Page 10 of Head Over Skis

‘And you couldn’t do that over text? Or a fleeting conversation at the office?’

He chews at the inside of his bottom lip, knowing how bad it would’ve appeared and how I must’ve felt finding out from David. I hate that I don’t know if he’s lying about the reason or not, but he can’t blame me for finding it hard to trust him now. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

He hits me with that line, such a cliche, but I can’t pretend that as much as it makes me want to scream, it also sort of works. He sounds so genuine when he says it, and I want to believe that he means it. That for all his flaws, it really was just a fucked-up mistake.

He steps closer, whispering so only I can hear. ‘I’m going to spend the next two weeks proving to you that I’m serious about this. About us. I know we can be rocky, and we’re not perfect, but I love you. I realise I’ve been scared to properly commit, messing you around over and over again, but I’m all in on this. It’s meant to be us.’

I’ve always agreed. I’ve always considered Adam to be my person, and maybe that was naïve of me, falling for him at twenty and believing he was the one.

I know from our history that this conversation will likely happen again. It won’t be the last time we’re here, but there’s also a part of me that he convinces every time. The part of me that wants to see the best in him. Wants to believe these ups and downs are a phase, a sign of the times in our twenties, and maybe if I give him another chance, we’ll finally find some stability.

When it comes down to it, I love him, and I want that to be enough.

But you know what’s different this time? There’s this small part of me that thinks maybe love isn’t enough to fix something that’s better left broken. Maybe this holiday is the perfect time to let myself think about what I really want. Two weeks to decide if I can take a chance on us again, or whether we’ll fly back to London with it over for good.

‘Who’s ready to go skiing?’

Luckily, I dodge having to respond to him when the rest of our party appears, Meghan leading the way.

As always, she’s stunning, wearing a navy tweed Miu Miu jacket, which I only know the brand of because she let me borrow it once. I nearly died because I loved it so much, so I’m secretly hoping she’ll let me borrow it again on this trip, as well as any other clothes she’s packed into the world’s biggest suitcase, which Lucas is dragging behind her.

It’s also eight a.m. and she’s wearing a full face of effortless makeup, her hair bouncing in a way even the hairdresser can never get mine to. I would be green with jealousy if she wasn’t so damn lovely.

She’s Lucas’s girlfriend, but over the last three years she’s become a member of the group in her own right. I liked her from the beginning, although when Lucas started dating her I had no idea what she saw in him as she’s one step away from being a Victoria’s Secret model and he’s my sickly little roommate from first year. Or at least he was back then, I keep forgetting that he’s a proper gym rat now and so I take it back. They’re pretty great together.

Meghan pulls me in for a hug, and I whisper a thank you into her ear for saving me. I can tell from the way her chest is rising and falling that she’d speed-walked over here when she saw Adam and I so close to each other.

Lucas works his way around the circle dishing out hugs, and when he pulls away from ours he holds onto my shoulders a little longer. ‘How are you holding up?’

I shrug, knowing we don’t have time right now for me to dig into the true intricacies of my feelings. ‘Fine, apart from the fact I feel like I want to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and stay there for the duration of the next two weeks.’

He nods, and I know he gets this more than the others. He’s Adam’s best friend, but he’s my friend too, and so the weeks since the break-up have been especially hard for him. He hasn’t been easy on Adam, but he’s had to be there for him too. No one else knows the full extent of Adam’s past apart from Lucas and I, and although it doesn’t excuse anything, I’m glad he has someone he can talk to who knows it all.

‘Well, maybe this will cheer you up.’ He reaches into his bag and pulls out a little bundle. When he passes it over to me, I don’t need to unwrap the brown paper to know what’s inside because I can already smell the cinnamon.

‘My favourites?’

‘With extra frosting, just how you like them.’

I pull him in for another hug, careful not to let the cinnamon buns get squashed between us. Nothing beats Lucas’s cooking, and I do feel a little better knowing I have these to dig into.

He lets me go with one more shoulder squeeze, and I reach up to rub my hand over his new dark brown buzz cut.

‘Going bald already?’ I joke, even though I’ll admit it suits him.

‘It’s stylish, Lottie, or at least Meghan says so.’

‘Ah, then I happily bow before her better judgement,’ I say, swinging around to search until I find her passing Adam her huge suitcase.

‘Sorry we’re a tad late, we had to drop off the dog with my mother and you know what she’s like. She wouldn’t let me leave until she’d picked apart every element of my outfit and tried to get me to change into the Chloé Mallo ankle boots. How she’s still a designer with that taste baffles me. How’s work, Lottie?’ she asks, after pulling me in for another hug.

It’s a safe topic, unlike the big red no-go zone of my love life, and one I wish I had a more exciting answer for.

‘It’s fine, same old same old in the world of accounting,’ I say, reaching for anything further I can add that doesn’t make my work life sound as dull as it feels. ‘We have a new starter joining soon who I’ll be managing.’

‘Wow, that’s great!’ she says, giving my hands an excited squeeze.

‘I guess it is.’ I try to match her enthusiasm, but it’s a poor imitation.