by Ava Bloom
I wondered about that comment that Derrick had made before, about the fact that he came with baggage. But – “None of that’s any of my business,” I said.
“Just figured you should know about it,” Sam said, shrugging eloquently. “I mean, I can’t imagine what it would be like, to wake up from sleeping to find the guy that you fucked earlier that night with his hands around your throat as he’s in the middle of a nightmare.”
I stared at her. “Did he do that?” I asked.
Sam patted my hand. “Just be careful, sweetie,” she said, slipping off her stool and striding off, her hips swaying.
I blinked after her, trying to wrap my head around the conversation. I stared across the room at Derrick, who was still holding off the two guys who had been arguing. He had his tattooed arms folded across his chest and was staring sternly at the two, and I was struck by how dangerous he looked.
He was an oddball, I decided. Definitely a character. But wasn’t everyone in a ski town? And deep down, I didn’t feel like he would hurt me, at least not on purpose.
But I supposed that was exactly Sam’s point: he might hurt me by accident. Did I trust him enough to let him do that?
4
Derrick
Even though I knew I had to deal with Danny and Brian, I couldn’t stop looking back at Mallory. When I saw that Sam was talking to her, I was half-tempted to leave the two idiots to sort themselves out – but I couldn’t do that. This was one of the hottest parties of the year, and it drew a lot of guests from the resort and the surrounding area. I couldn’t let two hotshot instructors start to duke it out in front of everyone.
But I didn’t like the looks that Sam and Mallory were shooting in my direction, and I could only imagine the sorts of things that Sam might be telling the other woman.
“Come on, Derrick, you know just as well as I do – “ Brian said angrily, drawing my attention back to the present. He was still trying to get out of the grip I had on his shirt, still swinging wild punches towards Danny. It would have been funny if he’d been a little less drunk, if I hadn’t been working, and if Mallory wasn’t…
I glanced back towards where Mallory had been and felt a flash of disappointment when I saw that she was no longer sitting there. I knew that she was here with her friends, though; I would probably see her again at some point during the night. She would be back for a drink at least, if not to chat.
Maybe I should give her my number after all. Just get it over with, get her out of my head once and for all. If that was possible.
“Guys,” I said firmly, and both men finally really looked at me. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Can you take this somewhere else? Isn’t Francesca’s doing their pizza deal on extended hours tonight? Go get some food in you and talk it out, something. Just don’t do it here.”
“Fine,” Danny finally said grudgingly.
Brian agreed as well, and I finally pushed him away to stand on his own feet.
“All right, I’ve got a job to do,” I said, stalking back to my position behind the bar but watching carefully as they left the room. I breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone and quickly scanned the bar for Mallory – but I didn’t see her anywhere.
Over the rest of the evening, I was forced to conclude that she and her friends must have left early – although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what might have prompted them to. Did Mallory have something to say about it? Had I said something wrong?
What had Sam told her?
I finally saw Mallory again a couple days later. She was curled up in one corner of the lodge with her laptop on her knees. She was cute like that, I decided, with her hair up in a messy bun and her tongue poking out between her teeth as she typed something rapidly on her keyboard. She looked up when she felt my eyes on her, her expression startled as I walked straight over to her.
“Mallory,” I said, nodding in greeting.
“Hi Derrick,” she said – and did I detect a hint of breathlessness there already?
“Have you been avoiding me?” I asked, only partly teasing. “You disappeared from the party the other night, and I haven’t seen you since.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” Mallory said with a laugh. “Were you really watching for me the other night at the party?”
I looked away from her. “I just thought…that maybe you’d still like me to show you around.” I didn’t know why I said it. Hadn’t I already had this debate with myself and decided that it wasn’t a good idea to pursue things with her? But I couldn’t seem to quit thinking about her either way, so where was the harm? I wasn’t going to make things worse. And she must only have a couple days left of her trip anyway.
Mallory peered up at me, slowly closing her computer. “Yeah, well, I think for the rest of our trip, Jane has a list a mile long of things that she’d like us all to do together as a group.” She grimaced slightly like she didn’t particularly like that idea, and I wondered if it was more to do with work or if the extended group time was starting to wear on her. I hadn’t really seen her interact with her friends too much, I realized, but from what I’d seen and from what I’d heard from Mallory herself, she seemed like she was very different from the rest of them.
“Are you working right now?” I asked. “Is that why you got free from the group activities of the day?”
Mallory shook her head. “Well, yes – I am working. But it’s not the reason I got free.” She wrinkled her nose. “My friends are all better skiers than me. Definitely more adventurous as well. I just couldn’t keep up, and I think that after a while, they were just ready to go off and do their own thing.”
“The only way you’re going to get better is to practice,” I pointed out. “Or to take a lesson.”
“I thought about taking a lesson,” Mallory said. “But they’re so busy with the holidays. The other day, we saw a group that must have had seventeen people in it, all with one instructor. I don’t think I’d get much out of a class like that. And the private lessons were all booked up.” She shrugged. “And I would have kept skiing on my own, but I don’t know, after a while, that just kind of gets boring.”
“Why don’t we go skiing together?” I suggested.
Mallory blinked up at me. “Right now?” she asked.
“Did you already return your rentals?”
“Well, no,” Mallory said. She slowly got to her feet. “I’d have to run up to my room and get changed. Grab my boots.”
“No problem,” I told her. “I just came in to grab some lunch anyway. Why don’t I do that, and you meet me back down here. I should be ready to go by the time you are, I expect.”
“Sounds great,” Mallory said, smiling at me – and she had a lovely smile, I realized. I couldn’t help but smile back at her.
It was weird because I didn’t usually like to ski with anyone. But skiing with Mallory was fun, all afternoon. She wasn’t terrible – definitely a beginner, but with a couple pointers, she was already way better. Besides, skiing was mostly about confidence, so I figured as long as I kept her on runs that she was comfortable with, I could get a lot better skiing out of her.
We were talking and laughing as we rode up the lifts, too.
“You were a ski instructor once, weren’t you?” Mallory asked on one of our rides.
I laughed. “Is it that obvious? I know there’s a certain style of skiing that all instructors seem to have, but I thought I was doing a good job hiding that…”
Mallory looked puzzled. “Why would you want to hide it?” she asked.
“Because Jim is still trying to get me to come back and teach lessons – at least some private lessons over the holidays!” I told her.
She laughed as well. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,” she said. “You’re just a good teacher, that’s all.”
“I’m hardly even teaching,” I protested.
“That’s just it,” Mallory said, shaking her head. “I guess I haven’t taken any ski lessons this week becau
se I figured it was going to be all teaching. You know, drills and stuff. But this has actually been fun.”
“Well, it’s supposed to be,” I said, smiling at her. “It’s skiing after all.”
Mallory smiled back. Then, she shook her head. “I think I’m about done for the day, though. My legs are tired, and I don’t know what Jane has planned for tomorrow.”
“No problem,” I told her. “There’s a run we can take up here, Rainbow, which will take us all the way to the bottom.”
“Perfect.”
We started down towards the bottom, with me in the lead to show her the way. I paused after the final branch, looking back to watch her come down. She really did look better, I reflected. And a lot more confident. I had to assume that her friends had been pushing her to go down a lot of runs that she just plain wasn’t comfortable with. She’d lost her confidence, and her skiing had only gotten worse from there on.
Just then, another skier came flying out of the trees, startling Mallory. She swerved towards me, her arms flying out to either side as she lost her balance. Before I had a chance to react, she was bowling into me, knocking us both flying.
Oof.
“I’m so sorry!” Mallory said, trying frantically to disentangle herself from me.
I started to laugh, unable to help it. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, catching her arms. “Seriously. You’re not the first person to run into me, and you’re probably not the last, either.”
“Still,” Mallory said. “You’re okay, right?”
“Yep,” I told her. “Maybe a couple interesting bruises, but nothing major. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Mallory said. She looked down at me and slowly started to giggle as well. “Really didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
To be honest, I was a little distracted from the fall – totally preoccupied with the current situation, her there on top of me. I imagined I could feel the heat radiating off her body, even though that was probably impossible given all the layers of clothing we were wearing. When she shifted, her knee slotted in between my legs, and I held my breath, trying desperately not to show how aroused I was by such a simple movement.
I twisted sideways, quickly depositing Mallory on the snow and getting to my feet, then helping her up as well. “Seriously, you’re all right?” I couldn’t help asking again.
“Yeah,” Mallory said – and was it just my imagination or were her eyes dark with lust as well?
“Do you want to get dinner together?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself.
“Okay,” Mallory said, smiling up at me. And I couldn’t seem to remember why this had ever seemed like a horrible idea.
5
Mallory
I was surprised when Derrick asked me to get dinner with him. It was a total flip from what I’d thought starting out the day. Oh, I knew that during the party, he was just trying to break up the fight. But Sam had seemed so jealous and so possessive of him that I’d finally come to the conclusion that the two of them must be a thing – if not boyfriend and girlfriend, then at least…something. Friends with benefits, maybe.
I didn’t want to get in the middle of that. I was only going to be there for a little while longer, after all. Derrick and I couldn’t really start anything.
And I just didn’t know what I thought about him, in light of what Sam had said. I didn’t know how to act around him.
Or so I thought. Then we went skiing together. The whole afternoon had just flowed so smoothly. I hadn’t had to wonder how to act around him, it had just been so simple. And now, dinner…
I wasn’t sure if it was a date or not. He could have just asked out of politeness. Or he could have just asked because he was just as hungry as I was – because at that point, after skiing for most of the day, I was famished. Derrick had been so perfect, taking me on runs that I was totally, 100% comfortable on. He’d given me pointers, and we’d progressed to skiing some easy blue runs by the middle of the afternoon – but still, we never found ourselves on a run that I didn’t feel like I could handle.
After all of that, I’d worked up an appetite.
“There’s this great taco place, ski in and ski out,” Derrick was telling me. “Their happy hour menu isn’t very extensive, but it’s $3.50 for house margaritas, and you can get two tacos for $5 – so it’s a pretty good deal.”
“Is it like Joe’s?” I asked. “Lots of instructors?”
Derrick looked like he didn’t know how to answer that. “I mean, there are quite a few instructors who head over there,” he finally said. “But it’s not their main hang out spot. You won’t be the only non-instructor there, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Oh no, I was more just curious,” I said quickly. “I liked Joe’s, it had a good vibe.”
“The rest of your crowd seems a little more…” Derrick trailed off, looking like he didn’t quite know how to word it.
“High maintenance?” I supplied.
“Well, yeah,” Derrick said.
“They are,” I agreed. I shrugged. “To be honest, I’m a little high maintenance too. About some things. You just caught me on vacation.”
“A working vacation, though,” Derrick mused. “I wonder what you would be like if you ever took a real vacation.”
“Not going to happen any time soon,” I said firmly, shaking my head. Derrick just laughed.
“Hey Derrick, have a seat anywhere!” the waitress called as we wandered into The Taco Place – and that was really the name of it. Simple and to the point, I supposed.
“You seem to know everyone in this town,” I commented.
“I guess I kind of do,” Derrick mused. “We’re all kind of one big family, the locals and the guys who work at the resort. I’ve met a lot of them working around the area, and the rest of them… Well, it’s a pretty small town. We tend to all cross paths, and after a while, you start to know one another. But yeah, it’s mostly just that it’s a big family. They’ve helped me through some pretty dark times.” He paused and then shook his head. “But I guess you don’t really have that sort of community in San Francisco, do you?”
“Not really,” I said, cocking my head to the side as I thought about it. “But my friends are kind of like my family, in that way. Jane and Hillary and Katie and I have been friends since we were kids, and we’ve known Vicky and Megan since we were in college.” I peered at him. “Dark times… Sam said you were a soldier. Are you still?”
“No,” he said shortly. I was taken aback by the way that he said it – definitely sounded like there was a story there. But he also definitely didn’t want to talk about it.
I paused. “Are you and Sam…” Derrick stared blankly at me as I trailed off, and I cleared my throat, trying to think of the best way to ask this. “Are you and Sam…together?”
Derrick wrinkled his nose. “No,” he said firmly. “Did she give you that impression?”
“Well, I could tell she was definitely interested in you,” I said, shrugging my shoulders like I didn’t care one way or the other. And I really shouldn’t. It wasn’t like I was trying to start a relationship with Derrick. Even if he and Sam were sleeping together, she wasn’t going to cause me any trouble over the next couple days, and after that, my trip would be over. But all the same, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about them together, and I was finding myself feeling inexplicably jealous. I just wanted to know, once and for all.
Derrick shook his head. “I guess I knew that,” he sighed, running a hand back through his hair. “But she has to know that I’m not interested in her. She’s just not my type.”
“She’s not?” I asked in surprise.
Derrick grimaced. “She wears makeup to go skiing,” he said. “A lot of it.”
I laughed at the thought that that would be the deciding factor. But I supposed what he was probably trying to say is that she was high maintenance.
Which made me really think that he must not be interested in m
e. He thought my friends were high maintenance; he had to think the same about me. d
I wanted to ask more about it – was this a date or not? What were we going to do afterwards? But before I could say anything, our food arrived and the talk turned to lighter subjects.
Once we’d finished our tacos, Derrick walked me back to my hotel. I thought for a wild moment that I might not even have to ask him, that he might just follow me all the way upstairs. Because I wanted that, I realized. I wanted him to come upstairs and have his way with me, to work my body over into pleasurable ecstasy. Even if we only had one night together. Even if my friends teased me mercilessly about it.
Derrick lingered in the lobby, though, as though he didn’t think I would want him to come upstairs. I wished I could show him how wet and ready I already was, how much I needed him. Instead, I turned into his warm, strong chest, leaning up on my tiptoes so that I could press my lips questioningly against his.
Derrick groaned and pressed closer to me, his arms coming around my lower back as he pushed his tongue into my mouth. I whimpered as his tongue slid along mine, flicking softly against the tender spots in my mouth and sending warmth rushing to my core. It was a good thing his arms were around me, I reflected distantly, because otherwise, I was pretty sure I’d have melted into a puddle on the floor.
Derrick pulled away, and I chased his lips with mine again – but I wasn’t quite tall enough to reach. Then, I came back to reality, blushing and trying to step away, sure that he had come to his senses and realized that he didn’t want this. But he was smiling down at me.
He nodded towards the fireplaces, and I stumbled after him towards one of the plush couches. We curled up there beneath a blanket, trading kisses that became more and more heated as the fire raised a flush across my skin. I shivered a little as Derrick’s hands dipped lower, pulling me into his lap.
“You should go upstairs,” Derrick finally said, his forehead still pressed against mine.
