Demanding Ransom

by Megan Squires

  “Maggie.” I see him close his eyes and feel him angle his ear closer to my mouth so my lips skim across it. Ran runs a hand over my shoulder to my jaw, and takes it in his palm. “I want to kiss you more than anything right now.”

  “I’m asking you to.” I pull back and implore him with hungry eyes, practically begging for it, to the point where I feel like I should be embarrassed. Like maybe there’s something wrong with me because kissing shouldn’t be this much of a battle. Especially for two people who have done much more than that in our pasts.

  Ran drops his weight and his body presses onto mine, his legs pinning me, and the heart that at one time inhabited my chest is now positioned in my tight throat. Instinctually, I run my hands up and down his arms, hooking mine through his so I can wrap them up onto his shoulders. He’s strong, and every inch of him feels that way.

  “Maggie,” he says again, and I realize every time he says my name, it’s like he’s breathing it. “I told you I wanted to kiss you more than anything.” I grip his shoulders and his chest gives. “But if I do, it’s not going to stop there.”

  I swallow hard, constricting the knot that’s wound in my neck. “I don’t think I want it to.” I don’t know how it comes out so naturally, but it does and it scares me. But at the same time, it feels so true, so I shouldn’t be scared. I shouldn’t be scared by something that flies out of me like instinct because it must be what’s actually inside me, for it to spill out without thinking it first.

  That agonized expression pulls at Ran’s features again and he shakes his head softly. “No, Maggie. We can’t.”

  “I thought you said you wanted new memories to replace the old, Ran,” I say, trying to shake the notion that I’m being denied, but I can’t help but feel the sting of it. Why am I not good enough for him? Why doesn’t he want me the way I want him? Or at least the way I know he wanted all those other girls in the past?

  “That’s exactly what I am doing.” Ran presses a kiss at the shell of my ear and he slides my hair around the curve of it. “Just being here with you like this has already replaced every single memory I’ve had with any other girl. It’s only you now.”

  If he hadn’t wanted me to kiss him, he shouldn’t have said that last statement, because it takes everything in me—literally everything—to keep from ambushing Ran at this moment. I bind my arms around him tighter, push myself up to him, and beg for the kiss I know isn’t going to happen, because he’s right, it wouldn’t end with just a kiss. And knowing that he wants things to be different between us, it wouldn’t be fair to tempt him that way—to push him to the limit and then expect him to stop there.

  “I lied to you earlier.” It’s not at all what I anticipate him saying and my head spins in confusion when he says it.

  “Oh?”

  “When I said I was falling for you.” He lifts up just enough so we’re face to face, so he’s looking right into my eyes, and then he unexpectedly drops down and presses his mouth onto my mouth, his warm lips spreading across mine for the briefest moment before he draws back and says, “I lied because I’m not falling for you, Maggie. I already fell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I can’t do this. I’m absolutely terrified.” The wind slices into me and I can’t control the shivering that has racked my entire body.

  “Yes, you can.” Ran bends his face closer to mine and his eyes stare out at me through orange-tinted goggles. “And I wish you would stop saying how terrifying I am. It’s going to give me a complex.”

  “I’m serious, Ran. I can’t do this.” My lunch swims in my stomach and I’m pretty sure it’s about to make an encore performance in front of everyone in the line behind me. I burp and Ran glances my direction.

  “Are you going to throw up?” He laughs at me, which makes everything so much worse. So much worse because he’s not even acknowledging that I have the right to be absolutely terrified by this.

  “I think so, maybe.” My throat burns.

  “Well,” he winks, “try not to get any on those pants since we rented them. They’re more expensive than they look. That’s a pretty decent brand.”

  “Really? You mean this ridiculous outfit that makes me look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy is actually something people would pay money for?” I waddle forward in our line, feeling like I’m wearing moonboots and am covered in twenty layers of bubble wrap.

  “I think you look adorable,” Ran smirks, pressing his finger into my stomach. I don’t giggle like that stupid Dough Boy does and instead slug him in the gut, but my hands are hidden under large gloves and there is absolutely no way he could have even felt that. “Come on pokey, we gotta move forward.”

  The line for the chair lift is moving quickly, and with each chair that scoops up another pair of people to carry them up the hill, I feel that lunch getting closer and closer to debut time.

  “So what are you afraid of exactly?” Ran pushes at my back and I shuffle forward. He’s got both of our snowboards in his other arm and is able to move effortlessly in the snow while I feel like I’m some baby penguin that is just learning how to walk.

  “Let’s see. Falling to my death from the lift is the first one.” I hold up a chubby gloved finger. “Sliding to my death is another.” I lift up finger number two. “And tumbling to my death is the third.” I’ve got three fingers held up in front of Ran’s face. “Oh, wait. Don’t forget freezing to death. Number four.”

  “The only thing I’m worried about is laughing to death during all of those scenarios.”

  “That’s not nice, Ran. I told you I hate the cold. I hate the snow. It is both cold and snowy here. Not to mention the heights. I hate heights.”

  “You’re not going to fall off, Maggie.” There are only four more couples up ahead of us and I contemplate actually giving in to the vomit that’s been hanging at the back of my throat because I think it might give me an out, but I’d rather not make a complete fool of myself, if that’s at all possible. “Here, you need to put this on.” Ran drops my board onto the packed snow.

  “What?” I look down at it and then up at him.

  “Yeah, you have to put it on before we get on the lift. We actually should have had them on already.” Ran clicks his right foot into the bindings on his board.

  “No way! I will have a hard enough time balancing up there without that thing trying to pull me down with it.”

  Ran bends down and grabs my right foot, lifting it from its firm, planted position in the snow and he slips the board right under it. “You don’t have a choice. Now be a good girl and follow the rules.” He throws me an obnoxiously sexy grin, which infuriates me because he’s being so condescending. I really want to kick him in that perfect mouth of his with my other boot, but there’s no way I can do it. Especially after the incredibly brief, but overwhelmingly intense, contact I had with those lips last night.

  “Almost our turn,” Ran says, standing up beside me. He takes my elbow. “Now just skate forward.”

  “Skate? I thought we were snowboarding.”

  “We are. It’s just a way to describe how to move forward. Kinda like you’re skateboarding. Just push off the snow with your left foot and use that momentum to glide the board forward.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t do this, Ran.”

  “You don’t have much of a choice now, Maggie. We’re next.”

  The lift just scooped up the couple in front of us, and there’s already a visible lag as I hang back, terrified of the two-person chair that looms our direction.

  “Come on.” Ran uses his weight to pull both of us forward. “It’s our turn.”

  I follow his lead not because I want to, but because there’s absolutely no other place to go. Unless I want to run screaming into the snow covered hills, which actually might not be a bad option. We skate forward to the “Load Here” sign.

  “One…two…” Ran looks over his shoulder as our designated chair swings toward us and I close my eyes so hard I think they might freeze shut. “
Three.” I suck in a searing breath and the chair buckles my knees and I tumble back onto its wobbly surface.

  “You okay?” I think Ran lowers the safety bar across our lap but I haven’t opened my eyes to confirm because I’m pretty certain that would mean I’d also have to look down. And that would likely be the beginning of me falling to my sad, snowy death. So I keep them shut and pretend I’m sitting on my couch at home. My moving, swinging, artic-air chilled couch. This is not working.

  “You okay?” he says again, and I feel his arm stretch out over the back of the chair. He curls his hand onto my shoulder.

  “I hate you.”

  He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “No, pretty sure you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. And I hate this even more than that stupid motorcycle of yours.”

  “Does that mean I can get you to ride it again when we’re all done here?” Ran’s voice perks up.

  “Not a chance. And after today, I’ll be dead, so I won’t be riding anything of yours ever again.”

  “Oh Maggie, you really shouldn’t talk dirty like that. Save it for the texts.” Ran laughs so hard the lift bounces up and down, and I grip onto his leg for something to ground me. It’s freezing up here, so much colder than at the base of the mountain, and we’ve been climbing for so long that I’m beginning to think he’s tricked me into going down the black diamonds as opposed to the bunny slopes.

  “Shut it, Ran! That’s not what I meant!”

  “Sure it wasn’t.” I can hear him smile and then feel his body straighten back up. “I need you to forgive me, Maggie.”

  “What?” I turn to him, even though I’m still keeping up my not-opening-my-eyes act.

  “Just say you forgive me.”

  “For what?” I angle toward him even more.

  “Just say it.” His voice is firm, but I still detect a hint of teasing in it.

  “I forgive you, Ran.” I say it not because I actually do—I’m not even sure what I’m forgiving him for—but because he’s peer pressured me into it. Just like he did when he got me onto this stupid chairlift. Why is he always so convincing?

  “Good, because in a moment, I’m going to need your forgiveness again and I think I have a better chance of getting it if I break them up into smaller parts.”

  “What are you talking about?” I hear voices up above us and as the lift glides steadily upward, they’re becoming louder.

  Ran pulls his arm back from my shoulder. “You know how you were afraid to get on the chairlift?”

  “Yeah.” My breathing picks up without me having any control over it.

  “Well, now we have to get off of it.” The lift lurches forward and the fifteen-pound weight strapped to my foot swings back and forth like a pendulum. “And some people might say that it’s a little scarier than getting on it.”

  Obviously I knew we’d have to get off of the lift, but that was back when I thought all I’d have to do was literally walk off of it, balanced in my stupid moonboots. But now I apparently have to “skate” off of it, one foot strapped in and one foot out. Seriously, how do I let him talk me into doing stuff like this? Oh yeah. His impossibly gorgeous face and husky voice might have a little something to do with it.

  “I hate you.”

  “I know.” I feel the jolt of the couple in front of us abandoning their seat and know we’re next. I’ve managed to keep my eyes shut the entire duration of the ride, and know that I don’t have the luxury of doing that much longer. This is seriously going to require all of my senses on high alert.

  “Just point your board straight and keep the tip up,” Ran instructs. “When it meets the snow, just roll like you’re getting off of a couch.” I’m feeling really lightheaded and I’m sure the altitude isn’t helping. “Put your left foot on the stomp pad, and when we get off, we’re going to make a J-turn to get out of everyone’s way.”

  “Ran,” I plead, gripping onto the back of his jacket. “I have no idea what any of that means.”

  “Just follow my lead. Keep your back foot on your stomp pad and don’t drag it in the snow; you’ll end up doing the spits. And as much as I’d like to see that, this is not the time, nor the place.” There’s that audible smirk in his grin again and I don’t even have time to be flustered by it because I feel the impact of the snow push up my board and my eyes instantly fly open.

  Clinging to Ran’s back, I try to find some strength in my shaky legs to push up, but they collapse under me and I feel myself beginning to fall backward. Ran rights us by leaning forward in an over-exaggerated motion, and I wrap my arms around his waist like I’m holding on for dear life, because I sort of am. Even though he’d warned against it, my left foot slips from the stomp pad and drags behind me and I lose any ounce of control I might have possessed. My board swivels like a car fishtailing on black ice and hooks under Ran’s. We’re not even five feet away from the chair we were sitting on when I crash to the ground, dragging Ran down with me, the next chair careening toward us as we lay in a heap on the packed snow.

  And then the most mortifying thing happens. They shut down the lift.

  “Are you okay?” Ran twists around. He’s practically sitting on me, his weight pinning my mangled legs, pressing me further into the snow.

  Physically, yes, I’m okay. But as I look back at the row of chairs strung down the mountainside, the people seated in them rocking back and forth like they’re on some ride at Disneyland, I realize that this probably ranks as one of the most humiliating moments of my life. And everyone is right there to witness it from their comfy little dangling chairs in the sky.

  “I’m fine,” I grumble, and someone, probably a ski instructor, rushes over to us to help us off the ground, not because they’re worried or concerned, but more because we’re holding up the line. “And I still hate you.”

  “I figured,” Ran says, pulling me up. My legs already feel sore and my muscles tremble with exhaustion, and we haven’t even made it down the bunny hill. “Do you forgive me?”

  “No.” I let him haul me to the far side of the slope, out of the way of the families with children that don’t even look old enough to walk, yet seem to know exactly what to do as they plow down the mountainside on their skis and boards.

  “I’ll have to see what I can do to change that.” Even though he still has his goggles on, I don’t miss that wink he shoots me. “Okay, so let’s sit down and get the other boot strapped in.” He pulls my foot into the bindings like earlier. “Since you’re a goofy rider—”

  “Shut it—”

  “No,” he laughs, “it’s just what they call it when you ride with your right foot forward. I’m goofy, too, so it will make things easier. I’m going to stand right behind you and help you angle down the hill. We’re going to take it nice and slow, Maggie. You don’t need to be scared.”

  Nothing about his statement provides any calm, mostly because I have no idea what he’s talking about, and also because the thought of him at my back as I fumble down the hill sends a wave of chills up my spine. Well, I’ve had chills all over, really, ever since I set foot in the snow. But these ones aren’t brought on by the cold.

  “Okay, let’s get you up.” Ran slants his board so he’s immediately behind me, and when he grabs onto my waist, those chills from my spine flood into my brain and shock my entire nervous system. “Because I think you can handle it, we’re going to go straight to garland.”

  “Uh, okay.” It’s clear that I’m just not going to understand any of this lingo and will have to rely on Ran to teach me everything.

  “So your board is flexible.” He holds me in place. “It’s flexible tip to tail, but it’s also flexible toe edge to heel edge, too.” He gently pushes me forward, just enough so that I’m forced to catch my balance by gripping my toes against the boots. It would probably be easier to do if they weren’t so numb. “Since it bends in so many directions, you’ll be able to take advantage of that as you shift your weight from your toes to your heels. Does that make sense?” A
s Ran’s explaining, he pulls at my hipbones and draws me closer to his hips. I try to regulate my breathing, because I don’t want to fog up my goggles right now. As much as I’d like to keep my eyes closed, I really need them open.

  “I guess.”

  “Okay.” He keeps his hands on my hips. “So garlands are just small turns. Like picture Christmas garland and how it curves. That’s the design we’re going to make in the snow.”

  I nod and shiver at the same time.

  “So you know how I said your board is flexible? It can twist side to side, kinda like wringing out a towel. So when you alternate your pressure—pressing one foot down and lifting up on the other—your board will twist.”

  “Got it.” I don’t really, but I need him to continue explaining so I can focus on something other than his hands that are still around my waist.

  “Okay. So a garland really is just a series of half-turns, without changing edges. We’re going to start with a heelside garland okay?” I nod. “We’ll slowly head down the hill, pointing our board toward the fall line, and then we’re going to shift our weight backward to slow up by lifting our toes. Got that?”

  I nod several more times, but I didn’t catch any of it. Heelside, garland, and fall line make absolutely no sense to me. Flustered, ruffled, and distracted—those are words I understand much better at the moment.

  “After we slow from that, we’ll press our weight to our front toes and the edge will lift out of the hill and the board will turn toward the fall line again, okay? We’ll just keep doing that over and over until it feels good, alright?”

  I think the only part about this snowboarding debacle that feels good is having Ran’s hands on me. And even that holds just enough tension in it that it borders on tormenting instead, because all I really want to do is flip around, rip off this stupid board, and tackle him in the pile of the fresh powder that clings to the edge of the tree line. Having him tempt me last night with that peck of a kiss did something crazy to my brain and my insides and nothing is really working as it should today. I honestly don’t know why I assumed my legs would be able to figure things out, either.