Choices

by Mia Malone

  “I thought you were going skiing, Nina. Why are you still here?”

  I jolted and straightened with a groan.

  “I should have left half an hour ago,” I admitted and rolled my shoulders. “There’s just this thing I don’t get.”

  “You can get back to not getting it on Monday.”

  I grinned at Peggy who had popped her head into the small conference room that was known as my office. She was the company’s Financial Planning Director and George had assigned her to be my main contact, and she’d embraced the project from day one, which helped a lot.

  It also helped a lot that I really liked her.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come with us?” I asked.

  “I’d rather push needles into my eyes,” she retorted. “And skiing with the bosses would be even worse. I’d get fired once they see me hobble down the slopes.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. George was a very oldfashioned type of financial executive, and he seemed to mostly walk around the office asking people for information that I thought was pretty basic. Peggy was brilliant, seemed to know just about everything about the company, and should have been promoted years ago, which I fully intended to tell Matthias in my final report.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you have some time next week? These invoices are from the same supplier and it seems to be for the same things so they shouldn’t be spread out on different accounts. The amounts are not huge so I should probably drop it, but my gut says it’s something in the process that is off, and to keep digging.”

  “Sure,” she said and frowned. “Accounting is not my forte, but if I can help, then I’ll clear my schedule Monday afternoon, and we’ll look at it.”

  “I can ask George?” I asked.

  I wasn’t so sure the CFO would appreciate it, and I didn’t really want to. He was already uncomfortable with me poking around in what was his business and not mine, so questioning his accounting practices on a hunch would not go down well.

  “He usually leaves details like that to his directors,” Peggy said. “We’ll take a look, and I can make some calls if we can’t figure it out.”

  “Thanks,” I said and closed the lid to my laptop. “Might be nothing.”

  “We’ll deal with it next week,” she said firmly. “You were supposed to be here part time and you work too much, so go enjoy skiing. Have a few drinks. Relax.”

  I would indeed do all of that. Layla and Teddy would be there, and Len would join us a day later with a group of friends, which included Matthias.

  It would be fun to ski with him, although since we were running together regularly, I was well aware of how competitive he was and suspected that I’d have to push myself some in the slopes. It would be fun, though, like most things seemed to be with him. He’d suggested we’d be friends, and at first, I thought it was a ploy to get me to agree to a date, but he hadn’t indicated that he wanted more, so I’d settled into our casual friendship instead.

  Or, not so casual, actually.

  We had status meetings every Friday night, and they had moved from the office to either my house, his house, or a restaurant somewhere. We started running together, had gone to the movies, and when he went on business trips, I took care of Pippin for him.

  He’d become a pretty big part of my life in a surprisingly short time, and I genuinely liked him. I also argued more with him than I ever had with anyone before because he was opinionated and stubborn as a mule. Layla laughed at me when I whined about it and shared that it sounded as if he was just like me, and why didn’t I just get naked with him?

  I blinked when she said that and wasn’t sure what to tell her because I really, really wanted to get naked with him, but what if the platonic thing we had going was all he wanted? Fantasizing a little about him while I was alone in my bed was good too, and if I did that on an embarrassingly regular basis, then so what?

  Layla had seen right through me and had told me to just flirt a little with the man, and he’d take it from there.

  Perhaps it was time to do that? In case he seemed uncomfortable, I’d simply back-track and make it into a joke.

  Yes, I decided as I drove home to get my bags and wait for Lay and Teddy to pick me up.

  We’d be in the mountains for four days, and if the time seemed right, then I’d totally flirt a little.

  ***

  The wind was in my face, the sun was high on a clear blue sky, and I laughed out loud as I made my way down the slope.

  God, I loved skiing.

  Nothing beat that adrenaline kick, and when I found that perfect trail down a steep slope, it felt like music pumping through my body. Layla shouted something behind me, and I made what I thought was a pretty damned excellent turn before I stopped.

  “What?” I asked and tried to catch my breath.

  “Teddy had to adjust his boot.”

  Of course.

  Theodore Winthorpe III was a charming man. A slightly distant but decent father. A good husband.

  And a godawfully incompetent skier, which he tried to hide by adjusting his ridiculously expensive equipment every time he lagged behind. How a man who had been to every fancy ski resort known to mankind could be such a crappy skier was beyond me. The man had practically grown up in Gstaad, for Christ’s sake.

  “Told him he should have gotten a pair of these,” I said and raised a leg to wiggle my own seven years old, custom made Surefoot-boots. “Feels like cotton.”

  “I know,” Layla said and rolled her eyes with a grin. “He’ll catch up.”

  “I could go ahead, get one more lap in before lunch?” I said breezily.

  Layla’s grin turned sly, and she raised one brow.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, please,” she fake-snapped. “Like I don’t know why you want to get down to the base.”

  “One more lap?” I said in an attempt at deflecting her entirely accurate assumption.

  “Uh-huh. So, it has nothing to do with a certain handsome gentleman most likely waiting at the restaurant?”

  For a split second, I thought about lying, but the look she gave me shared that it wouldn’t work.

  “Perhaps I’m just very, very hungry,” I said anyway.

  “Oh, I know what you’re hungry for, and it’s about time you –”

  “Come on,” Teddy shouted as he passed us. “Lunch!”

  “Yeah,” I said with a smirk. “Lunch.”

  “Race ya,” Lay called out and followed her husband.

  She had skied almost as long as me, which was her entire life, and she was good, but I was better. I intended to do my best to demonstrate that when my phone buzzed, and I felt a little like a silly girl when I waved at her and immediately reached into my pocket.

  Matthias informed me via text that they had arrived, secured a table, were waiting, and would we get there pronto because he was hungry.

  “Right,” I said and tucked my phone away.

  I should perhaps be upset about his curt command but couldn’t hold back a smile because I was hungry too, and Layla had been right.

  Not only for food.

  ***

  Matthias

  “She won’t get here faster just because you stare at the slope.”

  Matthias turned slowly toward Len, who grinned back at him and wiggled his eyebrows. There were low chuckles around them, and he couldn’t hold back a smile of his own.

  The weather was great, they were about to eat, and then they had a weekend of skiing and relaxing in front of them.

  And yeah. Nina was on her way down the slopes.

  “We’re good friends,” he said calmly. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “Bud,” Len said with a smirk. “As if I don’t notice how you have to button your damned suit every time she walks into the room.”

  The chuckles turned into hoots, and Matthias shrugged.

  “We’re just friends,” he repeated.

  One of the men called o
ut that Teddy was on his way, and they turned to look up the mountain.

  Theodore Winthorpe was a surprisingly lousy skier. He made his way down without falling, but it looked stiff and cumbersome. His wife held back but would clearly outski him any time she felt like it.

  “Is that Nina in blue?”

  “Nah,” Matthias said. “That’s Layla Winthorpe. Nina’s jacket is teal, and she has black pants.”

  “Ah, I see her. Up there.”

  Nina had stopped at the crest and waited for a group to pass in front of her. Then she kicked off, and Matthias froze, mouth open and holding his beer in midair. Nina had told him how much she loved skiing, and when he asked if she was good at it, she'd casually said that she got down.

  He’d seen the determination in her eyes when she came running across the beach that first day, and her focus in the office. They were running together, and he knew how competitive she was, so he should have known that she’d be a bit better than just getting down. He put the beer on the table and watched as she raced down the mountain, easily twisting her skis around in that effortless way only really experienced skiers did. He was an above decent skier himself, but he knew he’d have to step up his game that afternoon. The thought made him grin and raise the beer again.

  “Just friends, my ass,” Len snorted out next to him, and the other damned morons chuckled again.

  Matthias laughed too, but it was mostly because he heard the triumphant shout Nina made when she passed Layla and Teddy just before they reached the base. Then she kicked off the skis, pulled off her helmet, and laughed while she shouted something at her friends.

  The sun glinted in her sunglasses, and her soft hair was mussed.

  And damn if his dick didn’t twitch.

  Fuck, yeah. It was time to nudge them out of the friend-zone, which he would do so fast Nina didn’t realize what happened until she was in his bed, and he was buried deep inside her.

  ***

  Nina

  We spent the day skiing and then we met in the restaurant downstairs at the hotel. Dinner was loud and happy, and some of the others in the restaurant gave us side glances, which clearly shared that they thought we should behave with more decorum, but when my eyes met Layla's, we just grinned at each other.

  Decorum-schmecorum, I thought and raised my glass in a silent toast.

  We might not be college students anymore, but we weren’t over the hill either, so if we wanted to enjoy ourselves, then why not?

  After dinner and the predictable but ridiculous fight over the bill, we got up to have what Len called, “One for the road.”

  I was first to reach the bar and waved my credit card toward the very young bartender.

  “I’m paying for my friends,” I said and leaned forward. “They won’t like it, so you’ll have to hold your ground. I’ll totally make it worth the effort.”

  That got me a wide grin and a brow wiggle.

  “I can do that,” he said.

  “Excellent,” I said. “White wine for her and me,” I pointed at Layla, “Pinot Grigio, please. No clue what the others would like to drink, but I’m sure they’ll tell you.”

  “We will,” Matthias said, nudged me to the side, surveyed the taps, and shared that he wanted what looked like a local IPA. “And I’m paying this round,” he added and moved a hand around to indicate the others.

  The bartender didn’t respond, poured the beer, put it in front of us and walked away.

  “The fuck?” Matthias grunted.

  The process of accepting orders and walking away was repeated several times, and I felt laughter bubble up my throat when I saw the looks on my friends’ faces.

  Then I settled the tab, added a tip that made the man-boy’s brows almost hit his hairline, and turned to face a gray tee with a print which shared that Matthias had been to Breckenridge, Colorado.

  “Nina,” he said sternly.

  “Matthias,” I retorted, and something flashed in his eyes.

  He moved closer until he was towering over me, put his mouth by my ear, and I heard a soft chuckle.

  “Babe,” he murmured.

  I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t, so I tilted my head back and looked into his amused eyes.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly a little breathless.

  “It’s probably a good thing you aren’t dating because this is not a good way to handle men.”

  “And how would you like to be handled?” I asked, pursed my mouth, and lowered my lids a little.

  He put a hand on my hip to pull me closer, and then I was suddenly pressed into his chest.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” he asked quietly.

  Oh.

  One sentence that hardly could be described as serious flirting had put me right where I’d fantasized about being, but it suddenly made me nervous. I hadn’t done this in a very long time and wasn’t sure what to do next.

  “Um,” I said and winced.

  “Um, what?”

  The hand on my hip tightened, and I leaned back a little.

  “Are you laughing at me?” I asked suspiciously, which was stupid because I could see that he was, in fact, doing just that.

  “Yeah, sorry, but you’re adorable,” he murmured. “Why do you suddenly look like you’re getting ready to run for the hills, babe?”

  “You’re right,” I blurted out. “It probably is good that I don’t date.”

  “Why?”

  “I really don’t know how to handle men,” I mumbled. “I used to be good at this, but now I’m fiftyish, and I don’t know...”

  His eyes softened, and he put his beer down to caress my cheek briefly.

  “So, break it down. Tell me what it is you don’t know, and we’ll figure it out.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” I squeaked, lowered my voice and added, “I’ll just –”

  “Tell me,” he repeated, and this time with a little bit of steel in his voice.

  I recognized that tone and knew I’d put myself in a position where I’d either have to lie to him and invent something that wasn’t embarrassing, or just tell him.

  He might be the one running for the hills then, but I felt comforted by the way he held me, and probably a little from the glasses of wine I’d consumed with my dinner.

  So, I got up on my toes, leaned in, and told him.

  “I used to love sex, but that was a very long time ago, and now I'm not even sure how to do it.” He pushed out a wheezing sound, but I barged on, “And I don't know what guys our age even like, so I might not be good at it anymore.”

  There.

  I’d told him.

  Matthias stared at me with his mouth half-open, but then he closed it and swallowed visibly.

  “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t know what men like?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Elaborate,” he ordered.

  “Oh, things, you know...”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Well, shit.

  “You know, things like that I used to love giving a blowjob,” I heard myself mumble, and thought that what the hell? I might as well just throw it out there. “But I don’t know if guys our age like that sort of thing.” I grinned, although mostly from embarrassment, and it felt more like a wince. “I might not like it anymore, either.”

  “Bluh,” Matthias said, blinked a few times, and was probably about to say something more coherent when Len appeared next to us.

  “Thanks for the beer, Nina,” he said cheerfully.

  “Go away,” Matthias growled, which made Len disappear, although laughing loudly.

  We watched each other in silence until I felt that an explanation might be due.

  “Matt –”

  “Yeah, we’re leaving.”

  Before I had time to react, he’d grabbed my hand and was pulling me toward the stairs leading up to the hotel.

  “What are we –”

  “Not gonna stand in a bar and discuss blowjobs, babe,” he said, w
hich made an older woman sidestep and stare at us. “That discussion will happen in my room.” He glanced down at me but kept walking. “Or your room.”

  I let him drag me along and tried frantically to come up with something witty to say.

  Or something stupid.

  “Matthias,” was all I managed, and he glanced at me.

  “You need to be quiet for a little while.”

  The elevator seemed to be five floors above us, and he glared at the gray doors, which was good because I was pretty sure I looked exactly as moronic as I felt.

  Why in the hell had I blurted out that I liked giving blowjobs?

  “Fuck this,” he growled and pulled me toward the stairs. “Your room?”

  “Ten-thirty-eight.”

  “Let’s go.”

  My legs were tired from our day in the slopes, but it was just one floor up, and then we were in my room, staring at each other again.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I said, and turned away. “I didn’t...”

  “Nina,” he said quietly and pulled me down next to him on the couch. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said because we were.

  “Let’s talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Blowjobs?”

  My surprised gaze met his laughing one, and suddenly I couldn’t hold a giggle back.

  “I can’t believe I said that,” I said.

  “For the record,” he said. “I haven’t done this in a long while either, but I’m pretty sure guys my age like blowjobs.”

  Oh.

  “You haven’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Why haven’t you?” he asked back.

  I shrugged and started turning away, but he put a hand on my cheek and looked at me with brows raised.

  “Well,” I said slowly. “I tried it after, you know, the divorce, but it wasn’t great. I don’t need some boring middle-aged horizontal bump and grind, so I just didn’t want to...”

  I trailed off and shrugged again.

  “I didn’t want to either,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “And now you’re not sure what men like?” he prompted.

  I winced and wondered if he thought I was as pathetic as that sounded.

  “Not really,” I confessed.