Page 59 of Hairpin Curves

Scarlett’s smile indicated Megan wasn’t hiding her feelings as well as she thought. “Want to go skiing?”

“What?” Megan frowned. “No. That sounds terrifying and dangerous. I don’t want to end up with a broken leg for the wedding.”

“It’s not really dangerous when you’re learning,” Scarlett said, but she didn’t sound all that convinced, either. “I only went once. I fell down a lot.”

Megan shook her head. “I don’t want to spend my whole day falling in the snow. Plus I don’t have the right clothes for it.”

“Oh, that reminds me. There’s laundry at the front building, if you want to wash your stuff today. I’ve got quarters.”

That was a good idea. Megan had washed some underwear in the sinks of a few motel rooms, but it would be nice to actually do some laundry. She agreed, and then they continued to sit there, finishing breakfast and letting the silence settle between them.

Scarlett didn’t let the silence settle for very long. “So about last night.”

Here it came. Megan braced herself for Scarlett to talk about what a terrible idea it had been, or try to make it mean something big and significant for their friendship. Megan didn’t want to deal with any of that; last night could be a fun time with no repercussions, if they were both smart about this. “What about last night?”

“Are you okay with all of that? Is everything all right?” Scarlett bit her lip. She looked legitimately concerned, like something terrible had happened and she didn’t want to break the bad news.

Megan nodded. “I’m fine. Why? Didn’t you have fun?”

Scarlett relaxed a bit. “Yeah. It was great. But I thought we should talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about?” They had wanted sex, they’d had sex. Looking into Scarlett’s eyes, though, Megan’s stomach clenched. Best not stare too deeply, not so soon after sex; those warm, happy feelings of closeness were far too much like intimacy for her to want to deal with. She swallowed them down.

Scarlett, who was studying her face intently, eventually shrugged one shoulder and looked away. “I don’t know if this changes anything between us.”

“It doesn’t have to.” This was what Megan had been telling herself in the shower, and in bed. It was just sex. It didn’t have to change anything. Just like that first night, getting off in their separate beds, pretending the other person wasn’t there...or, in Megan’s case, fantasizing wildly about Scarlett’s hands and mouth on her body. But then there was that night in New York...

Scarlett was still looking out the windows. “I know. I didn’t know how you felt.”

“I had fun.” There, that was a huge oversimplification, but Megan could stick to “fun” in her definition of last night. Not the whole truth that it was mind-blowing, the best sex she’d ever had, the fulfillment of endless fantasies, but just “fun.” And she should be cured of those desires now, the itch scratched, rather than the way she was currently feeling: desperately wanting more.

“I had fun, too.” Scarlett nodded once, curtly. “Do you want to go play in the snow?”

It was a blatant subject change, and Megan didn’t mind at all. “Definitely.”

Playing in the snow was everything Megan had hoped for, way better than playing in that dusting back in North Carolina. They made a misshapen snowman, threw snowballs at each other, made snow angels, and eventually just flopped in the piles of snow and looked up at the sky. It was really freaking cold, and Megan’s new layers were not as waterproof as she’d have liked, but she lasted over an hour before the wet snow and cold air sent her back inside with chattering teeth.

“I’m freezing.” Megan tried to thaw her numb hands in front of the woodstove, which was warm but not nearly as warm as she wanted to be. “Dibs on the shower.”

Scarlett made a face. “I was literally just about to go shower.”

“We could share,” Megan offered. She wasn’t serious, not really, but Scarlett’s eyebrows shot up immediately in surprise before her expression turned guarded.

“I, um...” Scarlett began, and turned her head aside as she rubbed the back of her neck.

“I was just kidding,” Megan added quickly, just to save the moment. “You can go first.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s fine. You go first.” Scarlett was pink, the way she’d been pink last night, the way Megan was starting to realize she liked seeing her. Flustering Scarlett had always been so difficult, and now, it seemed her blush was only a moment away. In bed, Scarlett let her guard down and let Megan see her vulnerable and open and needy, and last night, Megan had done the same.

Last night should be no big deal, a fun encounter like playing outside in the snow, destined to be another pleasant memory and nothing more. But beneath the hot water of the shower, Megan kept replaying the memories. Scarlett writhing beneath her, lifting her hips, digging her nails into Megan’s back. The soft, wet press of Scarlett’s lips and tongue on Megan’s clit, getting her off effortlessly, like she knew Megan’s body as well as Megan did. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the water.

She wanted to do it again.

For the rest of the day, she struggled to put the desire aside in favor of mundane, simple tasks. First, it was laundry, carrying backpacks of dirty clothes and using the coin-op washers and dryers. Megan took the opportunity to clean out the car while she could still get into it, even with the snow piling up on the roof and around the wheels, clearing trash and bringing in the rest of the snacks to cobble together lunch. She and Megan did a jigsaw puzzle together on the coffee table, a 500-piece woodland scene that miraculously still had all its pieces, and even played a few hands of rummy with the deck of playing cards. The television only got a few stations, so they checked the local news and weather (yup, still snowing). Megan also spent some time adding her latest photos to the scrapbook. Later, they walked to the ski lodge for dinner, then back again afterward while the snow continued to pile up outside.

“How are you doing being trapped here with me?” Scarlett asked from behind her laptop, where she’d settled with some vague words about “work to do” an hour earlier.

Megan, for her part, had been unsuccessfully trying to read an ebook. “I can’t focus. But it’s not about you,” she added quickly. “I keep thinking about the wedding.” That was a lie; she kept thinking about the way Scarlett’s long hair felt in her hands and the way Scarlett’s lips felt on her skin. She kept her gaze turned away lest Scarlett see right through her. On the coffee table, her candle burned above its pool of melted wax. Direction and clarity. The only place she was being directed was into bed with Scarlett. Last night had been intense, and even though it was just sex, just some getting off between friends, Megan still couldn’t stop thinking about it.