die, I’m haunting your ass for eternity.”
Josh placed a hand over his heart, a scandalized expression spreading across his face. Any hints of his earlier brooding had disappeared. “JR, I’m shocked. There are children around. Try to keep your obsession with my ass under wraps until we return to our room.”