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I laughed. “No trouble at all, actually.”
“Good. I’ve got my eyes on you,” she said, taunting Jackson.
Being around my family again felt good. I had missed everyone while in the service—Mom, Kat, even my asshole brothers. The one person not on the trip I hadn’t missed at all, and I made a note of that. We seemed to be a lot happier without him. Not that it should come as a huge surprise.
8
Nathan
“Watch out!” Harper shouted. I turned around just in time. She was barrelling toward me, arms flailing with a look of panic on her face. “I can’t stop! I can’t stop!”
I didn’t move. She wasn’t going fast enough to knock me off my feet. I grabbed her and stopped her, wrapping my arms around her. She was breathing heavily, her face flushed.
“Thank you, Nathan,” she said. “I just don’t know how to make my legs do what they’re supposed to.”
We had shown her over and over again how to stop, to turn her skis inward, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t working. Harper had taken to simply falling over like a fainting goat when she wanted to stop or run into something, or in my case, someone.
“Where are the kids? I thought you said we were going on the kiddy slopes?”
Jackson chuckled and we shared a look between us.
“What?” Harper’s eyes were wide.
Kat pulled up beside her and said, “Sweetie, we aren’t even on the slopes yet. I don’t think you’re ready for the kid’s slopes.”
“Oh,” Harper’s cheeks flushed. “I’m worse than a five-year-old, aren’t I?”
“It’s not your fault,” Kat said, patting her best friend on the arm. “Some people are just more coordinated than others. But with enough practice, I believe in you. You will soar past those five-year-olds in no time.”
Kat stuck her tongue out at her friend and Harper playfully scowled as she bent down to pick up some snow. I grabbed on to her so she wouldn’t fall over. She made a snowball and hurled it at Kat, missing her by a mile as her legs began shaking.
“I’m going to take these off for a bit,” Harper said. “I need to have control of my legs again.”
Jackson, Aiden and I helped her remove the skis and as soon as she was free, she made another snowball and ran after Kat. “You’re not going to get away from me now!”
A snowball pelted the side of Kat’s jacket and Harper jumped in the air in celebration. “Yes! I got you!”
She was so stinking cute, it hurt. My lips were numb from smiling.
“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Kat asked. A second later, a snowball flew past my head.
“It’s on now,” I said. I removed my skis, grabbed a handful of snow and hurled it toward my sister, hitting her in the shoulder.
“Watch out, Nate!” Harper called out again, but this time it was because Aiden had a snowball and was aiming it directly at me. I moved out of the way as it sailed past me and quickly formed a snowball to throw back at him.
Even Jackson got into it after Harper threw a snowball at him, hitting him in the chest. He was chasing down a squealing Harper and Kat, pelting them with snowballs as they laughed and did their best to get him back.
I couldn’t remember the last time we all played and acted like kids together. We’d all grown and gone our separate ways, escaping home as soon as we were old enough to do so. And the few times we all got together, there had always been drama and tension.
This was nice.
I had missed it.
Harper and Kat fell into the snow laughing.
“Enough!” Harper said, breathless. “I’m exhausted! I can’t breathe from laughing so hard, and I haven’t run like that since I was a kid.”
She was smiling wide, her eyes twinkling and her cheeks pink from the cold and from laughing. At that moment, I realized I had never seen a more beautiful woman.
