Chapter 31
Morgan
“You want me to ride that?” Rory asks.
Boing.
“Hey, she may not look like much, but she’s perfectly safe,” I say.
Boing.
Rory does not look convinced.
Boing.
“Everyone else is already at the top,” Hunter says helpfully from the control box.
Boing.
“Kit is keeping an eye on us from there,” Hunter continues, “and I’ll ride up right behind you.”
Boing.
“So I’m supposed to get on this metal death contraption—”
Boing.
“—with you and a hyperactive dog—”
Boing.
“—without any snow to cushion me if I fall?”
Boing.
“Princess isn’t making her case well right now since she’s turned into a canine pogo stick,” I say. We all look at the dog in question.
Boing.
“I swear she’ll be professional when we give her the go-ahead,” I promise. “She’s just too excited now.”
“Also,” Hunter says. “Don’t you drive a motorcycle at seventy miles an hour pretty regularly?”
Rory glares at him. “Eighty. Fine. How do we do this?”
Once the next chairlift passes, I give Princess an “okay” and she leaps onto the upcoming bench before it even gets halfway around the bend. I get Rory into position, and when the seat hits the back of our legs, we sit.
Princess barks happily, but the chairlift swings a little as we take off and Rory grips my arms. “Hang on,” I say, “let’s get the bar down.”
Once we’ve got our shoes on the footrest and the bar over our laps, Rory eases up a smidge. Or at least, she lets go of me. I put my arms on the back of the chair as we sail up into the treetops.
After orgasms and breakfast yesterday, we walked Princess before I had to go into work.
Fortunately I remembered to tell her at the last minute to keep this morning open to come hang out with my friends.
Sunday Funday is a once-a-month ritual we have (yes, there’s even a group chat for it) where we get together and play games over brunch.
The October one is particularly special because we time it with the foliage.
It’s early in the morning, because most of us are kept busy during the day with the tourists, so that sucks, but it’s worth it to spend time with my favorite people.
Which now includes Rory.
It’s a warm day—no wind, plenty of sun—and the deciduous trees are full of color. Most of the trees are deep green pines on the mountain itself, but behind us, the valley stretches out, flush in yellow and gold.
It’s the perfect day for Sunday Funday.
“Wow,” Rory says, and my chest swells with pride as we rise up the mountain. “Is that where the ski runs are?” She points down below us where there’s a wide, bare path through the trees.
“One of ’em. It’s harder to see the runs when there’s no snow on the ground, and there are some cuts in the trees for utilities and such. Look over there.” I point out to the left, where there’s a sign approaching. “Watch behind us and you’ll see the trail names.”
We both look over our shoulder to see the sign that declares that the winding green, Odyssey’s Path, goes off to the left and the black, Fatal Attraction, heads straight down.
“And then over there,” I point up above the crossing and again to the left. “There’s a small sign. That’s one of the hiking trails that comes through.”
“Are there a lot of hikers?” Rory asks.
“Not as many as there used to be,” I say. “It’s peak season now though, with the fall foliage.” The competition for hiking trails is tougher than for its ski runs; there are many good trails in the area for hiking, but we’re closer to New York City than the other Catskills ski areas.
Rory’s quiet, gazing into the trees and admiring the view. Princess pants to my right side, whining occasionally from sheer excitement. She loves coming up to the mountaintop, especially because she knows Donny, Leo’s dog, will (probably) be there and she’ll get to play largely unsupervised.
“Is that . . .” Rory begins, peering into the trees ahead of us.
I look out and see exactly what she’s noticed. “A bra? Yup.”
“Why on earth would someone take off a bra up here? Wait, did they do it in winter?”
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a tradition. It’s not as popular here as some of the bigger places, where you’ll get whole trees full of bras and panties.”
“Bras and panties?” Rory stares at me, horrified. “How exactly does one get their underwear off in the cold without falling off a chairlift? Or getting their delicate parts frostbitten?”
“Delicate parts?” I ask, dropping my voice down. “Wasn’t very delicate last night.”
Rory flushes and shoves me lightly. “You know what I mean.”
“Huh. Well, it’s definitely trickier when you’ve got all your layers on but let’s see what I can do here.” I start to unbutton my jeans.
“What? Morgan! No!”
I do a shimmy to get my pants down under my ass. Hmm. My boots are going to be a problem.
“Morgan!”
Princess barks.
“Easy, girl,” I say. I quickly pull both boots off and tie them together, tossing one over the lift bar so that they dangle on either side of it.
“What the hell are you doing, Morgan?” Hunter shouts from behind us.
I hand Rory my jeans. “Mind your own business, Hunter,” I shout over my shoulder. I lift one cheek and then the other, sliding my underwear down. “Whew, that seat has a crack and it pinches.”
Hmm . . . the top station is getting pretty close. Not sure I’m gonna make it.
Rory’s got her hands over her face, laughing too hard to say anything and peeking out at me from between her fingertips.
“Kit, Morgan’s coming in hot,” I hear from behind. “You might want to slow the lift a bit if you don’t want a look at full-frontal Morgan.”
The radio squawks and I hear Kit’s response: “Why is he naked?”
The lift does not slow, a clear challenge from Kit, and I whip my underwear over my head like a lasso and then fling it out into the trees. I can see why the few bras out here are bright reds and pinks; I can barely tell where my gray boxer-briefs land.
“Jeans, please.” I hold out my hand and Rory wordlessly passes me my pants.
“Hmm,” I muse. “I don’t think getting the pants on is going to be as easy as getting them off.”
Princess barks, and I’m guessing that’s because she’s spotted Kit. Sure enough, when I look up, my friend lounges against the control panel, arms crossed over his chest.
Eh. There’s nothing to do but protect the little bit of dignity I have left. I wad my jeans and put them in my lap to cover myself up.
The chairlift slows and comes to a stop.
“Morgan.” Kit sighs, shaking his head. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” Rory begins. “Does anything about this”—she waves her hand to encompass my whole body—“actually surprise you?”
Kit tips his head back and laughs. “No, but I’m still gonna give him hell for it.”
I ignore them and raise the bar. Princess whines until I say, “Go ahead, girl” and then she launches herself off the chair and out onto the mountaintop.
“Anyone who doesn’t want to see Morgan’s ass, avert your eyes!” Kit shouts.
There’s a series of hoots and hollers coming from the picnic table set up to the right.
I stand from the lift, socks sinking into the grass, and turn my back on the group.
I grin at Hunter on the chairlift behind us while I shake out my jeans and pull them on one leg at a time.
I turn around while buttoning up to find Kit and Rory both watching me.
Kit’s bemused, winking at me before telling me I have a great ass, but could I please move now so he can get Hunter up here? Rory’s got her arms crossed, her hip cocked, and a more appreciative eye for me.
“Just for that,” she says, “next time I plan to ride the chairlift up I’ll shove a bra in my pocket.”
“Cheater,” I say as we join my friends.
Sunday Funday goes like this: we’ve got a picnic table set up, one of those big round ones that’ll seat ten.
It’s perched a few feet from the lip of The Bone Meadow, a steep and wide black diamond that has the best view of the valley from the edge.
Everyone brings stuff—Hunter brought our food up on his lift so I could manage Princess and my queenly newbie without worrying about it—so the table is laden with breakfast sandwiches, fruit, burritos, juice, and even a couple bottles of bubbly for those of us who don’t have to go directly to work.
I put Rory between Bailey and Kit, since she knows them the best. It also happens to be the best seat in the house.
Leo and I sit with our backs to the view, keeping an eye on our dogs.
It takes Donny a while to warm up to Princess no matter how many times they’ve played together.
Either that or the lazy, placid pit bull is too bewildered by my dog’s bouncing energy to engage.
Bailey, Leo, Quinn, and Rory don’t have to work today, so the sparkling wine flows.
Silas is at an open house, Tuan will probably have to leave early because he needs time to cook before his restaurant opens, and Jared will be leaving around the same time I do so he can open the brewery, but it’s nice to have most of us together at least once a month in the off-season.
Now that I know how Rory feels about her teeth, I see it all over her interactions.
The way she purses her lips to the side instead of smiling when she and Quinn talk about hot-wiring cars, the way she bites into food and carefully chews it—and also the way I get a flash of her teeth when she catches me watching her and she just can’t help herself.
I want to earn her smiles all the time.
When everyone’s done eating, we pack up the food and clear the table. Hunter pulls out two decks of cards. “Okay, we’ve got a newbie here today, so we’ll do an easy round first.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. An easy round?” Rory’s brows are knitted together. “You don’t even know that I’m a newbie.”
“Oh, you’re a newbie,” Bailey says into her wine, which is rich because she only started coming to Sunday Funday when she moved here.
Hunter ignores the interruptions. “The name of the game is ‘Whose Turn Is It Anyway?’ and the base play is like Uno. Suits follow suits, face value follows face value, the first player to get rid of all their cards wins. All the other rules . . .” He leans forward and whispers, “are a secret.”
Everyone obliges with a long “Ooooooo.”
Hunter makes a big show of plucking one card out of the stack, looking at it, and putting it back.
Then he reshuffles and deals out seven cards each, and the play begins.
We make it twice around before Hunter interrupts game play and pulls a card from the stack for Bailey. “Penalty for playing out of turn.”
Bailey groans. Rory’s just played an eight, and Kit crows on her other side and plays a card. Game play resumes, in the opposite direction.
“Wait, what?” Rory asks.
“Watch and learn, my queen,” I tell her.
Tuan plays the next eight, and since most of us have caught on, the play is reversed, and no penalties are handed out.
“So does that mean every time an eight is played, someone has to—”
Rory’s cut off by Bailey’s hand covering her mouth. “Shh, you don’t want to get a penalty.”
“Oof, Bailey.” Hunter shakes his head and pulls a card. “Penalty for revealing a rule of the game.”
“What!?” Bailey throws a hand up. “I was protecting her! Guarding the newbie!”
“Nah, seconded,” I say.
“Damn you!”
Play continues, until we go a few rounds with no penalties. “Okay,” Hunter says, tossing his cards into the center. “Let’s play for real.”