the goggles. Exhilaration fountained at the idea of making the run down the slope all by myself. Well, as by myself as I could be with the kids blowing past us like we were tree stumps and the other novice skiers who seemed to be taking to the task like a duck to water.
Thankfully, Coop had fallen almost as much as I had in the beginning, even if he’d done at least two of them on purpose. I didn’t feel like an idiot. Glancing at Josh, I raised my eyebrows. “Together or individually?”
Coop chuckled.
“You guys can go down together,” Josh told me with an easy smile. “You both have the hang of it. Contrary to what a lot of people think, sixty percent of this is learning to stop. You can stop. You can turn. You have control. Everything else is at your own pace.”
Snorting, I said, “Right.” But at the same time? If I graduated from the bunny slopes, that meant we got to ride on the ski lift. It would probably be more fun for the guys if they weren’t trapped with us here, too. Not that they’d complained once. With that in mind, I glanced at Coop. “Race?”
“Winner gets?” Coop asked as he adjusted his grip on his poles, but the gleam in his eyes was impossible to miss, even with the sun shining on the snow.
“Winner’s choice,” I teased with a wink, and he whooped, but I was already pushing off.
I’d learned more than just how to stop. During one of my first runs, I’d learned how to go so fast, I’d ended up crashing into the barriers at the bottom because I hadn’t quite mastered stopping.
Time to test the theory of whether Josh was right about stopping being the key to everything.
Shouts of encouragement and cheers came from the guys as I whipped down the hill. The tension and the low-grade fear bubbled in my stomach. As with every other time I’d done this, I worried I wouldn’t be able to stop. Images of skiing accidents would dance across my brain. The idea that I could tumble and break something didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence.
But halfway down the slope, all of that melted away. Earlier, a kid had zipped past me, arms out wide as he skied past yelling, “I’m flying!”
I was flying.
Riding that adrenaline, I zipped right down to the runout and wedged, then plough turned to a stop mere feet away from the guys, with Coop reaching me and performing a similar stop seconds later.
A wild grin stretched my lips, and I held up my hands. “I win!”
“Yes, you do,” Coop said with a laugh. A second later, Josh joined us, and he gave Coop a high five before he turned to me. I smacked his hand, though to be fair, I hadn’t really gotten to work with him much.
“Thank you, Josh,” I told him, because he deserved that much. “You helped make this very easy.” In more ways than one.
“My pleasure,” he said. “You guys stick to the greens this morning, but I think between you, you could do a blue before the end of the day.”
Yeah. Nope. Green sounded good to me.
“And if you guys want a little advice,” he continued, glancing from me to where Jake and Archie stared at him like they wanted to punch him. Really, the guy was being nice. Ian had a gloved hand over his mouth, but I swore it was just to hide a smile because his eyes were sparkling. Coop snickered next to me. “They’ve both got good control, but she seems like a risk taker… Take chair two up. Then follow the sign for the Little Dipper. It’s a longer trail, nice views, takes you right to the Big Dipper, and it’s the perfect thirty-minute ski down, nice and gentle slopes, clearly marked edges, no moguls. Easy peasy.”
Okay, he winked at me with that one, and Coop’s laughter dried up and he joined Jake and Archie in the glaring.
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Thanks again, Josh. I appreciate it.”
“Yes,” Jake said with far less enthusiasm. “Thanks again.”
After he skied off, chuckling, I glanced at the guys, and Ian just let out a laugh. “You were flirting.”
“No,” I argued. “I wasn’t.”
“You thanked him,” Jake snarled at me. Granted, there was no heat, but he was not a happy camper.
“I thanked him because he gave us a lesson and stayed really nice, even when you guys were being asses to him.”