Chapter 19
Brunch with Aspen and the Troublemaking Trio was decidedly more hilarious when they weren’t all hungover. They were absolutely brutal with each other as they bantered back and forth, and Eve spent the majority of the meal trying to not draw attention to herself. Not because she was afraid of causing a scene—and they were, at several points during their meal she’d noticed people from nearby tables looking their way when the table burst into raucous laughter—but because the stories they were telling were so incredibly out there that she couldn’t possibly compete.
“No, wait! I’ve got a better one!” Jack waved his hands to try to hold everyone’s attention as he prepared to one-up the story Lydia had just shared. “So, it was our junior year at MIT, right?”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Watts,” Kit warned, clearly knowing where this story was headed before it’d even really begun.
Eve leaned into Aspen’s side as Jack grinned in a way that said he was very much going to dare. “And this one”—he waved toward Kit—“had a gigantic girl boner for the TA of one of our mechanical engineering classes.”
Kit threw a wadded-up napkin at him. “She was hot!”
Jack smirked as he easily swiped the napkin out of the air and tossed it onto his empty plate. “But that’s not the point. So, the hot TA…” He frowned at Kit, clearly looking for help. “What was her name?”
“Trinity Reed,” Kit supplied in a long-suffering tone.
“Shit, that’s right? Like the Matrix. How did I forget that?”
“She looked just like a young Carrie Ann Moss, too,” Kit added, shooting a look at Jack that said, If you’re going to throw me under the bus, at least tell the fucking story correctly .
“Oh my god, she totally did!” Jack agreed. “Anyway, so one day during our seminar, Trinity the TA was talking about how she was bummed she had to cancel her ski trip over break because she had to work. So our girl Kit, here, decides she’s gonna invite her to join us on a weekend trip to Smuggler’s Notch.”
“Vermont? Really?” Aspen scoffed, though the twinkle in her eye suggested she wasn’t passing judgment so much as she was just messing with Kit.
“Oh, fuck you,” Kit sniped. “It was an easy weekend trip from Boston, and you know damn well that my parents have a ski-in-ski-out place on the mountain that we could stay at for free.”
Eve turned to hide her smile in the crook of Aspen’s neck as Aspen held up a placating hand and drawled, “Of course. Excellent choice, then. Please continue.”
Eve kissed Aspen’s throat and then leaned her head on Aspen’s shoulder as Jack continued, “So we’re in Vermont , yeah?” He sniggered and ducked away from the slap Kit aimed at him. “And Kit’s showing off, like big-time. Hot dogging all the way down the blacks, throwing frankly unnecessary amounts of powder just to, I dunno, show how strong her legs are or some shit in whatever weird lesbian mating ritual she was performing.”
“It’s called skill, dickhead,” Kit muttered, rolling her eyes as she downed what was left of her second Irish Coffee.
“It’s called Kit caught an edge and flung her gay ass into a fucking pine tree,” Jack retorted, jumping straight to the punchline of his story.
Kit flipped him off as she set her glass mug back onto the table. “It’s called the hot TA played nurse for Kit for the rest of the weekend.”
“And you were too concussed and broken to make a move,” Jack howled. “And then the whole program heard about it—”
Aspen gaped at him. “Please tell me you weren’t the one to tell them.”
“What? No.” Jack gave her a perfectly offended look. “I am like, the ultimate bro. I’d never to that. She was walking around like a zombie because of her broken ribs, and she had a fucking epic shiner.”
“Oh, no,” Eve murmured while Aspen and Lydia both cracked up at the image Jack had painted.
“Thank you, Eve ,” Kit said, stressing Eve’s name as she glared at the rest of the table, “for actually caring that I was hurt.” She jabbed a finger at Aspen. “You should take a note from your girlfriend and not be such an asshole.”
Aspen snorted and flipped her off. “You shouldn’t catch an edge and go all Captain Marvel into a tree.”
“Please, I am way more butch than Brie Larson.”
“You are. But she is totally hot, though,” Lydia chimed in. She surveyed the group with an arched brow and challenged, “Am I wrong?”
Eve chuckled and joined the rest of the table in shaking her head to say that Lydia was not at all wrong in her assessment. Although, she had a feeling Aspen would look even hotter in a tank top than Brie did in the movie.
Jack clearly had a death wish, because he told Kit, “You’d need to lift more—like a lot more—to get her muscles though. Hey, I know!” He grinned impishly. “Maybe Aspen could give you some tips.”
Aspen snorted. “Leave me out of this, dude. And I’m honestly offended that this is the first I’m hearing of this story, by the way.”
“Like I said, I am a bro ,” Jack reiterated, thumping his chest twice with his fist as he threw a supportive wink at Kit.
Eve huffed a laugh when Aspen retorted, sotto voce so it’d stay just between them, “He says ‘bro’ like it’s a good thing.”
“And I don’t need muscles,” Kit argued. “I’ve got stamina .”
“She does have that,” Lydia agreed.
“Eww,” Jack whined. “I so did not need to know that.”
Eve smiled and brushed a kiss over Aspen’s ear. “You have both,” she whispered.
The smile Aspen gave her before she kissed her was bright enough to light up the whole room. Eve sighed as she cradled Aspen’s jaw to hold her close and extend the kiss when Aspen began to pull away, and she sighed happily when, after a few more moments, Aspen broke the kiss with a light peck to her lips.
“Christ, you two are nauseatingly adorable,” Lydia grumbled, sounding thoroughly delighted by the fact. She winked at them and added, “I know I said this the other night, but damn, Eve, so many congrats to you on the upgrade.”
“Oh, for sure,” Kit barked out a laugh. “But I wanna know what she said to get that kiss.”
“You don’t want to know,” Aspen sassed.
Eve smiled and rubbed Aspen’s thigh. “You really don’t,” she confirmed as their server returned with the check.
“This one’s on me, girls,” Kit said as she tapped her black AmEx to the handheld card reader the server held out without bothering to look at the total displayed on the screen. “So, who’s up for a hike?”
“You were serious about that?” Lydia whined.
Kit looked offended. “Cardio is good for the brain.”
“And the fresh air is, too,” Aspen added.
“Not. Helping.” Lydia jabbed a finger toward Aspen for emphasis.
“Come on, it’ll help flush what’s left of the alcohol in our systems before we reload tonight,” Kit cajoled.
“Speaking of…” Jack wagged a finger at Eve and Aspen. “Where were you two last night?”
Eve tensed at the reminder of how they’d blown off dinner the night before—she’d been having so much fun she’d genuinely forgotten about it.
Aspen, sensing her distress, rubbed her shoulder reassuringly as she replied, “We decided to stay in and enjoy a little us time.”
“Good for you,” Lydia said, lifting her empty Bloody Mary glass in a toast.
“Yeah, fuck them,” Kit added.
“Pretty sure they fucked each other,” Jack sniggered.
Eve shook her head as Kit and Lydia giggled at his quip, and sighed as she leaned into Aspen. “Let’s just say that it was a much more enjoyable way to spend the evening than schmoozing with their clients. No offense.”
“None taken,” Kit replied genially. “Lord knows I’d’ve blown it off too if we weren’t looking for investors to expand with a West Coast base of operations. But, unfortunately for us, your parents are ridiculously connected to a metric butt-ton of people who have more money than God.”
“Present company included.” Jack smirked.
Kit rolled her eyes. “Christ, Jackie, can you make yourself sound like more of an asshole?”
He shrugged and pulled a comically thoughtful expression. “I mean, probably.”
“Yeah, we can beat that out of you.” Kit slapped her hands on the table and pushed to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Because the restaurant was in the heart of downtown Aspen, it was only a short drive to the trailhead, and Eve studied the snow-covered path that extended up the mountain as Aspen turned off the car. The weather, at least, was on their side with temperatures hovering in the low thirties and only the faintest hint of a breeze, but while the trail looked like it was groomed and the elevation manageable, she wondered how far those conditions extended.
She was in decent enough shape, but she wasn’t anywhere near ‘let’s climb a mountain’ type form.
She caught Aspen’s wrist to stop her before she could climb out of the car. “So, how hard is this hike?”
“Not hard at all.” Aspen gently plied Eve’s hand from her wrist and cradled it between her own. “We haven’t gotten any snow in like a week, so the trail itself will be pretty packed down and easy to navigate, and the grade isn’t anything awful. I’ve also got a few pairs of Yaktrax that I’ll throw in my pack for us to pull on over our boots if it gets slick, and since I’m the only one who’s used to the elevation, we’ll be taking it slow.” She leaned across the center console to kiss her softly. “You’ll be fine, Eve. I promise.” Her eyes twinkled as she pulled away. “And, if it gets too rough, I’ll piggyback you out of there.”
Eve smiled. “Jack would want one too.”
“Jack is a big boy; he can get his pretty ass back down on his own. Or Kit can consider that day one of her new exercise plan.”
Eve chuckled and squeezed Aspen’s hand. “Thank you.”
Aspen’s expression gentled as she lifted Eve’s hand to her lips. “Always, beautiful girl.”
They both startled when someone pounded on the back widow of the car, and Aspen swore softly as she spun to glare at Jack, who was doing his best dead bug impression with his cheek smashed against the glass and his arms splayed ridiculously around his head. “Maybe I’ll help him down by kicking his ass off a cliff or something.”
“Nice try,” Eve laughed. “But you’re not getting out of the gala that easily.”
A playful smirk tugged at Aspen’s lips as she huffed a resigned breath. “Fine. Whatever.” She winked and pulled her hand away. “Sit tight. I’ll grab my pack from the back, and then I’ll get your door for you.”
Eve nodded and turned to grab her camera bag from the floor behind her seat as Aspen climbed out of the car. If she was going to trek up a mountain, she was at least going to have some pictures to show for it.
She shook her head at Lydia’s amused, “Chivalry isn’t dead—she’s a lesbian!” that greeted her when Aspen opened her door, and she threw her a playfully unimpressed look as she dropped a kiss to Aspen’s cheek. “Cute, Lyds.”
Lydia grinned and blew her a kiss. “Aww, thanks, honey. You’re pretty cute, too.”
“What about me?” Jack pouted.
“You’re pretty, too, Jackie,” Kit drawled. She smacked him on the ass hard enough to make him stumble, and smirked as she threw a playful, “What was that you were saying about me needing to bulk?” over her shoulder at him as she started for the trail.
Eve laughed when he took after her with a thoroughly indignant, “Oh, fuck you, Hawthorne!” that had Kit cackling as she started running up the trail to get away from him, and smiled at Aspen as she took her hand. “At least the hike won’t be boring?”
“Nothing ever is with those two,” Aspen agreed wryly as they started up the trail after them.
Even though Eve trusted Aspen implicitly, she was still relieved to find that Aspen hadn’t been lying about the difficulty of the hike. The winding, serpentine path was steep at times, but they took it at an easy pace that was closer to a stroll than anything else.
Sometime around the halfway mark, Kit and Jack harassed Aspen into joining them toward the front of their little pack, and Eve shared an amused smile with Lydia, who fell back to take Aspen’s place at her side.
“So…Kit Hawthorne, huh?” Eve teased.
Lydia chuckled and bumped Eve with her shoulder. “Oh, shut up.”
Eve giggled. “Is it serious? Or…”
“Definitely ‘or’. It’s been a fun couple of days, and I’m sure we’ll keep in touch more than we have in the past, but neither of us are in a place where we’re ready for something like what you and Aspen have going on.”
Eve’s stomach twisted uncomfortably at Lydia’s assessment of hers and Aspen’s relationship. “Yeah, that’s…”
When she didn’t finish the thought, Lydia asked, “Eve? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Eve protested weakly. It wasn’t a lie. Nothing was wrong. Everything was the same as it’d been two minutes ago. Aspen was filling the role of her plus-one for the gala weekend, and tomorrow she’d be flying back to New York.
She blinked when Lydia grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up short. “What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Lydia frowned. “You got all sad when I talked about you and Aspen. What’s going on?”
Eve licked her lips and looked up the trail at Aspen, who was wiping snow off her face and rounding on Jack like she was going to throw him into one of the snowbanks that lined the trail. Aspen had shed the lightweight jacket she’d started the hike in and was looking particularly handsome in her forest green flannel with the sleeves rolled to just below her elbows, and Eve’s heart wrenched at the idea of losing her in a little more than a day’s time. “It’s…” She sighed. “Complicated.”
“Complicated, how?”
Maybe it was the concern so plainly etched in Lydia’s expression, or the number of years they’d been friends, but the truth spilled out of Eve in a torrent. “Complicated like I met her for the first time Wednesday evening because Michael asked her to fill-in as my plus-on for the weekend when he couldn’t get out of work. Complicated like she lives here and has her own business, and I live in New York City. Complicated like she can’t—” Eve’s throat tightened too much with emotion for her to get anything else out, but she didn’t need to say anything else. The understanding that was dawning on Lydia’s face was enough to tell her that she’d more than made her point.
“Oh shit,” Lydia murmured.
Eve nodded and pulled her sunglasses off to wipe at her eyes. Oh shit was a rather apt description of the situation. “Yeah.”
“You’ve seriously only known each other for…” Lydia’s voice trailed off as she did the math. “Like two and a half days?”
“Pretty much,” Eve confirmed as she put her sunglasses back on.
“Damn. No offense, but I didn’t think you had that in you.” When Eve shrugged in a way that signaled she didn’t disagree, Lydia said, “Well, you guys aren’t just gonna end things after this weekend, are you?”
“We haven’t talked about it.”
“You haven’t…” Lydia gaped at her. “Why the fuck not?”
Eve shrugged. “It hasn’t come up.”
“So bring it up,” Lydia said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
A small smile quirked Eve’s lips in spite of the heaviness of their conversation as she watched Aspen shove a snowball down the back of Kit’s shirt. Her stomach fluttered when Aspen turned to her with a triumphant grin before scampering away from Kit’s reach, and she sighed as she turned back to Lydia. “It’s only been two and a half days, Lyds.”
“And you both look at each other like you’re the only two people in the world,” Lydia retorted in a tone that said she thought Eve was being an idiot. “Seriously, you’re like a couple of newlyweds or something. Like, I get it, long distance sucks, but it’s not an insurmountable hurdle. It’s not like either of you are hurting for cash and can’t afford plane tickets.”
Eve conceded that point with a small nod. “Yeah, but…”
“But, what?”
“What if it doesn’t work out?” Eve whispered.
“Oh, Eve,” Lydia sighed. “But what if it does?” When Eve just pulled a face and didn’t respond, she said, “Just do me a favor and think about it. Okay? I know you treasure your independence, and believe me, I get it, but you are going to regret it if you let her go without at least trying .”
Eve’s heart squeezed as she watched Aspen ruffle a hand through her hair as she turned to find her, and she lifted her camera to capture the carefree set of Aspen’s shoulders and the way her skin seemed to absorb and radiate with the warmth of the sun shining down on them. “Do you think it’s that easy?”
Lydia frowned. “Do I think what’s easy?”
“Being happy,” Eve whispered, letting her camera fall.
“Yeah, Eve.” Lydia gestured toward Aspen, who was loping back down the trail toward them with a thoroughly endearing smile. “With her, I think it really would be.”