more than comfortable on skis. Thankfully, I had Coop to share my skill level at the lesson all five of us took. Well, technically, only Coop and I were taking the lesson. The other guys came to hang out with us and supervise. Jake’s incredulous look accompanied by Ian’s easy grin and Archie’s teasing smirk had been great, right up until the instructor, Josh, showed up.
Maybe a couple of years older than us. Maybe. He was easily as big as Jake and Ian, with a laughing smile and an easy demeanor. And he was an outrageous flirt. His walking me through my first lesson on how to wedge and position my legs and subtle adjustments to my hips lasted for maybe all of five minutes.
Archie and Jake sent him away to help Coop, and they took over my ski instruction. So far, I could go down the hill without landing on my face. I called that a win. I glanced over to where Josh had Coop going a lot faster. He didn’t make him wedge all the way down the hill.
“Eyes front,” Jake reminded me. I snapped them ahead to where Archie waited for us. They took turns going down the hill, not that they even needed the stupid poles. I thought those looked sexy on television. They were irritating as fuck in real life while trying to figure out where to put my hands and how to hold them without whacking myself or them. “You don’t worry about the people behind you. You worry about who is ahead. You have to avoid Archie, so how do you do that?”
I did a plough-turn. Almost like I knew what I was doing, and it slowed me enough that I angled away and around Archie. The bunny hill was not that long a course. An hour ago, it seemed to take forever to get down, but I was getting faster.
Coop hit the runout before I did, and he glanced back at me as I skidded and turned. Only instead of coming to a stop, I pivoted and used the momentum to get me back to the rope tow. My least favorite part of this whole thing. There’d been some definitely uncomfortable humiliation the first time I’d attempted to use it. The idea was to grip the rope and let it pull me up to the top of the bunny slope where I could ski away from it and down.
Yeah, it hadn’t really worked the first time. Even in gloves, I couldn’t grip it for crap. Jake had skied right up behind me and pushed me up the hill as it towed him. That happened the second and third time. On the fourth, Archie suggested I shift my grip, which helped. Still needed one of them shoving me.
It kind of sucked, but they never complained, and the humiliation wore off. My wrist was still a little weak, and Ian had scolded me when I bitched.
Okay, that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t scolded me so much as given me a sympathetic squeeze and reminded me I had been out of a cast for like a week. Then murmured I needed to be nicer to myself or I’d get a spanking.
I had to admit, the grin I gave him was probably not remotely discouraging. Particularly with how his eyes had lit up. Playing with fire was apparently my new hobby.
This time, I grasped the rope tow, left hand right on the rope just above the knot and my right hand in front of it, and I kept my skis parallel as it tugged me to the top. Thrill skated through me as I skied away from it at the top like I knew what I was doing. I didn’t even mind the seven-year-old who bypassed me and shot down the hill like an Olympic-level skier.
You go, girl.
Josh and Coop were right behind me, but to my shock, Ian, Jake, and Archie stayed at the bottom.
“Looking good,” Josh complimented me. Then he nodded to Coop. “You two ready to do this on your own?”
An hour of instruction, and we were experts? The sun was out today, and I’d started out in my ski pants, zipped up snow jacket, gloves, a fuzzy knit cap, neoprene facemask and goggles. I’d felt ridiculous, but the guys kept grinning at me, so what did I know?
I’d already unzipped my jacket because despite the cold, I was hot. The neoprene mask was in my pocket. I kept the hat, the gloves, and