by Ann, Becca
Things are getting uncomfortable. When that happens, I usually bail, but just as I take a step, I spot a silent tear going down her cheek. Ugh.
I may be a lot of things. An idiot, a sucker, a walking ego, but I’m not a dick. And I’ve always been taught, when girls cry, you don’t just walk away. No matter how much you think they’re not worth the shoulder, you give it to them anyway.
Plopping down next to her, I tuck Lex’s ring back in my pocket and zip it up so it doesn’t go anywhere. Sandy swipes her cheeks and goes for another drink, but I stop her.
“What’s the deal with you two, anyway?” I ask.
“Yeah, right,” she snorts. “Like I’m going to tell you so you can go run off and tell her how messed up I am.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “We’re not exactly talking to each other right now.” Lex doesn’t know that, but I’m going to play dodge the best friend as much as possible today. I’ll give her the ring—or maybe give it to Kaylee—but I’m not dealing with the morning after talk. She can do that with Kaylee.
“I knew you had a thing for her.”
“Huh?”
She cocks her head toward me. “It’s so cliché, you know? Falling for your best friend.” She shrugs. “But whatever. Her and Sean are like… what’s that expression? Peas and jelly?”
“Sounds about right.” I chuckle under my breath before nodding at the bottle in her hands. “So, how’d you break the lock?”
Her lip pulls up, and she reaches into her pocket. “The many uses of a bobby pin.” She hands it to me. “Just in case you want to forget about all this, too.”
A hiccup and a nudge in the shoulder later, she’s gone. Back to her cabin or wherever. I don’t really pay attention. All I can do is finger the bobby pin and shake my head.
***
“No way! You found it?!” Kaylee jumps up and down as she yanks the ring from my fingers. Nate shushes her since Lex is standing in the other room. She’s made four attempts to talk to me, but Sean keeps hovering around her, and I keep jumping away. Right now, Nate, Kaylee, and I are huddled in the handicapped stall in the boy’s bathroom at the lodge.
“Yeah. Could you give it to her?” It’s like I asked her something more obscene or something with the way they look at me. “What?”
“Uh, no.” Kaylee shoves the ring back in my hand. “You found it. You give it to her.”
I give Nate a “please, help me” look, but he just shakes his head. “She’s right. You should be the one to give it to her. It was in your pocket.”
There’s more reason than that, and if he knows it, I’m glad he keeps his mouth shut.
“Come on, guys.”
Kaylee shakes her head so hard she whips Nate’s Fedora off with one of her braids. Master magician catches it in one hand like it’s happened so many times now, it doesn’t even faze him.
“Fine,” I grumble and slip the ring into my jeans. “Now, I really have to go to the bathroom, which is why I came in here, so…”
“Okay, okay.” Kaylee grabs Nate’s arm and whips him out the door. As gross as their PDA is, I’m jealous.
I’m just drying off my hands when the door swings open and the douchebag and a few of his friends run to the urinals. I get ready to hightail it, but they step back—I mean step back to lean against the opposite wall—and a fountain of piss blocks my exit.
“Uh…”
No one hears me over all the shouts and peeing contest. I turn around and wash my hands again, just so I don’t see their junk. When Kevin shouts, “Done!” and then everyone flushes, I maneuver to the door, being careful of where I step.
“Hey, Ryan!” Sean nods to his friends and they leave us alone. He wipes his hands off and tosses the paper towels in the garbage. “So, Lex told me about this ring. Mind if I go out with you guys to look for it?”
My chest tightens and heat shoots up my neck. She told him about that? It took her ten years to tell me, her best friend. And the second she goes running to him, she tells the dick.
I gulp, trying to keep my voice level. “No need. I found it.”
“Really? Nice.” He holds his hand out, but I cross my arms. I’m not giving it to him. “Come on, man. I can give it to her. You’d really be helping me out.”
“What?”
“I really like her, but she’s a little… I don’t know. She doesn’t believe me or something. But really, dude, there’s something between us. Help a brother out?”
I cock my head, trying to figure out what this guy’s angle is. But I don’t know why I care. Lex already chose him. She spent last night with him. She’s spent this whole time trying to get him to notice her. She even said she might love him the first night we were here.
And I don’t want to give the ring to her anymore. I don’t even want to look at her. I know her whole plan to come on this ski trip was to get Sean to notice her, but once we got here I thought something changed. Things were different. For the first time since I fell in love with my best friend, I thought she finally loved me back. And now…shit, she’s sleeping in another guy’s bed. I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I’ll never be the guy Lexie wants. I’ll be stuck in the friend zone till the end of time, and there’s no point in trying to get out of it anymore. She doesn’t want me. She wants Sean. And she deserves her happy ending, even if it means sacrificing my own.
Sighing—or more like grunting—I pull out the ring and hand it to him. “Be careful with it.”
“It’ll go right back on her finger.” He smiles and tucks it in his fist. “Thanks, man.”
I nod and grab his arm before he opens the door. “I mean it, be careful with it. With her. If you screw her over, you might want to wear a coat you don’t mind getting blood on.”
He smirks, but nods. Then he’s gone, and I follow him. I want to make sure Lex gets that ring back.
She’s leaning against the lodge exit. Some really stupid part of me thinks it’s to catch me so we can talk, but when Sean spots her, I remember she’s probably not concerned about me. She’ll want to head back to his cabin with him.
Nate pulls me over and starts yapping about something. I may be looking at him, but I don’t hear a word he says. I know she’s staring at me, and before I can help it, my eyes flick to hers for just a second.
She’s not smiling her happiest smile. Or whatever I think is her happiest smile. She looks pretty pissed actually. Maybe last night wasn’t what I thought it was. Sean did say he needed help convincing her.
Two steps. That’s all I get before the dickhead moves in, wrapping an arm around Lex’s waist and smacking a kiss on her lips.
I’m too frozen to move. Some stupid part of me is shouting in my head. That should be me—the guy who kisses her, the guy she folds into. But he’s the one cradling her head. He’s the one hugging her. He’s the one dipping his tongue in her mouth. She’s gripping his chest, letting him.
That’s what does it. What makes me move. I go so fast I’m not sure if she even sees me pass her. I pull out the bobby pin Sandy handed me this morning, and head straight for the mini bar. I know Lex will hate me for it. I know if she catches me, I’ll shock her straight to hell. But, at this point, I don’t care.
I don’t care.
She doesn’t want me anyway.
Chapter 19
Lexie
Ryan has ignored me all day. I didn’t imagine it. He did that duck and dive to a corner move. He pulls that crap on people like Sean not me.
When he was talking to Nate he was doing everything in his power to not look in my direction. I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one who never answered the phone last night and left me stranded in a room that should be condemned.
And when his eyes glanced away from Nate’s for a second, that’s all I needed to grab hold of them. I raised my eyebrows, tilted my head in my “what’d I do?” face and pouted my lip.
The thing about Ryan, he sucks at Poker Face. But right then. I had nothing. He was as stoned face as I�
��ve ever seen him. My pouty lip didn’t even make him crack.
If he wanted to play it that way then fine. I stomped toward him, eyes still gripping his. He wasn’t going to dodge me. No way.
But like a solar eclipse Ryan disappeared. And I was blocked by a six-foot wall.
“Sean, hi. I was just—” Before I could finish my sentence his hands grabbed my shoulders and his lips pressed into mine.
And now I’m here thinking, “What the hell is happening?!”
I try to break free of his grip and pull away but his hands are like padlocks.
I spent countless dreams on this moment. Envisioning every scenario when Sean Dixon would finally freaking kiss me. No matter if we were in the parking lot of Skippy Lee’s or on a deserted island, every time, my legs would become weak, and he’d hold me against his strong chest. It’d be less juicy and more…I don’t know, romantic. I’d grip his biceps, and they would flex under my touch and…Holy crap!
I run my hands up his chest and push, trying to break the slobber that’s making its way around the corners of my lips. I go to speak, but am cut off by his tongue plunging into my mouth.
This entire trip has been one disaster after another. I let the anger of the week pass through me and channel it into my hands. With a force I didn’t know I possess, I push Sean until he stumbles away.
“What the hell?!” I scream then notice every person in the rec room staring at me.
Everyone except for one.
I watch as the door swings shut, and Ryan disappears into the snow.
Who knows what’s going through his mind? I need to get to him. I turn to run after him when Sean’s hand wraps around my wrist and pulls me close.
“Why would you do that?” I ask when I’m face to face with him.
“You told me I could if I found your ring.”
“You don’t just go up to a girl and kiss her with no warning…Wait.” Did he just say what I think he said? “You found my ring?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the only thing I have left of my father. Tears build in my eyes, relief and sadness overtake me, and I throw my arms around his neck.
For days I thought I would never see it again. I imagined the worst. Lost in a snow bank where it would stay forever, down the drain into a sewage plant, eaten by a moose. But somehow, Sean found it.
My arms loosen from his neck. I need to see it. I need proof that it’s real. It’s as if he can read my mind because once my hands fall from his neck, he unravels his fingers to reveal my ring.
“I can’t believe it.” I take it from his palm and study it. The color starts to change as soon as it’s in my hand, and a smile spreads across my face. It’s my ring.
Ryan and I looked everywhere. Nate and Kaylee when they weren’t locked to each other’s lips looked too. We retraced my steps. Every single step I took with not an ounce of luck.
“Where’d you find it?” I ask, needing to know where I neglected to search.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you have it back, and I have you.” He wraps his arm around me and pulls me against his side. This was not in the deal. Did we even have a deal?
I shove his side to get his attention, but mainly to get some distance between us. “No really where’d you find it?”
“Uh, by the sauna.”
The sauna? I didn’t even know there was a sauna here. Why would my ring be somewhere I never was?
Sean takes my hand in his. “Here let me put it back where it belongs.” With his other hand, he takes my ring. “First we need to get rid of this piece of junk.” His fingers reach down to the ring Ryan gave me.
“No!” I scream. His eyes dart to mine, and he stumbles back.
When I first lost my ring, I’d do anything to get it back. My pinky was bare, and it felt wrong like a part of me was missing. Then Ryan slid this quarter machine ring to hold its place, and that piece of me came back.
Little by little the fear of never seeing my dad’s ring again faded. I didn’t need it. I had something better.
“What’s the matter?” Sean asks. I look down at the ring between his two fingers and step back.
“I don’t want it.”
Sean’s face scrunches. “What do you mean you don’t want it?”
All I had to remember my dad was that ring. And that’s the problem. I don’t want to remember him anymore. He left. When he walked away from my mother, he walked away from me too.
For years I held onto hope he’d come back. At Christmas I would stare out the window for hours, hoping, praying he felt the need to see me as strongly as I felt it for him. And he would show up, and we could be a family again.
He never came.
I got through those sad times. Because Ryan was there. All along I was holding onto the past that does nothing but make me angry and fill me with self doubt. I don’t want that ring because I don’t want to look to the past anymore.
I want to rid myself of all those horrible memories, only remembering the good ones.
Ryan.
“I don’t want it,” I say again and take another step back.
“But you don’t know what I went through to get it.”
“You said you found it by the sauna. What’d you have to go through?”
He blinks away, and I see it. A lie. He’ll say and do anything to get what he wants. How did I not see this before? He can’t even look me in the eye.
Sean is nothing more than a disappointment. I put them both on pedestals, thinking they were the greatest thing since nail polish. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My ring was never near the sauna because he wasn’t the one who found it.
But I know who did.
Chapter 20
Ryan
There’s not enough alcohol in this tiny fridge to get me as plastered as I want to be. There were two tiny bottles, and I downed them both. But I’m still sober enough to remember everything from today. Everything from this week. How I allowed myself to think for a second—longer than a second—that Lex was feeling the same things I was.
A burp rumbles up my throat and the aftertaste almost makes me spew my stomach out all over the floor. Reaching over to my bag, I grab the case of TicTacs I stupidly bought yesterday at the lodge, thinking things were escalating to the point where I’d kiss my best friend. Screw that. She’ll never see me more than just Ryan.
I pop the entire case in my mouth, and chew them up. It burns my nose and throat for a second, but it’s nowhere near all the pain I’m feeling in my chest.
I jam all the empty bottles back in the fridge then slam the door shut. I pound my head against the wall, as if that will erase all the stupid crap going on up there.
So much for telling Lex exactly how I feel about Sean. She did what she always does. Runs right into his arms and leaves me waiting to pick up the pieces when he breaks her heart. I know I said I’d never mind, but that’s a flat ass lie. It kills me every time with every guy she dates.
I need more alcohol. This shit isn’t cutting it. I crawl across the floor to the bathroom, eyes stinging from holding back all the messed up crap going on everywhere in my body. Why the hell did I give that ring to Sean? Why can’t I grab up my balls and tell Lexie how I feel? Why do I feel like even if I do that, nothing will change?
Slapping my hand on the top of the countertop next to the sink, I fumble around for a glass or something. My throat is drying from all the mints. I’m sweaty and so damn depressed I feel like I could drink a Mississippi River full of vodka and still not get as drunk as I need to.
My fingers grasp something round, and I pull it off the counter and it slams in my lap. Mouthwash. I blink a few times to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Usually shit doesn’t go my way, but here I ask for more alcohol and bam, it falls in my lap. Literally.
I untwist the cap and don’t even hesitate to tilt the bottle back. The pungent mint smacks my tongue, and I almost spew it all over the bathroom tile. But I hold it in my mouth, let
it soak my teeth, the inside of my cheeks, and let my eyes water because I can’t stop it anymore.
What the hell am I doing?
I could swallow, but it’s not going to help. Paying for her trip didn’t help. Smashing spiders didn’t do it. Spending a week in the same bed did squat. The vodka didn’t do anything either, except leave me with this gaping hole in my gut, and now I feel guilty as hell.
I scurry to the toilet, slam the lid open and let out all the mouthwash. The water goes blue, and I stare at it, wishing I hadn’t hit this point, and really happy Lex isn’t here to see it.
After flushing away my fiftieth mistake on this trip, I crawl back to my spot by the mini fridge and bang my head some more. Maybe it’ll transport me back to Monday, and I can start this week over.
The lock on the door clicks, and I shut my eyes, shouting as loud as my voice is capable of. “Not in the mood, guys!”
Nate and Kaylee need to go spend their last night like they have the rest of their nights here. And leave me out of the pity party.
The door still opens. The breeze washes my face with ice cold air, and then the door slams shut. I don’t open my eyes.
“Really, I don’t want to—”
“You found it, didn’t you?”
My eyes pop open as I snap my head up. Lex is crossing her arms and giving me that don’t-lie-to-me stare. She’s got snow speckled through her brown hair, and she’s not wearing a coat. Just a thick sweater that fits her stomach just right. Even looking at me pissed like that, and even with my semi-drunk eyes, she’s hot as hell.
“Uh, what was that?” I try to give her a relaxed half grin, but I don’t think I manage it.
“Don’t play stupid, Ry.” Her arms drop. “You found my ring, and let Sean take credit.”
Nothing. No smart remark. No cocky grin. Nothing. I sit there and say nothing.
“Why would you do that?”
“Uh… I… He… It… Just… Erm…” I was better off saying nothing.
She huffs, dropping her arms and coming over to sit next to me. She’s closer than normal, even for our “just friends” status. Hip to hip, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder. She may not think it’s significant touching, but for me, it is.
