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The road winds through some more trees, climbing even higher. Roger leans forward and flips the heater on, scowling over his right shoulder.
“Why don’t you just keep your eyes on the road, okay, Roger?” Nance suggests nervously. “I’m sure you know these roads like the back your hand, but I don’t. And you’re scaring the hell out of me!”
“I’m just trying to get us there,” he mutters. “It’s pretty late in the season.”
Chad smiles at me as though he didn’t hear anything. His eyes really are quite blue.
“What does that mean? It’s really late in the season?” I ask, smiling back up at him.
“Oh, Roger is just a worrywart. He would rather ski with the tourists at Heavenly. He’s just grousing.”
“I’m not grousing!” Roger sneers. “You see all those fluffy white clouds behind us? Go ahead. Look.”
I twist around my seat, squinting out the back windshield. The whole sky is blue except for these picturesque piles of cottony white clouds.
“Roger, stop,” Chad drawls.
“Those don’t look like anything to me,” I add, clearly not knowing what I’m talking about. But as we are rolling on these high roads, I don’t want to twist around again. It feels like doing a dance on the top of a roller coaster.
“Of course they don’t look like anything to you,” he insists. “And maybe they’re not anything. But maybe they’re the first squall of the season.”
“Tony would have said something if there was weather coming,” Chad growls, kicking the back of Roger’s seat meaningfully. Then he looks down at me as if to reassure me again. “Tony’s a local legend. He knows his stuff.”
“I know my stuff too,” Roger continues. “And maybe those clouds are nothing. Or maybe those clouds are going to dump nine feet of snow on us before we get to the bottom of the hill.”
“Wait, are you serious?” Nance asks nervously. “I mean, can we turn back? We don’t have to do this.”
“That’s never gonna happen!” Chad insists. He squeezes my hand tightly, so tightly I can’t pull my fingers out. “Just look at those hills, man. They’re begging for us to get up there! We’ve got plenty of time… Just get us to the trailhead and if it looks bad, we can turn right around.”
“Yeah, well, like you’re the expert,” Roger grumbles under his breath.
Nance catches my eye and raises her brows. She presses her lips together and shrugs subtly as if to ask me my opinion. But what do I know?
“Is it really safe?” I ask Chad, looking up at him.
He slips his arm around my shoulder, pulling me tighter toward him. “You think I would let anything happen to you?” he mutters into my hair. From under his arm, I shoot Nance a look. She takes a moment to assess my features, then turns around.
“Fine. I guess if we’re going to drive off to our doom, it might as well be a beautiful doom.”
Roger doesn’t say anything.
As we continue, Chad keeps snuggling me closer and closer, and I have to admit that being in his arms while the Hummer sneaks through twisting mountain paths is sort of exhilarating. I feel safe and unsafe at the very same time. My heart is racing, yet there’s a sparkle of warmth deep inside my c
hest. I know it’s just pretending, but it feels like good pretending. I really miss having someone to pretend with.
Still, I’m glad when the Hummer finally stops and I hear the grinding sound of the emergency brake. It’s a relief to not be on the road anymore.
“Ready?” Chad grins. I can hear the excitement in his voice. “Let’s do this!"
Nance and I hang back, letting the guys get the equipment all set up for us. Yeah, it’s not our most feminist move, but he-men like to be he-men. I find it’s just better to let them.
When we’re all set up, we gather behind Roger, who honestly seems to know the most about what’s going on. We’re standing at the top of a beautiful, undisturbed hill of smooth white snow. It seems to go down forever, with a wide, obvious path between trees on either side. There are some small hills here and there, but for the most part it looks like the perfect, pristine hill for us to ski down with few surprises.
Nervously, I glance over my right shoulder at those clouds. Are they getting closer? It’s hard for me to know. The sky certainly isn’t as blue. Now it is lighter and more toward gray. Wind whips my scarf to the side and I tuck the ends into my jacket, zipping it up to secure it.
“Nothing to worry about!” Chad smiles, nudging me with his elbow. “We’re just gonna head to the bottom of the hill and meet Tony, who can ride us back up here to catch the Hummer again. Easy!”
“Easy!” I repeat, looking all around.
