AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maybe it was social anxiety that did that to him, turned him into an armadillo curled into its shell.
“Do you want to take some time to read over the packet before we go skiing?” I asked him.
“No.”
“You’d rather get out onto the slopes and away from people?”
“Something like that.”
Inside the chalet, a gorgeous, cavernous space greeted us—below, big fancy chairs fit for Viking kings. Above, exposed beams three stories up with a massive wrought-iron chandelier at their center, the type that would get shot down by a crossbow and crush all the villains at once in an epic old-timey sword fight.
Just beyond the kill-zone, an over-the-top fireplace loomed behind the concierge desk.
“Looks like there are lockers over here.” Wallace pointed to a room off to the right.
“Sweet. That’ll be perfect for my stuff while we do all of our avoidance and eventually official business.”
“If you can actually fit the bags in a locker,” Gabriel said.
He looked kinda pale, so I took the comment as a good sign. If he could still manage to be a jerkhole, he had only gone seventy percent armadillo, instead of one hundred percent.
“Oh, I can make them fit. I’m an expert at shoving big things in tight spaces,” I said.
His brown eyes darkened, like I’d said something about fitting his big thing in my tight space, which I hadn’t, and hadn’t meant to imply.
I’d been thinking more along the lines of getting the stink couch into my apartment. But that was neither here nor there.And the heat of those searing eyes made me forget that I’d been shivering with cold.
I flashed a charming smile at him and spoke softly so only he could hear. “After I finish with my luggage, I could shove your big jerkhole face into one of those lockers, too, if you’d like.”
“I’ll pass.”
He snapped his attention from me, leaving me smug and a little colder.
The lockers were ridiculously huge. I pulled out all of the outdoor gear I’d borrowed from Juno and put it on over my clothes.
Wallace helped me tuck everything inside. When we were done, he took off, leaving Gabriel and me alone, which was always dangerous.
Today was going to be fine. All I had to do was not make a fool of myself, pretend I actually liked Gabriel, and try not to say anything too nasty loudly enough to blow our cover. I could do that, right?
I followed Gabriel to the front desk where a woman with two blond braids stood waiting. She had the most plastic smile I’d ever seen, and a name tag labeling her Jane.
Gabriel asked, “Where do we rent equipment?”
“You want to rent skis?” Jane’s expression stayed creepily the exact same.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Do you have your reservation number?”
I flipped through the packet of papers to find information about ski reservations. It seemed like the kind of thing Pamela would figure out ahead for us.
“It’ll be under Stryker,” Gabriel said.
“I’m going to need that reservation number,” she said.
I could feel him growing stiffer and stiffer beside me, like he was slowly turning to stone from the inside out.
I found the number in the packet and read it aloud.
