I squinted hard, trying to see. He was right though. The landing continued around to another one on the opposite side, all but lost in shadow. And there was a big, sprawling staircase. A double-staircase, leading down to the first floor, where a huge reception desk presided over a giant debris-strewn lobby.
“Holy shit!”
The wind was whipping its way up my jacket — or rather, Shane’s jacket. Suddenly I was envious of him being out of the cold.
“Catch me,” I said. “I’m jumping down.”
Sliding to the edge, I dropped down until I hung from the fingertips of my gloves. I waited until I felt the reassuring feel of Shane’s hands on my hips, then I let go.
It was like falling into oblivion. I could feel the floor beneath my feet as he set me down, but for several long moments I couldn’t see anything… at least until my snow-blind eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness.
“Look at this place!” Shane cried. “It’s… It’s like a hotel from another time. In the middle of nowhere!”
He walked away from me, toward the staircase. Still rubbing my eyes, I ran after him. My ski boots clacked on the smooth oaken floor — not exactly comfortable, but still so much better than trudging through the snow.
“Maybe there’s a phone here!” I heard him say. “Maybe there’s—”
Shane stopped short at the bottom of the staircase, so quickly that I bumped into him. When I regained my balance he was still standing there, staring off into the far end of the hotel’s lobby.
There was a light in the darkness.
A light that was moving.
It swept back and forth, like a flashlight only smaller. And it was getting closer. Moving more quickly, until a voice called out to us.
“Dude?”
Shane’s face went from confusion to shock to a huge, shit-eating grin — all in the span of half a second.
‘DUDE!” he shouted in reply, his voice echoing from the rafters of the hotel lobby.
A moment later I was standing alone, as both men rushed forward to complete the mother of all bro-hugs.
Nine
JEREMY
I had to look three times before my brain would allow it to register. It was that crazy, that unbelievable! But he was here. He’d actually made it.
And somehow, he’d found this place.
Shane crushed me in his arms like I’d just rescued him from a deserted island. Like he hadn’t seen me for a decade, rather than a day.
“WHAT THE FUCK?”
He looked at me bleary-eyed and hugged me again, this time with some raucous back-clapping that nearly knocked me on my ass. And that’s when I noticed her. The girl, standing in the shadows behind him.
“DUDE! Holy shit, I can’t believe you’re HERE!” Shane practically shouted. His voice was so loud, so obnoxious in the silent darkness, I had to shush him with one finger. As we stood there looking at each other by the light of my dying cellphone, tiny bits of snow sifted down from somewhere above us.
“But I left you on the mountain!” Shane replied. “I left you back at the top, over by the main run.”
“Yeah, dumbass” I said. “Without even telling me where you were going!”
“I just…“ he hesitated. “I took one of the back runs. It was spur of the moment. I didn’t think you could do a double-black anyway, what with just learning to snowboard and—”
“And you left me in the dust,” I said, punching him hard in the arm. “I saw you go and I followed you. But holy shit — right away I was in over my head.”
Trying the double-black diamond was definitely stupid. It was my first time snowboarding! I hadn’t even done a single black diamond, much less a double one.