“When I’m in Denver, Hazel forces me to go for a run during our lunch break. During the fall, we did Cherry Creek starting at the park, but once the weather got bad, she convinced me to get a Peloton bike.”
As expected, he started laughing. “You hate exercise equipment. You claim it makes you feel like a hamster on a wheel.”
“You’re the exact same way. The difference is not all of us can ski outside all day. Some of us have to work for a living.”
Parker’s hand shot out and caught my upper arm, shoving me sideways into a deep snowdrift. Icy puffs of snow snuck down my collar and down my back as I struggled to right myself.
“Asshole! Fucking ass,” I yelped.
When I finally extracted myself from the plume of powder, Parker tackled me back down again. Our skis were most likely still on the trail while the two of us wrestled in the deeper drift.
I grabbed handfuls of snow to shove under his clothes. “You of all people should know how dangerous hypothermia can be in the backcountry,” I warned through short, panting breaths.
“Then stop doing that,” he said with a laugh while he tried to shove my face in the snow. I wondered how many times we’d done this. All the years of fucking around on the slopes and on the hills near my house when we had a good snow. Hazel was the most violent snow-fighter, but Parker was a close second.
I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm so I could shove him over onto his back. When I landed on top of him, our faces were inches apart. His cheeks were pink, and his eyes were bright. The white clouds of our exhales mingled and dissipated in the crisp morning air. Had a stranger come along in that moment and been told Parker had been jilted only the day before, they wouldn’t have believed it.
I loved seeing him happy and playful, but when my body wanted to suddenly grind down against him with my hardening dick, I froze… and I realized just how long it had been since we’d wrestled in the snow.
Parker’s eyes searched mine as the air between us stilled. All around us was the magical silence of a snowy mountain trail. I wanted to bottle this feeling and savor it, keep it close to my heart like a damned locket necklace from a fairy-tale story. Me and Parker alone in the snow.
Together. Just him and me.
I pulled off a glove with my teeth before reaching down to brush a chunk of ice away from one of his eyes.
Parker grabbed the back of my head and pulled my face down, pressing a firm kiss to my cheek and staying there for a beat.
“I love you,” he murmured with his hot breath into my cool skin. It wasn’t the first time he’d said the words, or even the hundredth, but it always felt like the first time. My heart erupted like a fire ant hill that had been kicked over. Stinging creepy-crawlies scattered everywhere, looking for cover.
Instead of saying the words back—words he already knew because I, too, had said them hundreds of times before—I grabbed a pinch of snow and shoved it in one of his ears before shoving away from him, snapping back into my skis, and hauling ass down the trail.
Because running away was the only way to keep from kissing him back.
Only, when I did it, it wouldn’t be on the cheek.
7
PARKER
I loved the way I felt after a long, physical day outside. My muscles were comfortably tired, and my brain was no longer on overdrive. The bar Julian had brought us to looked like any old catchall tavern in small-town Colorado, all still decked out with pink hearts and cherubs for Valentine’s Day. It seemed to function as a local hangout, bar and grill, and also made the best local brew, according to the table full of Aster Valley guys Tiller and Mikey had brought with them.
Tiller kept staring at me as if trying to assess how fragile I was, like I might be one Cupid decoration away from losing my shit and blubbering all over him about being left at the altar.
“Stop,” I said before stealing a mozzarella stick from one of the platters in the center of the table and leaning back to put my arm on the back of Julian’s chair. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“No, I know. I just think… maybe you actually do need to take Erin’s advice about trying something new. Having an adventure.”
The first thing Tiller and Mikey had asked about when we’d sat down was what had really happened to call off the wedding. I’d explained Erin’s note. By the time Sam and Truman had shown up and asked the same question, I’d been ready to scream. Thankfully, Julian had repeated the basics for them so I hadn’t needed to.