“But I didn’t bring any gear.”
“Jules is about your size, and you’re only a little taller than her. She’s got a few snow outfits here. We’ll get you situated. And you can rent the boots and skis up there. You’ll love it.”
Lucy was sure she would not love it, but found herself saying a weak, “All right.”
Steph grinned and drank some more coffee.
*
“I look like a Teletubby,” Lucy moaned quietly at herself in the mirror.
There was a knock at her bedroom door and she jerked it open, daring whoever was standing on the other side to say one thing about the way she looked. Will. Just brilliant.
“So, you ready?” he seemed particularly casual about the fact that she was wearing head-to-toe aubergine and resembled either a bloated undercooked sausage or the aforementioned Teletubby. Tinky Winky was the purple one, wasn’t he?
“I think so. I mean, what should I bring?” Lucy preferred to have everything planned out and this outing was far too ad hoc for her liking.
Will scratched the back of his head. He wasn’t wearing a daft outfit. He was wearing a T-shirt which had—again—ridden up and shown his extremely taut stomach. Was there such a thing as a twelve-pack?
“Okay, you’ve got the goggles, the mittens, and the ski socks …” Those items, all borrowed from Jules, were in a small backpack—also aubergine—on the bed. “And we’ll get you a helmet and boots up there. Oh, yeah, you’ll need lip balm.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, for the cold.” He laughed. “You’re looking at me like I said lipstick or something. Just, you know, regular old Chapstick.”
She did not like how amused he seemed. How was she supposed to know what to take with her for a day of skiing? She gave him a firm stare and he stopped laughing.
“Okay, um, bring your phone—in case anything happens, you know …?” No, she did not know, and she didn’t want to think about it. “And tissues. There should be those little packets in your bathroom. Bring a few. Your nose runs like crazy up there.” Well, that’s just brilliant. So far, nothing he’d said made her any happier about their impending outing. “And that should be it. Oh, and there’s these.” He retrieved two foils packs from his pocket and held them out.
Lucy had seen them before. They were those little heat packs you put in your boots for when it’s really cold. She didn’t know they made them for hands too, but he’d given her one set of each. “Jules gets numb fingers and toes sometimes, so she uses those. Okay, so meet you downstairs in a few minutes? And you can just wear your Uggs.”
“Only Americans wear Ugg boots outside,” she muttered to herself. She really did hope it was jet lag making her so ill-tempered. Or perhaps it was abject fear. Was she really doing this?
*
“You’re doing awesome!”
They were on a green run—the easiest kind, Lucy soon found out—and Will was skiing backwards in front of her, making it look as simple as walking, which for him, it probably was.
He was watching her form and explaining how to make little corrections and, surprisingly, she was doing very well. At first, she’d been self-conscious about him watching every nuance of how she moved—and she’d felt like a giraffe on roller skates when she’d first stood up on skis—but as the morning progressed and as she progressed, she found that she really liked skiing.
Lucy beamed at Will. “Do you think maybe you can start skiing forward now?”
He laughed. “Sometimes I forget.” He gracefully changed directions and was soon skiing alongside her. She snuck a surreptitious glance at him, still amazed by how effortless he made it look, and she recalled her conversation with Steph from that morning. Of course, he was good. He’d been on the snow for twenty-six years!
They were coming up on a skiing class of small children and Lucy’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. “You’ve got this,” said a reassuring voice to her right. “Just lean ever so slightly to the left and take that path there.” She followed the line of Will’s arm and gave a sharp nod.
The children seemed to be intent on scattering across the width of the ski run, and Lucy held her breath as she narrowly missed a little boy wearing a Cookie Monster helmet. They passed the skiing class without incident, though, and she sighed, a grin spreading across her face.
“You’re a natural,” Will called to her.
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it’s brilliant!”
“We were lucky. It’s usually much more crowded than this, but the storm must have deterred some people from making the trek.”
“And it’s sunny!” she exclaimed. She heard his laugh and when she glanced his way, there was a broad grin under his goggles.
“Yeah, it’s kind of perfect. Fresh dump of powder last night, sunshine today. But it’s not always like this. That’s how you know you’re a hardcore skier or snowboarder—you go out even when it’s freezing and there’s zero visibility. If there’s fresh powder, you just want to get out in it.”
Lucy had a realisation—she’d been so absorbed in what Will was saying, she was no longer nervous about skiing around other people. She was just doing it. And those two hours of snowploughing on the bunny hill getting her confidence up were definitely paying off. Will hadn’t let her try a green run until she could ski with parallel skis, and she’d never worked so hard to follow instructions in her life.
It was the ski lift that had terrified her most, however. What if she fell off and plummeted to the ground below? What if, when it was time to ski off it, she slipped, and the ski lift smacked her in the head and she had to go off to hospital—on Christmas Eve!
Just as she was settling into this wonderful feeling of gliding down the mountain, Will skied closer. “Okay, so this is a
