SLOAN
Kyle was showing off.
He cut across the slope like he was born on a board, carving wide, lazy S-shapes through the snow with Dean a few yards behind him, both of them moving with the kind of easy confidence that made it look less like effort and more like anyone who picked up a board could do this.
Of course he was an amazing snowboarder—she should have expected it. Kyle had always had a knack for picking up any sport he played, even if he only got a five-minute lesson. But, in this case, he’d clearly spent years practicing.
Dean whooped.
Francesca groaned, shaking her head at Kyle and glancing back at Sloan. “Your friend is going to die.”
Francesca hadn’t asked about the nature of their relationship and Sloan hadn’t said anything. But every now and then, she got the feeling Francesca was testing the water with her questions.
Sloan snorted, angling her skis into a smooth turn. “He’s always been like that. If there’s a safe way and a stupid way, he picks the stupid one first. I just never knew he was this way about snowboarding.”
Francesca’s laugh was bright and unrestrained, the sound of someone who was genuinely having a good time with her life. “Dean says the same thing about himself. It’s why I make him stretch.”
Ahead of them, Dean did something that involved too much speed and not enough planning and nearly ate it on a patch of chopped snow. He windmilled, recovered, then threw his arms up like he’d meant to do that.
Kyle applauded.
Sloan shook her head, smiling despite herself.
The slope was wide and fast and sunlit, the kind of run Evan had always loved—long enough to open up, clean enough to let your legs burn.
She followed Francesca’s line, letting muscle memory take over.
Skiing came back like riding a bike, and Evan had paid for enough lessons that her body just took over.
The quiet focus, the controlled speed, the way the world narrowed to snow and sky and the edge of her next turn.
For a few blessed minutes, she let her mind empty.
No Evan. No wedding. No missing persons report.
Just wind in her face and the clean, sharp bite of cold air in her lungs.
She’d needed this more than she’d realized.
They regrouped near the bottom, all four of them sliding to a stop in a loose cluster. Dean reached for Francesca immediately, tugging her in by the waist and stealing a quick kiss like he couldn’t help himself.
“Show-off,” Kyle muttered.
Francesca beamed. “He learned it from you.”
That piqued her curiosity. Learned what? The recklessness? Or the kissing?
Immediately, she pictured Kyle bringing a girlfriend on a previous trip.
Kyle scoffed. “I do not kiss my friends at the bottom of runs.”
Dean winked at Sloan. “You could. Might improve your mood.”
Sloan rolled her eyes. “Please don’t encourage him.”
Kyle didn’t glance at her, his lips puckering at Dean. “Didn’t realize you missed me that much, Dean.”
Francesca put her arms around Dean possessively. “You get your own man, Kyle Winnick. This one is all mine,” she said with mock outrage.
They all laughed and Dean and Francesca rode the lift back up, tangled together like it was a perfectly reasonable place for casual affection. Kyle stood beside Sloan with his board hooked under one arm.
He looked . . . relaxed.
Not the careful, controlled version of him from the cabin. Not the tense, jaw-set version from the car.
This Kyle was all loose lines and easy confidence, cheeks pink from the cold, hair escaping his helmet in messy, wet curls. He reminded Sloan of the boy she once loved. A boy who loved life. Loved me.
But that was ancient history, no matter how unsettled it made her feel.
“You good?” he asked, noticing her watching him as they climbed aboard the lift.
She looked away quickly, squinting like it was the sun that made her unable to face him. “Fine.”
He smirked. “You say that like you’re daring the universe to challenge you.”
“The universe and I are not on speaking terms. Besides. I thought I wasn’t allowed to blame things on the universe.”
“True. But I meant more like . . . you having fun?”
Now she smiled for real. “I can’t fake that. I’m a miserable bitch when I’m not.”
“Ah, a creature who loves her comfort.” He poked her in the ribs. “So, you haven’t changed that much.”
They pushed off again at the top. This run was steeper, with a small terrain park off to the side—jumps, rails, things Sloan had always avoided because she preferred her bones unbroken.
Dean immediately angled toward it.
Francesca pointed at him. “If you break something, I am not massaging you tonight.”
Dean called back, “Worth it,” then took off.
Kyle hesitated for half a second and followed him.
Something tightened in Sloan’s chest as she surveyed the dangerous terrain. “Oh no.”
Francesca smiled, watching them with a grin that betrayed the fact that she found them far more entertaining than alarming. “They do this.”
“Does he usually survive?” Sloan asked.
“Mostly.”
Not comforting.
She had to give Evan that. While he loved skiing, he never pushed the envelope too far. Maybe because he was just as invested in not breaking bones as Sloan was. Casts didn’t make for great photo ops.
Sloan and Francesca stayed on the main run, carving down in long, clean turns. Sloan was just starting to relax again when she heard Dean whoop . . . and then Kyle’s laugh, loud and reckless.
She looked over.
Kyle hit the jump too fast.
She knew it instantly—the angle, the speed, the way his balance was just a hair off. He launched anyway, board lifting cleanly off the snow, body stretched out in a way that would have been beautiful if it weren’t so obviously a terrible idea.
For one second, he was airborne and grinning.
Then, he landed wrong.
His board slapped down crooked, his weight pitched forward, and he tried to recover and didn’t.
Kyle wiped out hard.
Snow exploded around him as he tumbled, rolling once, twice, before sliding to a stop in a sprawl of limbs and board.
Sloan’s heart lurched into her throat.
She dug in her edges and cut hard toward him, barely aware of Francesca following. By the time she reached him, Kyle was already pushing himself up, helmet dusted white, laughing like he’d just gotten off a roller coaster.
“Did you see that?” he called. “I totally had it . . . until I didn’t.”
“Are you insane?” Sloan snapped, skidding to a stop beside him. “You could have broken your neck!”
Kyle grinned up at her. “But I didn’t.”
She hated how relieved she felt.
Before she could stop herself, she dropped to a knee beside him, one hand grabbing his arm, the other bracing against his shoulder. “Are you actually okay?”
He went still at her touch.
For a split second, the noise of the mountain faded—no wind, no laughter, no scrape of skis. Just him looking up at her, something quieter and more serious flickering behind the grin.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m okay.”
Her hand was still on his arm.
She realized it and pulled back like she’d been burned.
“Good,” she said stiffly, standing. “Because that was stupid.”
Kyle’s grin came back, slower this time. “You say that like it’s new information.”
Dean slid up beside them, breathless and delighted. “That was amazing.”
Francesca arrived a second later and smacked Dean’s arm. “You’re both idiots.”
Kyle pushed himself fully upright, brushing snow off his jacket. “Hey, we prefer the term ‘adventurous.’”
Sloan crossed her arms. “You prefer the term ‘hospital bill.’”
Kyle laughed. Then, to her surprise, held his board out to her. “Your turn.”
She stared at it. “Absolutely not.”
“Come on,” he said. “You said today was about spite. This feels very on brand.”
“I am not strapping myself to a plank and throwing myself off a mountain to spite anyone.”
Francesca leaned in. “That’s the healthiest sentence anyone has said all day.”
Kyle ignored her. “You know how to ski. Snowboarding’s just . . . falling . . . with style.”
Sloan eyed the board, then the jump, which looked taller and more malicious than it had a few moments earlier.
“This is a terrible idea,” she said.
Kyle’s eyes gleamed. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Alarm bells. Loud ones.
Still . . . the cold air, the speed, the way her body still hummed from movement . . . it intoxicated her.
And the way Kyle looked right now? She swallowed hard, feeling alive in a way that was reckless.
She exhaled. “If I die, I’m haunting you.”
“Deal.”
They swapped gear at the side of the run. Kyle knelt to help her with the bindings, removing his gloves as he adjusted the straps around her boots.
Then he stood and held out a hand. “Okay. Rule one: You’re going to fall. A lot.”
“Encouraging.” She let him pull her up, trying to settle the thrumming of her rapid pulse.
“Rule two. Bend your knees. Also, it’s a lot easier to break a joint that’s locked. Rule three. If you start to panic, just sit down.”
“So should I sit down right now, or wait until I’m coming down the mountain to give you a better show?”
He laughed lightly. “Nothing wrong with sitting.”
“Oh yeah, it’s very dignified.”
He grinned. “You always were.”
She shoved him lightly, not wanting to queue up any of the memories that came with being undignified around Kyle Winnick. “Shut up.”
They pushed off on a gentler section, and Sloan immediately wobbled, windmilling her arms.
Kyle slid in behind her and caught her by the waist, steadying her with firm hands.
“There you go,” he said close to her ear. “I’ve got you.”
Her heart did something stupid.
“I don’t need—” she started, and then her board caught an edge.
She went down.
Kyle went with her.
They tumbled together in a mess of limbs and snow, sliding a few feet before stopping in a heap. Sloan lay there for a second, staring up at the sky, breathless.
Kyle lay half on top of her, one arm braced in the snow, the other still around her waist.
Their faces were too close.
She could see the flecks of blue in his eyes. The curve of his mouth. The faintest line between his brows that she didn’t remember from when they were teenagers.
She shoved at his chest. “What the hell was that?”
Kyle rolled off her immediately, holding his hands up. “Sorry. Physics.”
She pushed away, heart pounding, and pointed at him and gestured toward the snowboard and the mountain and the path they’d taken in their tumble. “This is exactly why this is a bad idea.”
He smiled, but it wasn’t teasing this time. “Yeah. Probably.”
They lay there for a second, snow cold against their backs, the mountain stretching wide and bright around them.
Dean’s voice floated down from above. “You guys alive?”
“Barely,” Sloan called back.
Kyle laughed, the sound easy and real, and she laughed too, which felt good, normal, and released a lot of the pressure in her chest. It felt like being eighteen and reckless and not carrying the weight of a life that had just imploded.
And that was the problem.
Because even after all the shit of the last twenty-four hours, being here with Kyle, isolated from everything . . . she felt it.
The pull. The warmth. The dangerous, familiar gravity.
But this isn’t the real world. This is a momentary blip on the radar of my life.
Francesca stopped beside them. “That was . . . something.”
“I’m fine,” she lied, and stood too quickly, wobbling.
Kyle rose too, slower. “I’m fine,” he echoed, mocking her gently.
Sloan shot him a glare that lacked real heat. “You’re an idiot.”
Kyle’s bright and reckless smile returned again. “Yeah,” he said, and then, almost under his breath, “I know.”
Sloan stared at him.
The wind tugged at their jackets. The lift hummed in the distance, and other skiers glided past, laughing like the world made sense.
Kyle tilted his head. “Want another run?”
Sloan should have said no.
Sloan should have said, I’m leaving. I’m going back. I’m handling my life like an adult. Without you.
Instead, she heard herself say, “Yes.”
And as Kyle nodded in approval, Sloan felt the alarm bells in her chest ring again and she turned away and brushed snow off her jacket, trying to put as much physical space between Kyle and herself as she could.
This was a brief stop on the path toward her new life.
Enjoy this moment’s freedom, Sloan, because the road is bound to get bumpier soon.