“Do you think we should wait for them?” Brayden asks as we walk over to the pro shop to rent equipment.
“Nah, they’ll catch up later. If Ashton has it his way, he and Mia will stay in bed all day.” I’m also enjoying the one-on-one time with Bray, and I’m not quite ready to share him with anyone else yet.
After we’re set up with our snow gear and equipment, we jump onto the lift and head to the first slope. We decided to start with a smaller, less intense one, since it’s been a little bit for both of us.
We hop off the lift and take off down the mountain, both of us keeping up with each other the entire way down. The air whips around my face, my mask protecting my eyes as I soar to the bottom.
“Damn,” Brayden says when we get to the bottom. “We rocked the hell out of that slope. I forgot how much fun that was. Want to hit the bigger one now?”
“Sure.” I nod, ignoring the way my body is struggling to keep up.
We spend the next hour riding the slopes. When we get to the bottom of the red slope—a more challenging intermediate slope—we stop to take a small break.
“This is fun.” Brayden beams, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m really glad we came out here.” He pulls me close to him. “We needed this.” He kisses the side of my neck, his lips lingering for a few seconds.
“Yeah, we did,” I agree, my voice coming out breathy.
“Want to switch out our skis for snowboards?” he suggests, not even slightly out of breath.
I take in a large gulp of air, trying to catch my breath, as I nod in agreement, too winded to verbally answer. Brayden, attuned to me, notices. “You okay?” he asks, lifting his goggles up to his forehead so he can assess my features.
“Yeah.” I wave him off. “Just out of shape.” I laugh.
“Are you sure that’s—” he begins, when each of our names are called.
We glance over and find Mia, dressed like a cute fucking little snow bunny, waving at us. She’s fully dressed in a pink snowsuit, but the second I lay eyes on her, the image of her perfect, wet, naked tits jiggling as Ashton fucked her last night hits me hard, and I’m thankful as hell I’m wearing thick snow pants.
“Where’s Ashton?” Brayden asks once we get over to her.
“Inside renting us some equipment,” she says, giddy as fuck and not at all looking hungover.
“You sure you want to do this?” Ashton asks, walking out and handing Mia a snowboard. “It’s not too late to turn around and go back to that warm bed.” He palms her jaw and kisses along her neck.
“I want to snowboard.” She pouts. “Please.”
“I can show her,” Brayden offers. “Drew over here has become an old man during his time off the rink and can barely keep up.” He shoots me a teasing wink, and I force a smile.
“I’ve got this, man,” Ashton says, his tone more serious than usual. “I don’t mind showing my girl how to snowboard.” He smiles softly at Mia, and something feels different… He’s acting differently. Less playful. Less Ashton.
“All right.” Brayden shrugs. “Then let’s do this. We can all go to the blue slope. Drew needs a little break anyway.” He nudges me playfully.
“I think I’m actually going to sit this one out. You guys go. My head is throbbing. I’m going to grab a coffee and some pain reliever and then I’ll catch up.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” Brayden says.
“No, don’t do that,” I insist. “Go snowboarding. I promise I’ll catch up.”
He eyes me curiously but in the end agrees. I watch as he, Mia, and Ashton take off to go grab Brayden a board, and then I take my skis off and place them against the equipment wall. I take the golf cart back to the house and run upstairs to our room. I swallow a couple pills and consider going back to the resort, but the bed looks comfy as hell, and I end up lying down. I close my eyes, telling myself I’m just going to rest for a few minutes, but I must end up falling into a deep sleep because the next thing I know, my name is being shouted as footsteps climb the stairs.
“There you are,” Brayden says. “We were looking everywhere for you. Have you been sleeping this entire time?” He kicks his shoes off and climbs into bed next to me, pulling me into his arms.
I glance at my watch and see it’s already late afternoon. “Yeah. Guess the fresh air knocked me out.”
“You sure you’re feeling okay?” he asks, concern etched in his features.
I suck in a large mouthful of air and exhale easily. “Yeah, I feel perfect.”