Taking Chances (BYC #3)

16. Lennox

16

LENNOX

I arrive at the cabin at the crack of dawn. OK, it’s 8:30, but I’m not a morning person. I promised Connor I’d be there early so we can all head to the slopes together.

The incredible scent of coffee fills my senses as I enter the cozy looking cabin. It’s more of a rich mountain lodge than a cabin, but cozy, nonetheless.

“Good. You’re early enough,” Connor says in lieu of a greeting and I huff a laugh. “Lennox is here!”

Soon, everyone is approaching to say ‘hi’. The last in line is Anne, wearing her skintight thermal clothes. In baby pink, of course. My mouth waters at the sight as she reaches out her hand to me.

“Coffee?” she offers innocently. Not aware I was blatantly checking her out.

“Yes, please,” I croak, making her smile. The warmth from the cup seeps into my hands. Hands that would be frozen if not for my new car. So I guess it was a good thing I bought it. It would be pretty silly to have bought a car only for the wedding. Right?

“You can leave your stuff in the first room to the left,” Connor says, pointing to the top floor. When they said cabin, I imagined exactly that, but this is more like a five-star hotel with wood siding. “And grab your equipment so we can get going,” he adds.

“You mean the room on the far right?” Anne interjects, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Oh, no, I’ll bunk with you tonight,” Rina tells Anne. “We won’t make you share a room again. Connor and Lennox can bunk together like the good old days.” Anne releases a deep breath, her relief obvious.

“Less bruises this time.” Connor claps my shoulder. It’s true, most of the times we shared a room we were pretty roughed up after a game.

“Never skied.” I point to myself. “So not sure about the less bruises part.” Connor chuckles and heads to the living room, following Rina.

“You never skied?” Anne asks, her eyes large.

“Nope. Is it hard?” I joke, making her grin.

“I can teach you.” Her emerald eyes suddenly sparkle with excitement.

“Come on. No need. You should enjoy yourself.”

“No, I want to. I owe you, anyway. For coming to the wedding with me.” Her cheeks tint, probably remembering what happened after the wedding.

“You don’t owe me anything.” It comes out rougher than intended, but I hate that she feels indebted to me.

Her innocent eyes stare at me with surprise before shaking her head. “Look, I would love to teach you to ski. Everyone else is coupled up anyway, and I don’t want to be the third wheel.” Traces of vulnerability lace her voice, making me sigh.

“OK. I can agree to one”—I lift my finger—“lesson.”

She squeals with delight, her supple tits bouncing with the movement.

“You have ten minutes to drink the coffee and grab your gear and then we’re heading out.” She’s already in teacher mode.

Turning around, she runs upstairs, and I manage to keep myself from creeping on her. The others are spread around a huge, live edge table in comfortable chatter.

“Ready for skiing?” Natalie smirks, obviously the loudest one in the group.

“Not really. But if this guy can do it”—I point a thumb at Connor—“it can’t be that hard.” Connor bares his teeth while others chuckle.

They’re all half dressed in their gear. Matt’s sporting ski pants with the suspenders hanging over his hips, Alex and Noah have their unbuttoned jacket’s on, and Natalie is wearing the same get up Anne is—tight thermal clothing, though in mint. She’s objectively an attractive woman, but her toned body does nothing for me.

Luckily, the body that does comes back in ski pants and a jacket, meaning no curves are visible. Which is definitely safer.

“Still not ready?” She lifts a brow in my direction. Groaning, I get up and head upstairs.

The first thing I notice entering the bedroom is the giant window overlooking the snowy mountains. Below it sits an equally giant bed with wooden framing. Hopefully, it’s large enough to host both Connor and I. Since this is my first time skiing, I ordered all the gear online, so everything, including my ski suit, is brand new. Quickly, I get it all on me, already sweating, and get downstairs.

“Oh, you have a thing.” Anne points to my chest, but quickly continues, “Here.” A piece of plastic snaps in her hand and I realize I left my tag on. A flash of embarrassment hits me, but her soft smile makes it go away. She could have teased me mercilessly, but she’s too nice for that.

“Let’s go.”

I follow along, grabbing all of our gear. “People like this? Hiking in these horrible boots, wearing a ton of equipment up the hill?”

“You’ll see.” Her lips turn up, conspiratorially.

As we get to the lift, the fresh air nourishes my lungs. The whiteness of the snow is only interrupted by the lush green trees, soaring toward the sky. The view is pretty spectacular. It has to be even better from the top, but Anne informs me we’re doing the bunny slope.

“This is perfect for beginners,” she states.

My gaze lands on the group of three year olds having a ski lesson to our left and another flash of embarrassment passes through me. She helps me strap on the skis, turning me sideways so I don’t start downward, and suddenly I’m glad for my helmet.

Hockey was a part of me for most of my life, but the rink has a flat surface and it’s fenced in. There is no danger of getting lost somewhere in the forest, an avalanche covering your frozen body. I shiver with the thought and turn my gaze back to Anne, who is now also strapped in.

“This is how we’ll start. You’ll put your skis in this V pose and we will try to go downhill like that. The wider your heels, the slower you’ll go. Got it?”

I nod, feigning confidence I don’t have. Back and legs straight, I slowly turn downhill and snap my feet into the V position. It takes me a split second to fall on my ass, the skis unpleasantly tugging me up.

Anne releases a soft, honest giggle, and I shoot her a glare.

“It’s probably better if you don’t stand like a stick, but instead bend your knees generously.” She’s still giggling but nice enough not to mention my fall.

“You could have led with that.” Laughter bubbles out from her.

“Sorry.” She lifts her hand. “Sorry. I won’t laugh. It’s unprofessional of me as your ski instructor.” Her eyes are still smiling but her lips have settled.

Now that I’m clear on how I need to position myself, I’m kind of a natural. It’s all in the knees and shifting my weight, which is similar to hockey, so it comes easy to me.

“Wow. You’re doing great,” Anne notices.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I am a hockey player, after all.” I smirk.

“Right, I forget about that.” She stares at me for a second. “Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I just miss the distraction.” I shrug, unstrapping my skis and sitting down in the snow.

“What do you mean?” She follows suit.

“It was a busy life. The practices, the games, the traveling. There wasn’t any idling. Which worked for me. Now it’s hard to fill the time.”

Her head dips. “And hockey? Playing it? Do you miss that?” Her gloved hand draws circles in the flat snow, destroying the perfect white surface, which eases my anxiety.

“Not so much. I love hockey, I love being on the ice, but it was never really a passion of mine. More like a means to an end.”

Her eyes pop up to mine, clearer than ever. “To what end?”

“To get away. It enabled me to get away.” I break eye contact, gazing at my ski boots.

I already spoke too much, and I fully expect her to ask more questions I don’t care to answer.

But she doesn’t. She shakes off the snow from her gloves and gets up, reaching a hand to me. “Come on, break’s over.”

My lips turning up, I jump to my feet.

“Can we go to the top now?” I motion to the highest ski run on the very top of the mountain.

Her chuckle echoes on the mountain. “Not a chance. But we can try the next one, I think you’re ready.” She shoots me a wink and I’m stunned for a second. Her typical shyness and fear to say or do something wrong has disappeared. She looks relaxed, comfortable. Last time it happened, she was screaming my name in a hotel bedroom.

“Scared?” she asks as we get off the lift. This is definitely steeper.

“I used to get beat up for a living.”

“Not by a tree, though,” she fires back and pushes herself down the hill.

No time to think, I follow behind her. It’s hard to focus on the altitude, or the speed, or the possible death outcome as her auburn hair billows behind her, her soft laughter piercing through the sound of our skis.

How could she ever think she’s anything other than perfect?

So perfect it hurts. So perfect my body aches to mess it up.

Gaining more speed than comfortable, I focus back on what I’m doing. A realization hits me.

Skiing is nice.

The freedom of rushing downhill, your whole body coming alive, is pretty amazing. But with the cold wind freezing my airways, the burn in my thighs and the tiny fear of an imminent death, it’s nowhere near perfect. Just my sweet spot.

She gets to the bottom first and waits for me with a huge smile on her cold-flushed face. “So, what do you say?”

“I have to admit, this was pretty cool. Though I’m ready for a break.”

“Sure, let’s go meet the others.”

Turns out, the others have been drinking in a ski-in, ski-out bar for over an hour.

“Oh, Matt and I hung out around the cabin and then came here,” Rina explains.

“You don’t ski?” I ask Matt.

“I tried last year. Not for me, so I just enjoy myself in cozy settings surrounded by snow.”

“Shit, had I known that was an option.” Some of them chuckle.

“Stop it. You had a great time,” Anne adds, taking her jacket off.

Slick with sweat, her thermal turtleneck sticks to her body even more. There’s even a hint of nipples poking out. My cock stirs beneath the layers of snow clothes.

After seeing her full body, naked and wanting, it’s hard to not imagine it every time I see her. Clearing my throat, I turn to the others.

“What about you, guys?”

“We did a few pretty good runs.” Noah shrugs before Natalie interrupts him.

“I won. I’ve only been skiing for a year, and I won.” Her dark eyes gleam with success. It doesn’t surprise me to know she’s a competitive person.

“It was only one run. You were by far the slowest on the other,” Alex adds, taking a sip of their drink. Natalie bumps them in the shoulder, making them laugh.

“What are we drinking?” I ask.

“Hot Toddy,” Alex responds with a smirk.

I guess ski trips have different rules since they’re all drinking whiskey and it’s barely past noon. Waving to the bartender, I gesture to bring us two more of those and take off my jacket.

“How was he? How many times did he fall?” Connor asks Anne, dying to tease me.

“Just once. He was pretty good.”

Connor groans, disappointed by the answer.

“Wishing bad luck on someone? That’s in really poor taste, man.”

“Yeah, well, everything in life always goes your way, so it would only be fair to have you fail at this one thing.”

I force a smile, but my face is wooden. To him, it may look that way, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. What good does any of it do when the one thing I want to go my way, I need to go my way, won’t happen?

I space out as thoughts of my mom fill me. Is she OK? Would she even tell me if she wasn’t?

Truth is, I know she wouldn’t. She doesn’t admit it to herself, let alone someone else.

Downing the rest of my drink, I join the conversation. Three drinks later, we’re hitting the slopes again. I’d be worried if it’s a good idea, but the cold air sobers us up as soon as we exit the warmth of the bar.

This time, everyone except for Rina and Matt, who returned to the cabin, comes along with us. We ski for a couple more hours, until we’re all spent.

Entering the cabin, I inhale a delicious scent, eliciting a grumble from my stomach.

Fuck, I’m hungry.

Connor pulls Rina into a lingering kiss, while Natalie jumps into Matt’s arms, ski gear and all. He barely catches her, and after a passionate kiss, sets her down.

“Go wash up quickly, then we’ll eat,” Matt orders us as he and Rina get back to work on the dinner.

Matt and Rina prepared an actual feast for us. The sticky ribs with a bunch of sides and salads are to die for. I watch Anne as she moans around a rib, licking her sauce-stained fingers. A knot in my chest unravels, noticing she’s eating properly. Enjoying herself. Drinks are flowing, and after we all help to clear out the table, Natalie decides it’s time for the hot tub.

“Not taking no for an answer.” She points a threatening finger to each of us before stopping on Rina. “Fine, you can say no.”

“And I will keep my lady company.” Connor scoops her up in his hands. “You better take your swim shorts now, because the room will be busy.” He shoots me a pointed look.

“Oh, I didn’t bring my swim shorts.” I shrug. “But you better change the sheets, man.”

He chuckles as he rushes the two of them upstairs.

“Don’t worry, I can lend you a pair.” Noah puts a hand on my shoulder, and I follow him to the bedroom to change.