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A beat then, “Well…yeah,” she says.
I sigh, rub at the ache in my forehead. “You’ve lost your mind.”
Ella’s voice softens. “We needed to get you out of there. Knox said that Lake is a good guy and that his new house is huge. Plus, it’s in Lake Tahoe. You love being up in the mountains. I just figured it would be as good a place as any when you told me what happened with George—”
I wince and she somehow picks up on that through the airwaves, or maybe she just knows me far too well.
“—with he-and-she-who-must-not-be-named,” she corrects and I knowherwell enough that I can picture her biting at her bottom lip before straightening her shoulders, lifting her chin. “Lake is pretty and successful and he’s known for keeping things light and easy and commitment-free. I just figured some horizontal fun time would be good for you after—”
“It’s been a day, Ells,” I say, heart squeezing but annoyance fading. Because she’s trying to look after me. “It’s too soon, even for my free love and easy breezy soul.”
A long pause. “Right,” she whispers, and I know there’s more lip-biting commencing. “I’m sorry.”
“I know, honey,” I tell her softly.
Another moment of quiet. “Is the house at least nice?”
“It’s”—I pause and look around at the wood and stone, the painted cabinets, the hand-scrapped floors, the wide windows behind which the snow falls in a flurry—“incredible.”
A relieved breath. “There’s that at least.”
“And what about the room you stayed in?” she asks. “Is it luxurious? Knox says he’s spent an ass-ton of money on the place.”
“Is ass-ton a precise measurement?”
She giggles and I relax, annoyance gone, worry thatshe’sworried fading, and settle into a dishfest with my best friend. I glance at my nest of pillows and blankets, towels and clothes, and tell her, “The house is empty. Well,nearlyempty,” I amend, though this is less shocking now that she’s told me this place is new. “He has a stocked kitchen and food in the pantry, a few bags of towels and other stuff from the home goods store, and one bedroom has a bed, but there’s nothing else.”
A beat. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Her exhale rattles through the speaker. “So, my brother sent you up to a house in the mountains with a famous hockey player who’s well known for the size of hisbranchand his skills wielding it—”
Probably, I should have realized that Lake is a hockey player sooner.
He’s huge. And thatass.
But I haven’t been on my game since I walked in on my sister and boyfriend fucking so…
“—andit only has one bed?”
“Yup,” I say dryly.
She cackles. “This is too good.”
“No,” I say, despite the fact that I’ve stepped out of the pages of a romance novel. “It is, in fact,notgood. You and Knox sent me up to Tahoe to the house of a grumpy hockey player who has no interest in sharing his space with me and Steve during Snowmageddon.”
“What’s a Snowmageddon?”
Yeah, see? I’m not alone in not knowing what the hell Snowmageddon is.
“A giant blizzard that means my car is currently stuck in a snowbank and the likelihood of me being able to leave said grumpy hockey player’s house is nil,” I tell her. “At least for a couple of days.”
Silence then a guilty laugh. “Shit, Nov, we did you dirty.”
“Yup, that I know.”
“Was his bed at least comfortable?”
