She couldn’t even admit to wanting to go on a real date with me. It overwhelmed my soul. I knew she had her life in Aspen and I had my life in San Francisco, but somehow, I had thought she would have jumped at the idea and said yes right away. I thought it was just somatic to even ask her, but I had sorely been mistaken.
“All this talk about me leaving is a big downer. How about we race to the bottom?” I asked Cassidy.
“Sure, go!” she yelled without giving me a chance.
Cassidy slid down the rocks quickly and right past Melanie. She was moving too fast to hear Melanie call after her, but I was right there when she yelled.
“Slow down, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Melanie yelled.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her. The worst that could happen is she’ll turn into a snowball.” I laughed as I started to run after Cassidy.
Her red hair was easy to spot in the white snow covering the mountains. She was moving quickly, and I felt a little uncomfortable running as fast as I was running on the snowy trail. But if Cassidy could do it, certainly I could do it, as well.
I let myself go as I ran faster and faster down the hill. My feet weren’t in control and I certainly didn’t feel like the rest of my body had control over the situation, at all. It felt like I was running a million miles a minute, but I didn’t stop. The faster I moved, the less space was between Cassidy and me.
“I’m coming for you,” I teased as I got closer to her.
“Don’t you dare tackle me,” she yelled back toward me as we ran faster.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the idea!” I said as I literally jumped up into the air and tackled Cassidy into the snow bank on the edge of the trail.
“I said not to do it.” She laughed.
“I’m a rebel, you know that by now.”
I stayed there on top of her and looked into her beautiful eyes. Soon, I would have to go home and she would be here – it didn’t seem fair that I would meet a girl who I actually liked and she would live so far away.
“Yes.” She laughed.
“Yes, what?”
“I’ll come visit you sometime.”
“Really? Don’t lie to me. You know that’s not good.”
“I’ll come visit you sometime. I promise. But you know you could always come back out here and visit. The summers are beautiful.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Really?” she questioned me.
“Yes. I promise.” I laughed as we remained in the snow.
It felt good to be there with her. She felt so comfortable to me. Not just her physical comfort, but talking to her, getting to know her. It wasn’t like any other woman from my past and I liked it. I liked whatever it was that we had going on between the two of us.
Maybe we wouldn’t be able to maintain what we had. It was highly likely we would lose touch after I went home for one reason or another. It probably wouldn’t be either one of our faults specifically, but that was just how life worked out sometimes.
Without thinking, I pulled her to me and kissed her right there in the snow. I didn’t care who saw me. I didn’t care at all. I wanted to kiss her, so I did. Luckily, no one was nearly close enough to see what was going on.
“Come to my room tonight,” I whispered as I pulled her up from the snow bank.
Melanie was close behind us now, and we had to pretend like everything was perfectly fine. I stood a couple feet away from Cassidy and waited for her answer. She had to say yes, I needed to have her.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Kaitlin is working tonight; it will be fine. You’re not even working. Just come to me,” I practically begged.
It wasn’t like me to beg a woman to come to my bed, but I was a new man. I wasn’t above a little begging if it would get me what I wanted. Ideally, we could have waited until I got out and found ourselves a cozy little hotel to hold up in for a weekend. But Spencer would be coming for me in the morning and I couldn’t let him down. I had to go with him to the contract signing with the new movie studio.