Live Through This (10 page)

“Oh, wow,” I say. “That is the first time I’ve ever had a lift stopped for me. And, you know, it really is as embarrassing as I always imagined.”

Reece pushes his goggles up onto his helmet and lets out a loud breath. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” I’m pretty sure I can feel bruises forming on top of the ones I already have. “Do you need help with your bindings?”

He nods slowly, like it takes all of his effort.

I unhook from my own board and kneel in front of him. “Hey, don’t be all sad. I’m not upset or anything. Those guys in the booth should have been paying better attention.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Reece frowns down at his gloved hands. “Coley, I have to tell you something. I’m not really a snowboarder.”

I mock-gasp. “So, you’re a
skier
?”

“Not that either. The closest I’ve come is wakeboarding on the lake and playing snowboarding video games. Which . . . I figured out real quick isn’t the same at all.”

I push my own goggles up and look into his eyes. “So if you don’t snowboard or ski, why did you want to do this today?”

“Well, because. I wanted to spend time with you. And I know. I
know
that that puts me on the wrong part of the creepy–cute scale and I’m sorry.”

I can’t help laughing at his miserable expression. “You don’t have to be sorry. I want to spend time with you, too. I’m glad you’re here. Really, really glad.”

“Even though I suck and knocked you over?”

“We’ll just call it even after the zoo.”

“I like that plan.” Reece glances at the people around us. “So what now?”

“There’s pretty much two choices. We can sit here for the
rest of our lives or I can fasten your bindings and teach you how to get down this mountain.”

“Option one it is then!” he says with a grin. “I mean, just kidding. I’m ready to do this. Kind of.”

•    •    •

Reece and I are sitting on inner tubes, my arms are looped tightly around his legs, and we’re screaming and laughing our way down a hill. “Told you tandem would be faster!” he yells from behind me.

It feels like we’re going about fifty miles per hour, but obviously, we can’t be anywhere near that. “Too! Fast!” I shriek into the wind.

We hit the bottom and gradually slow to a stop. Pushing ourselves to stand, we drag our tubes behind us, and head back to the line for the conveyor lift. “What was that?” Reece asks. “Our fourth time down already? See, I’m much better at this.”

Our day at the mountain so far has included an exhausting three hours attempting to snowboard, a lunch break in the lodge, and now an hour at the tube park. I can tell that Reece is embarrassed about how things were going earlier, but for an absolute beginner on a board, he isn’t as bad as he thinks. “You really were doing good by the end,” I say. “If we had a couple of more days here, you’d definitely get it.”

“I feel like I’ve spent all day on my butt.”

“That’s what snowboarding is like for everyone when they’re learning, so that’s perfect. Nobody likes a prodigy, you know.”

“Yeah, you definitely couldn’t mistake me for one of those.”

My pocket dings for what’s probably the fifteenth time today and I can’t help groaning. Ming has been sending “Has he kissed you NOW?” texts, I swear, every half an hour and my blood pressure is rising. There were a few times while I was kneeling in front of him or helping him up that I’d thought he might kiss me, but he never did. Whenever Ming asks me about it, I keep wondering if it’s ever going to happen, if I should be doing something different in order to
make
it happen.

“Who do you think this one’s from?” I ask Reece. “Ming? Or, perhaps, my dear friend, Ming?”

He laughs, but I have a feeling that he wouldn’t find it so funny if he had any clue what she’s been bugging me about.

I pull out my phone, bracing myself. “And the winner is! Oh . . . actually, it’s Piper.”

Piper: Hi, we need to set up a game plan for you and Alejandra. Call me?

This is worse than Ming’s questioning. I scrunch up my nose and tilt the screen for Reece to read. “If I tell Piper that I never got this message, will you back me up?”

“Sure,” he says, shrugging.

“Or, how about this?” I type quickly and send Piper a response.

Me: Hi! Good to hear from you! I’m in line to ride an inner tube down a hill. Coming home from vay-cay in 2 days & will call you then :)

Within seconds, my phone rings. It’s Piper.

“Okay, so that didn’t work,” I say.

“Sorry to bother you,” Piper says when I answer.

“It’s okay. Just talk fast, will you?”

“How are you doing? Are you having a good trip?”

“Pretty good—”

“And how’s Bryan? I heard about his girlfriend. Is he doing okay?”

I resist the urge to hang up. Sometimes her obsession with him is so irritating. “He’s still the same old Bryan,” I say without emotion.

“That’s good. You should make sure he’s coming over for New Year’s. I mean, it’s tradition, and he skipped last year, so—”

“Piper, I hate to cut you off,” I say in a rush, “but it’s almost my turn.”

Grinning, Reece sweeps his arm toward the dozens of people who are waiting ahead of us. I smile back, but wince inwardly at having told such a stupid lie right in front of him.

“Sorry!” Piper says. “Okay, so really quickly then. Your meeting with Alejandra. I’m thinking a neutral, public place. That coffee shop at the bookstore? Or how about Starbucks? Should we aim for the twenty-eighth? Maybe around two? I’ll set it up with Alejandra if that works for you, and then we’ll all meet there.”

“Did Alejandra actually tell you that she wants to do this?”

“I don’t care what she wants,” Piper says. “I don’t care what you want either. I’ve worked too hard to just sit back and watch my squad fall apart my senior year. So I’ll text you with the details when she confirms. I’ll be the mediator. You’re both going to show up and make nice, and then we’ll all be happy.”

“Okay, then,” I say, trying to keep the skepticism out of my voice. “I have to go now. Bye.”

“Don’t forget to talk to your brother!”

I end the call and let my head fall back as I stare at the gray sky.

“What’s up?” Reece asks.

“Just Piper being Piper. Basically, she wants to force Alejandra and me to make up.”

“What happened there, anyway? I used to see you two together all the time. But not for the past few months, right?”

“Since right around when you and I started hanging out, actually.” I bump my hip into the side of his thigh. “So it’s probably your fault.”

“Oh, okay. Like how you lost your accent because of Xander?”

“Exactly like that!”

I’m ready to move on to another subject, but Reece is watching me with curiosity, so I wave my hand and say, “It’s stupid. Alejandra broke up with her boyfriend in October and was acting all crazy and weird afterward. We kind of had a fight, and it keeps dragging on.”

“What was the fight about?”

I pretend to think about it for a few seconds. “You know, I don’t even remember.”

I’m lying again, of course. I definitely haven’t forgotten that Saturday morning when Alejandra showed up at practice and sobbed all over the locker room. It was right after she and Derrick had been together for three months, and not only had she lost her virginity to him the night before, she’d also dumped him.

From what I could understand, she was nervous, but decided that she’d be okay doing everything except
it
, so she
let him go down on her. In the middle of that, she stopped him and said that they should have sex instead. Afterward, she told him she never wanted to see him again.

I couldn’t figure out why she’d done any of that. It made no sense. While I tried to ask her questions, she started screaming that the whole thing was my fault.
How could you let Pedro do that to you?
Why did you say that it felt good? It’s totally disgusting and embarrassing!

And that was exactly the moment that I was done being friends with her.

“Maybe Piper will get her way,” I say, putting on a smile for Reece. “Or maybe Alejandra and I will be mad at each other forever. Stayed tuned for the oh-so-dramatic conclusion.”

“Don’t stress over it.” He touches my shoulder. “You’ll fix things. My mom once got into an argument with her sister over who was buying the bike rack for a trip. They wouldn’t talk to each other for three months. My dad was like, ‘You’re pissed off because of a
rack
?’ They finally started speaking again and everything’s been cool ever since. So, see?”

“See, what? Alejandra and I aren’t the only ridiculous females in the world?”

He grins. “You said it, not me.”

My phone rings in my pocket. I put my finger to my temple and motion like I’m pulling the trigger. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“No worries,” Reece says. “This is what I get for hanging out with such a popular girl, I guess.”

“I’m taking this call and then it’s going on silent mode for the rest of the day. Promise.”

I check the screen. This time, it’s Tony. “Coley,” he says in a strained voice. “There’s been an accident. Someone crashed into Emma and her leg might be broken.”

“
What?
Broken?”

Reece is watching me with his eyes open wide, and I frantically mouth, “Emma,” while pointing at my leg.

“We don’t know for sure yet,” Tony says in my ear. “But I was able to get ahold of your mom and she’s with your sister in the ambulance now. I’m going to head to the hospital too. I’m hoping you and Reece can take the boys back to the town house and keep an eye on them until we get home?”

“Of course.”

“It’ll probably be at least a couple of hours. Bryan rode with us today instead of taking his own car, so he’s stranded in the Village. I cannot for the life of me get him to pick up his phone, but I left him a message to call you when he’s ready for a ride.”

I nod, even though Tony can’t see me.

“I appreciate your help with this,” he says. “Zach and Jacob are waiting outside the ski rental building. I gave Zach
a key card so you’ll be able to get into the town house, and I’ll let you know when we have news.”

“We need to go?” Reece asks as I end the call.

“I’m sorry. But, yes. My brothers are in need of the Reece Kinsey taxi service.”

“No problem.” He takes my pull rope in the same hand as his and leads me out of line.

CHAPTER 11

A
t the town house two hours later, Jacob, Zach, Reece, and I are up to our chests in hot, steaming water and have icicles forming in our hair.

Reece is shirtless beside me, and I can’t help sneaking glances. He isn’t super built, but from what I can see in the light spilling out of the dining room, his shoulders, pecs, and arms are definitely toned.

“I’m hungry,” says Jacob.

“Me too,” says Zach.

“I have an idea,” I tell them. “Why don’t you both go inside and make something for everyone? Let us know when it’s ready.”

“Nice try, Coley,” Jacob says, looking back and forth between Reece and me with narrowed eyes.

This has all been going on for at least thirty minutes, and my brothers’ refusal to leave us alone makes me want to
scream. Truly, this is not how I want to spend this precious time without parents. Reece and me in a hot tub? Yes! With my little brothers? No, thank you very much.

In frustration, I slap at the water in front of me, and it hits Jacob’s face.

“Hey!” He splashes back and soon we’re all churning water up and ducking our heads.

“Hang on!” Zach calls out over the splashing water. “Coley’s phone’s ringing.”

We all stop as quickly as we started and I lean way over the edge of the hot tub. With my hand still wet, I grab my phone from one of the deck chairs and listen to my very annoyed-sounding mother as she gives me the scoop on the other end.

“Well?” Jacob asks when I set my phone down less than a minute later.

“Well,” I say, settling in again, much closer to Reece this time. “It was a clean break, Emma’s in pain, but doing okay, Mom’s mad, and they ordered Chinese takeout for dinner. They’ll probably be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Chinese two days in a row?” Jacob says. “Why not pizza?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you go call and ask her?”

Once again, he makes no move to get out.

“Who’s Mom mad at?” Zach asks.

I shrug. “She just had that tone of voice, you know?”

Jacob and Zach both nod. They’ve heard it a million times too.

Something hits my hand under the water. I start to pull back, but then I realize that it’s Reece’s hand wrapping around mine, and I relax.

“What’s a ‘clean break’?” Jacob asks. “Is that good?”

“I don’t think breaking your leg is ever a good thing,” Zach says.

“Actually, it’s really bad,” Reece says. “They call it a ‘clean break’ when your limb gets broken
clean off
. Get it?”

Jacob and Zach look at each other for a moment before Jacob says, “Nuh-uh.”

Still underwater, Reece’s fingers trace the length of mine. His fingernails run down my palm to my wrist, and my heart goes absolutely crazy.

“Yeah-huh,” Reece says. “You know those pirates with wooden peg legs? Clean breaks, all of them. That’s what Emma’s coming home with too. Which sucks, but you know, it isn’t the end of the world.”

Jacob lowers his eyebrows as he seems to continue to ponder.

A slow grin spreads over Zach’s face. “You are
so
lying.”

Reece grins back. “You can go inside and look it up online if you don’t believe me.”

I remain perfectly still—unable to speak, to breathe. Reece’s fingers are all over mine underwater, slowly massaging and pressing and intertwining. No one has ever held hands with me this way.

“What does it really mean, Coley?” Zach asks.

“I’m not a doctor.” I’m amazed that I can sound so normal right now. “Maybe that the bone isn’t splintered and will heal easier?”

Jacob slides his head all the way underwater and then bobs back up. “There’s so many bubbles in here. I bet if someone farted, we wouldn’t be able to tell.”