Bundle of Joy

“Nice to see you, Matt!” I say, as we board the chair.

“You too,” he calls after me, and then he says something else but the wind is behind me when I turn around and so I can’t tell if he said he’ll let Michelle know I said hi, or if he said that I should tell Michelle hi.

I would prefer that no one tell Michelle I say hi, and especially not me. She’s the whole reason I got fired! I figured they’d fired her too, unless maybe she had thrown me under the bus to cover for herself somehow, but to have it confirmed is a bit reassuring.

At least I shouldn’t take it personally, I think.

And I barely think about it at all anymore. What started out as a depressing, unexpected event – to be unceremoniously canned by the job I’d worked hard at for a few years now during the winter seasons – had turned into the best thing that had ever happened to me. Because it had forced me to work for Daniel and Charlie, and I don’t know what life would be like without them, now.

I think about how nice our Christmas was yesterday. And also about how at first I’d thought Daniel was giving me an engagement ring.

I hadn’t expected that, but I didn’t know what else to think when I saw the box and I guess I naturally got my hopes up. I love the snow globe necklace he got me – it’s very unique and he obviously put a lot of thought into it – but I wonder if he has any intention to make me his girlfriend soon, if not his fiancée.

It’s not like I can’t ask him about it but I don’t want to be clingy. And my pride would be hurt if I was turned down. I’m thinking that pretty soon, though, we’ll have to talk about it one way or another, if only for Charlie’s sake.

“Was that the guy you used to work with?” Daniel asks, as the lift takes us high up on the mountain, the crisp air stinging the part of my face – mostly my cheeks and nose – that aren’t covered by my ski googles, helmet or scarf.

“Yeah,” I confirm, at the same time Charlie shouts, “That was the guy who made my cake transform. ‘Auto bots, roll to the rescue!’”

Daniel and I look at each other and smile, and I’m glad that he isn’t asking me any more questions about what Matt and I were talking about or why Matt would work here now. Maybe he just thinks it’s better pay or maybe he just isn’t curious.

We’re at the top before we know it, and then skiing down the fast, exhilarating slope. It’s so much fun to be next to Charlie and Daniel the whole time. My, how things have changed since just a little over a month ago when I was teasing the hot, older single dad of the birthday boy and he was trying to get me to come work for him.

“That was fun!” Charlie says, as we get to the bottom. “Can we go get some hot chocolate?”

“Sure,” Daniel says, leading the way to the restaurant area.

“Do they have fruit here to put in it?” Charlie asks me.

I say, “We’ll see!” at the same time that Daniel says, “You two and your fruit in your hot cocoa. That is just the strangest thing.”

“Wait, Daddy!” Charlie says, once we’ve taken our skis off and put them on the racks outside the restaurant, but before we’d headed in side. “We need to do our snow angels!”

“Oh, yeah!” Daniel says, not sounding too thrilled about it.

“I was hoping he’d forget,” he mouths to me.

I laugh but I dutifully get down in the snow to make my angel. Daniel and Charlie do too, and soon we’re standing back up and there are imprints of three angels – two big ones framing one small one – left in the snow.

I snap a picture with my phone really quick, because it really is a cute sight.

“Thanks!” Charlie says. He takes hold of each of our hands as we walk towards the restaurant. “That was fun!”

“Fun for you, maybe,” Daniel laughs. “For me, it was wet and cold!”

“For me, it was a bit of both,” I admit, as I reach down with my other hand to wipe snow from my ski suit, but that’s a futile goal because it’s everywhere.

“Since we’re cold, we just need to get our hot cocoa and fruit!” Charlie exclaims, as we head inside the building that houses the restaurant and locker room and ski rental area. “So, soon we won’t be cold anymore!”

“That’s right, son,” says Daniel.

I look up at the stairs I have to climb in my ski boots to get up to the restaurant area.