One
Erin Russo had already put her badge on its usual place right on her belt, and didn't realize that it shouldn't have been there until she was already out the door. It was odd, not being on-duty. She had forced herself not to even bring it with her, and then somehow it had ended up in her luggage anyway. Her work suit—that is to say, her only suit—was there, too, and she had laid everything out the way she always did at home.
Only, she wasn't at home, and she wasn't going to work. Which should have made it uncomfortable and unusual to go around getting ready for work, but somehow she had barely realized that she was doing it.
When she had finally been told, point blank, that she needed a vacation, she thought it would be a relief. She'd finally have time to pick skiing back up again. She hadn't been on a mountain since she was fifteen years old, and now here she was, with a great view of the Tetons. Erin stripped off the suit, already regretting bringing it.
Those weren't the kinds of clothes that you needed on a skiing trip. But the ever-present 'what if' was always there. What if she needed to impress someone? What if she needed to look serious? What if she had to have a suit for something?
She hung it back up on the rack, promising herself that this time she wouldn't go straight for it the next morning. Then she changed into tight-fitting winter clothes that didn't flatter her breasts nearly as much as she might have liked. Then again, she thought, there wasn't nearly enough of them to be flattered, looking down at them sadly. Barely enough to fill her small hands.
She moved on from beating herself up over it and forced herself to keep on going. She slipped her wallet into her pocket on the way out and grabbed the keys to the rental car. She didn't need a new car, but it was impressing her enough that if she did, she might buy one. Reasonable, solid gas mileage, comfortable—it was a nice experience. Almost nothing like the heap she drove to work every morning, but it couldn't have the history she had with that old Jeep.
Her first stop was by the ski rentals. A man who looked like he thought he was God's gift to women smiled at her with a grin that reminded her of David Hasselhoff and asked if she needed any instruction. For such a pretty lady, he could always justify a discount, no problem.
She didn't have the heart to tell him no, so instead she told him hell no, and if he gave her a line like that again, he'd be taking a ride down the mountain on a stretcher. He laughed like she'd been joking, and maybe she had been. Somehow she suddenly wanted the suit back, and the badge that went along with it, just so she could prove that she was off-limits as long as she wanted to be.
Erin carried a pair of skis over to the counter, where David Hasselhoff still leaned back, giving her a smile that you could run a deep-frier with, and paid for her skis and poles. The man took her ID and, to Erin's great frustration, read her name out loud. How terribly predictable.
She took her card back once they'd run the credit through and seen that she wasn't likely to run off with their equipment, and huffed out of the room. She'd been expecting something like this pretty much since she started working at the station. It had made it easier not to go on vacation, when she realized that every vacation would be full of assholes trying their best to ruin her time.
She stepped into line behind a couple of teenagers who looked like they had all the money in the world and had decided to come to Wyoming as a change of pace from Switzerland. They were talking about the usual sort of nothing that she had come to expect from rich teenagers.
Erin closed her eyes a minute to try to calm herself down. She was being a bitch and she knew it. That generally meant, and this was the challenge, that she had to stop. But it was just so tempting, and there wouldn't be many other chances to confirm that she'd been absolutely right to forgo vacation time for seven years running.
But according to the Captain, while that was all fine and good for most of them, she was getting wound up way too tight, and she needed a break. Specifically her, as if she was doing something wrong getting the highest close-rate in the county.
Well, whatever it was, it wasn't a complaint. They gave her full pay for a week's vacation, and she intended to use it either getting back into her childhood hobby, or proving that there was no reason to take vacations. Either seemed about as good as the other, because even if she didn't have a good time, she was going to have a good time giving the Captain shit about it afterward, and that would more than make up for the week of dealing with assholes.
Besides, out there in the cold, she always had the option of popping in her ear-buds, and then she wouldn't hear a god damn thing. She took one step closer to the front of the line, not far now. Half of the teenagers had left and the others had continued the conversation as if they hadn't noticed their friends' absence.
Erin finally decided to stop subjecting herself to the frustration and nestled one of the earphones into her ear, enjoying the tight fill inside. Then she pulled out her phone and started the music. In for a penny, in for a pound, she figured. So she'd made a playlist full of songs that she'd loved as a teenager, and she was going to make a very strange weekend of reliving her life before the move out to the coast.
She kept the music quiet enough that she could almost hear over it, and kept her other ear open. As if any moment she might suddenly need to hear something. A voice behind her was accompanied by a tap on the shoulder.
"You new in town?"
She craned her neck over, not wanting to get her skis turned around. "Just visiting," she said.
The man behind her was hard to see through all the clothing, but his voice was at least friendly enough. She gave him a chance to say something more.
"Yeah—I guess we all are, aren't we? Or, most of us, anyway. I just—well, I was behind you in the ski rental, and I'm sorry how those guys treated you."
"Yeah, well." Erin could hear how bitchy her voice sounded, but with Britney Spears pumping quietly in her ears she was starting to feel better, so she really hadn't planned on being any ruder than normal. "Sometimes you have to deal with it."
"Well, maybe someone should give them a talking-to."
Erin liked the sound of that. Maybe they would like talking to her. She was good at talking, when she wanted to be. She was especially good at talking when there was something on the line. And she was an exceptional talker when the guy was across a metal table, handcuffed down and she could smell the scumbag on him.
Well, the handcuffs would be difficult, but the rest—they sounded perfect for it, frankly. The man behind her pulled his scarf down and his hat off, then held out his hand.
"I'm Roy."
Erin took it, still trying to turn as little as possible.
"Erin."
"Well, Erin, it looks like we're up."
Sure enough, the last remaining teenagers had found their seats and were starting to slowly move up and away to the top of the mountain. Erin moved over to get into the lift, and Roy moved up beside her.
She still couldn't see much of him, but from what she could see, she wanted to see more. The man had a military-looking haircut and the jaw to match it, with pretty eyes and a thin smile. She'd never used the word 'dreamy' before, but then again, she'd never seen someone who looked like Roy did.