Page 21 of Head Over Skis

‘Oh, cool’ I say, keeping my head down as I pray for the carpet to move faster. It’s at that moment I realise one of my skis is crossed with his. It must’ve gotten that way when I barrelled into him. ‘Shit, sorry, let me fix that.’

I lift my foot to untangle us as the exit nears, transferring my weight onto my left leg and inadvertently pushing myself into him more as I try not to lose my balance.

Rory’s hold on my waist tightens, anchoring me to him as I straighten out my skis, and I get a flashback to that night. His hands caressing the dips above my hips, his touch so gentle and heavenly on my bare skin, before he grabbed me in the same place he is now. Only then it wasn’t to pull my hips towards him for balance, but to push them into the mattress as I lay on my front.

I fight to shut that image of us away, but Rory’s thumbs start to move in delicate circles at the centre of my lower back, and I swear he’s reliving the same memory.

We reach the top, and before I can find out whether his thoughts echoed mine, he releases me. As he skis past me, our eyes meet for long enough to try and confirm how affected the other was by the last few minutes. Or rather, he’s able to confirm how I felt about it, whilst his emotions are far from clear. He passes by my side with ease, while I come to a standstill and have to dig my poles into the snow to inch myself forwards.

It doesn’t take long for Tilly and Meghan to pull up on either side of me.

‘Did you fall back into Rory? Was that on purpose? And why is your face so—’ Tilly’s talking at a mile a minute and I stop her with a firm hand on her chest.

‘Not right now, still processing,’ I say.

‘You little flirt.’ She playfully bites her lip before making her way over to where the rest of the class are gathered. I take my time to follow her and join the group, giving myself the chance to rid my face of the flush that I can’t blame solely on the crisp cold.

Rory does a headcount, lingering on me for a beat longer than anyone else, and I catch his jaw tic. I try to figure out what that tiny movement means, worried that it’s something bad. The situation on the magic carpet was undoubtedly uncomfortable for him, and although he didn’t show any indication of it at the start, perhaps my presence here is putting him in an awkward position. His role of keeping everyone in the class safe is a serious one and what about his reputation at the school? Now that I’ve shown up, he’s probably seriously regretting the night we spent together because of how it’s screwing with his job.

He was likely regretting that night already, given that he’d had to spend half of it making me tea and consoling me as I cried and word-vomited about my ex-boyfriend. I wish my body would sink into the snow as he clears his throat, that easy smile back on his face, which betrays nothing and only makes me more nervous.

‘Who’s ready to go again? Maybe a different volunteer to follow me this time?’

‘I’ll go,’ Penny announces, pole lifted into the sky. She pauses as she shuffles past me, leaning into my side to whisper. ‘Who wouldn’t take up the chance to stare at his bottom up close for a few minutes? But don’t tell Bill.’

She winks as she sets off down the slope and I chuckle, because she has no idea how right she is. I wait for more of the group to follow, hoping to go at the back of the line this time where there’s the smallest chance I’ll make Rory more uncomfortable than he already is. Meghan pulls up at my side, nudging me with her shoulder.

‘Come on, slow-poke, only two hours and forty-five minutes to go,’ she says, giving me a little shove from behind to get me going.

I pray the time flies.

9

All the muscles in my legs ache as I walk up the hill that takes us from our chalet to the main part of the town. After a fairly full-on first day on the slopes, we all got back, showered, relaxed for an hour and then decided to explore the nearby village.

I’m thankful to be back in normal shoes and not those torturous boots. They felt fine when I was skiing but the awkward clunky steps I had to take when the skis were off were not enjoyable. And don’t even get me started on trying to walk downstairs in them to get to the toilet at lunch. I had one slip and I thought I was a goner. Death by ski boot would not be a good way to go.

Walking in my baby-blue Moon Boots by comparison is heavenly, and the climb is well worth it once we reach the top and I see the town for the first time. The narrow street we’ve been following widens into a square, and at the centre sits a carved wooden snowman draped in warm white lights. That’s not the only Christmassy decoration in sight, and anywhere else it would feel wrong given that it’s late January, but not here. Here it makes sense. Cloudlike flakes of snow start to fall from the pure white sky and I couldn’t feel more like I’ve stepped into the pages of a festive children’s picture book if I tried.

‘Wow,’ I whisper on an exhale, my breath forming a temporary cloud in front of me.

‘I feel like I’m in a fairy tale. Or a Disney village,’ Meghan adds, unknowingly echoing my thoughts, whilst lifting a gloved hand to catch a falling flake.

‘It reminds me of that market we went to, the one in Germany,’ Adam leans down to say to me. He’s been trying to start little conversations with me since we reunited at lunch, and although I was wary of them at first, slipping into our usual chats has felt like putting on your favourite pair of jeans. Maybe it’s the change of pace here, the peace of it compared with the bustle of London. Maybe this is what we needed.

‘Goslar,’ I reply. ‘That was a good trip.’

One of my favourites of ours. He was only able to get two days off work before Christmas, but it was enough. We spent them wandering the medieval German streets on the surprise getaway he’d planned. The cobblestones and the twinkly lights are similar here, stretching across the square, criss-crossing in the middle as they’re strung from building to building.

Meghan whips her phone out of her pocket and starts taking photos, panning around to get some with the full group in shot, as well as a candid one of Adam and me. He’s then called away by the guys, who are further ahead, scraping together snowballs from the piles ploughed to the sides of the road for a fight.

He flashes me a small smile before he joins them, while I stay with Tilly and Meghan. The snowball fight escalates, and the gap between them and us widens, but we don’t call them back. They came into town in pursuit of a sports bar to watch the football, while we have a different agenda: souvenir hunting.

Tilly links her arm through mine as we walk, and I lean in to rest my head on her shoulder. When I do, I get hit with a passing note of floral perfume.

I squeeze her arm, the question I was so eager to ask last night now coming back to mind.

‘You have some explaining to do,’ I start, curious to see if she guesses what I’m talking about.