Blinding As The Snow
I manage to survive the shopping expedition. It eats at me to let Ryleigh pay for everything, but I’m pretty sure that once the guys got there a few of their cards were replacing hers. She manages to set a rule, even though she had to talk me into it to begin with. The rule was no looking at price tags. Maybe she got the impression that I would try to pay her back anyways, and that’s not too far from the truth. Between Ryleigh and the guys, they pull all of the tags off of everything before the bags make it to my house. They’re all cheaters, but it’s not like I could ask for them back.
Gramps gives me the all clear to go. He says he’s feeling better, and I can tell by how much he’s moving around and not wheezing that he’s not lying. I’ll only be gone for three days, and Robert’s already promised to stop by and check on him during the day while I’m gone. Plus, they will both have my cell phone number just in case. Gramps just warns to me to be safe and not get into any trouble.
When the guys show up Friday morning, I’m packed and ready to go. Goose and Lucas meet me at the door to take all of my stuff out to the Rover. Gramps is already up and sitting in his chair, so I go to hug him.
“Remember what I said now,” he reminds me. “Don’t be getting into any trouble up there and have fun. Lord knows you deserve to after the past few years.”
I throw my arms around his neck and kiss the bald spot on his head, “Thanks Gramps. I promise, no trouble. You don’t cause any trouble for Robert here either.”
He laughs and ends up in a fit of coughs that doesn’t sound too good. When I try to say something about it, he just waves me off, saying that he’s fine and not to worry.
When I start to pull away, he hugs me back and says, “I love you, Pea.”
“I love you too, Gramps,” I say, not wanting to let go.
It takes a minute, but I do. When I look back, he’s lighting up a cigarette, and it makes me smile. Same ole Gramps.
The guys already have my stuff loaded up, but Maverick is standing at the back, “Have anything else that needs to go in?”
“Nope, good to go,” I assure him.
He reaches into a corner and pulls out a heavy looking black bag. Unzipping the top part, he pulls out an expensive camera, “Goose said something happened to yours and I never use this one anymore.” When I start to tell him that there’s no way in hell that I’m taking that camera he says, “It’s a loaner for now. You can’t tell me that you won’t take it if I’m not giving it to you and simply asking you to take the pictures for me.”
Leaving no room for argument, he hands the camera over to me. “I’ve never had one this nice. I don’t know how to use it,” I tell him honestly.
“Goose can give you a run down on the way up there,” he says shutting the back, “but for now. Spin this little knob right here to turn it on and press that button to take one. You’ll hear the shutter and if you did it right, it’ll pop up on the screen.”
I do as he says, and the ready symbol shows up in the top corner. Backing up a little, I aim it at Mav. He’s a good sport, and even smiles for me. When it snaps, I know that I’m going to have trouble taking a new favorite this weekend.
With the trip to the cabin set to take several hours of driving, the guys give me the choice of riding in the middle in the back between two of them, or riding with Ryleigh and Eddie. That’s not even a true choice. Even if it wasn’t for the fact that I would love nothing more than to be stuck in a car with the quad, I don’t want to be a third wheel and crash Ry’s alone time with Eddie.
The only thing I didn’t account for is how hot it would get squished between two huge males. Handing the camera up to Goose for a second, I strip off the thick jacket that they forced me to buy on the shopping trip managing to elbow Lucas in the side and smack Teagan in the face with the sleeve in the process, “I am so freaking sorry.” And I am, but my insides are complete mush at being so close to all of them and it’s given me the giggles.
I start laughing and Goose turns around to snap a picture of us with a smile on his face. Meeting Mav’s eyes in the mirror, I can tell that he’s smiling too.
Teagan stuffs my jacket over the seat, and when everything settles back down, I’m surprised to realize just how much room that thing was taking up. We’re still brushing arms, but the guys aren’t squished against the doors anymore. It makes me giggle again thinking about them being too nice to say anything.
Lucas smiles at me, “Someone’s in a good mood today.”
I shrug, “This is the first time that I’ve ever really been on a trip like this, and Gramps is feeling better. Plus, I’m pretty sure you guys mentioned snow.”
“Lots and lots of snow,” Teagan whispers in my ear giving me chill bumps on my arms. “Good for building snowmen, snowboarding and snowball fights.”
My eyebrow goes up on the last one and Lucas, who couldn’t have helped but to overhear, laughs, “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you if war breaks out.”
“Thanks,” I tell him as I pull the sleeves of my shirt up to match his. “It’s so hot back here between you guys.”
“Hey,” Teagan complains, “We’re not the only ones generating body heat.”
“Yeah,” I argue, “but I’m not my own personal space heater like you two either.”
The four of them laugh and Goose adjusts the heater.
“Are Ryleigh and Eddie meeting us up there?” I ask.
Teagan nods and pulls out his phone. He hits a few buttons and after a minute or so it beeps at him, “She says they left a few minutes after we did to come get you, so they’ll probably beat us up there.”
With the temperature at a normal level, and the motion of the car, I find myself trying to fall asleep. I nudge Teagan with my arm, “Don’t let me fall asleep. I don’t want to miss anything.”
He smiles down at me as he takes my hand and kisses the back of it, “I won’t.”
After I return his smile, I look back to the front to see both Lucas and Goose watching us. Neither says a word, but they don’t look pissed. It’s the same kind of expression Lucas wore when he saw us kiss before.
It’s at least three hours before we even start to see snow, and another two before we’re at the cabin. The first thing that comes to mind as I step out of the car and someone wraps my jacket around my shoulders is how absolutely fucking beautiful it is. It’s a little after midday, and the sun shining off the white of snow is almost blinding. There are tiny ice crystals dripping down from the barren trees that surround the cabin. I snap a picture of a tiny bird on one of the branches. It takes off mid click, so I’m not sure if that one will turn out to be any good.
I go to take another, and something smacks into my side. With the wet sound that it makes against my jacket, I’m pretty sure that I know what it was. Sure enough, when I look to my right, Goose is bending down to gather more snow for his second assault.
Shaking my head at him, I warn, “You better not. You’ll get the camera wet.”
He laughs and launches it anyways. I turn sideways hoping to catch it in the back, but it turns out that I don’t even need to. Lucas takes the hit straight in the chest that was aimed for me. We look over our shoulders at each other.
“You’re my hero,” I whisper.
The smile he throws me is just as blinding as the snow, and my heart skips a beat, “Run behind the Rover on my word. I’ll lay down cover.”
When he shouts to run, I take off, laughing the whole way. Maverick is thankfully still standing at the back waiting on us to get our bags out. I slip on a small patch of ice, and would have hit my ass if he hadn’t reached out and caught me by the arm.
I smile up to him, “Thanks.”
The cold has turned his cheeks and nose a tad pink and it looks good on him. I’m beginning to think that there’s no bad look on any of the quad. His eyes go wide, and he jerks me to him. My face is buried inside his unzipped jacket as his face nuzzles the side of my neck. Less than a second later I feel impact from the snowball hitting my back. That, however, is the last thing on my mind. This is the first time I’ve been within true touching distance of Mav and dear all that is holy, he smells so fucking good. It takes him longer than I would have expected to pull away, and it leaves my heart hurting. He’s closer to my height than any of the other guys, but he still has to look down at me. The look that he shoots me could melt the snow around us. For half a second, the agreement between us doesn’t exist, and I lean into him. His hand comes so close to my face that I can feel the heat coming from it. Then, as fast as it came on, that mask drops back into place and he’s back to being the same old Maverick.
He puts as much distance as he can between us by joining the other three in their impromptu war. My emotions are all over the place as I watch them. That one small moment with Mav has my heart hurting. Maybe I lied a little when I said all I wanted was new friends. I’m trying so damn hard, but it seems to get harder and harder every day. I just have to keep reminding myself that the sacrifices wouldn’t be worth it. Even as I watch Lucas and Mav lob snowballs at each other as Teagan and Goose wrestle on the ground trying to see who can stuff more snow in the other’s pants faster. I can’t think of anything that could possibly be any fucking sexier than the four of them.
Taking advantage of the situation, I get some good shots of them acting goofy before Goose tries to pull me back into the war zone. I keep the camera in front of me as an excuse to not engage.
Mav comes to the rescue again, “Guys, we need to stop messing around. We’ve still got to go back into town for food and shit.” When Teagan grumbles, he adds, “Plus, someone didn’t put on their gloves. Kendall is going to get frostbite on her fingers if we keep her out here too much longer.”
Goose is still within arms distance. He reaches out and wraps my hands up in his before I can pull away. His warm breath goes a long way in thawing my fingers out when he blows on them.
“You’ve got to remember to put your gloves on up here, babe,” he says quietly.
He’s been using the pet name more and more lately, almost like he hopes that I’ll let him back in romantically. It makes me sick to my stomach to ignore it, but if Mav were to hear it, he’d probably go ballistic. Smiling at Goose, I make my way to the back of the Rover. When I reach to take my bag, Lucas snatches it right out from under me.
“I can get my stuff,” I tell him.
He winks, “I’ve already got it. You better go claim a room before Teagan beats you inside, otherwise you won’t get the best one.”
“I heard that,” Teagan calls out from behind us.
Goose comes from our left side as we make our way up the stairs, “Don’t let him fool you. It’s true.”
“Oh, thank god,” Ryleigh says walking out of the kitchen. “I was beginning to think that you guys had gotten lost.”
I shake my head, “Nope. Not lost. The boys just had a little too much fun in the snow.”
She rolls her eyes, “No. Not them.”
“Where’s Eddie?” I ask looking around.
“Laying down in the day room,” she sighs. “I may be doing more babysitting than anything this weekend. Apparently, Eddie is sensitive to high altitudes.”
“Oh, that sucks,” I tell her.
Lucas puts his hand against my back, “We’ll be back in just a minute. We’re trying to beat Teagan to a room.”
She walks away and talks over her shoulder, “I guess we’ve got dibs on the downstairs room. I’d hate to add to his sickness.”
“Come on, Kendall,” he says, guiding me up the steps.
The inside of the cabin is rustic and homey. I expected nothing less. There’s a runner leading down a long hallway on the second level. It’s a hunter green color that goes well with the hardwood floors and dark tan walls. There are five doors leading off the hallway.
“You can look through each room if you want to, but this room back here is the best,” he says leading me to the door straight across from the stairs.
“What makes this one better than the others?” I ask.
He smiles, “You’ll see.”
There’s nothing spectacular that I can see about the room. It looks like the basic inside of a cabin with brown wood walls and the same dark hardwood floor of the hallway. Black bears cover the rug, quilt and in the couple of pictures on the walls. My favorite thing is the lamp. It’s a small bear holding up the post part of it and the shade matches the quilt.
Lucas grabs my hand and pulls me to the double doors across the room. He moves behind me and covers my eyes as he whispers in my ear, “This is the best part.”
A blast of cold air hits me in the face as he crowds my space and moves us forward. He uncovers my eyes and my breath leaves me in a whoosh of a white smoke. Due to the downslope behind the house, I can see straight over the bare trees surrounding the cabin. For miles and miles all that’s visible is mountains and snow.
When I feel that I can speak again, I turn around to tell him thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Only, he’s standing so much closer than I expect him to be. His lips slant down across mine and I’m too stunned to do anything other than kiss him back. Anything my imagination could have conjured up would never compare to the real thing. The feel of his hands on each side of my face makes it oh so much sweeter. Lucas acts as if we have all of the time in the world as he takes his time exploring every inch of me that he can. It’s a sobering thought to think that it’s just the opposite. I pull away with a sad smile and looking anywhere but him.
He lifts my chin so that I have no choice but to lock eyes with him, “I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work.” I try to shake my head, but he stops me, “You can’t deny it. I don’t know what’s changed in the past month, but you’re keeping us at a distance. I’m telling you right now that it’s not going to work.”
My voice comes out in barely a whisper as I try to fight back the tightness in my chest, “I can’t.”
Goose’s voice rings out from right outside my door, “Hey, you guys in here?”
I step away from Lucas just as Goose opens the door. He meets us out on the balcony and throws his arm around my shoulder opposite Lucas, “So what do you think of the view, babe? Best room in the house or what?”
When I glance up at Lucas he winks at me. Whatever. I don’t know what they’re up to, but I’ll play along for now, “It’s fucking perfect. Think Teagan’s going to be pissed?”
“I would be if it was anyone but you,” Teagan says from behind us. I look over my shoulder just in time to see him looking away from Goose’s arm around me.
I step out of reach of any of them and lean my back against the rail, “Well, I feel special right now, so seriously. Thank you.”
He smiles, and Goose reaches out to me, “Can I see the camera just a second?”
My eyebrow lifts in question, but I hand it over.
“Say cheese,” he tells me.
I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue just as I hear the small clicking noise. The three of them look at the picture and crack up. It’s contagious and I can’t help the laugh that comes out of my mouth. Then the camera goes off again. Oh, sneaky bastard. He might have actually got that one.
“Ok, give it back,” I demand.
“Only if you promise not to delete those,” he says holding the camera up where I can’t snatch it from him.
I sigh, “I don’t even know how to delete them.” There’s no way I’m playing with that button either. I don’t want to risk losing the ones I’ve already taken.
“Give it back to her,” Mav says walking into the room. “I want to get into town and make it back as soon as we can. It’s supposed to start snowing again soon and I don’t want to get stuck in town.”
The others may have missed the hard look that he throws me, but I feel it like a dagger straight through the heart.