Page 29 of The Snowflake Effect

She pulls back to look at me. “That was refreshing.”

I don’t reply. Too often, my responses invoke Terminator Shay. Instead, I lean down and kiss her lightly on the lips, the taste of apple lingering from her drink.

I don’t know why I do it. Aside from that moment on the hill, Shay and I don’t do soft and intimate. We don’t do affectionate. And her friends are beside us. But it’s our last night, and the thought of her leaving is getting strangely painful.

She reaches up and threads her fingers through my hair, pulling me into a deeper kiss. Either she’s feeling something similar, or she’s responding to my shift in behavior. Whatever the reason, I take full advantage.

Lily’s “I knew it!” registers, but we keep kissing, slow and intense, as if exploring each other for the first time. The noise and the music and the crowd disappear. There’s nothing but us and her soft moans as we move against each other.

I nip her bottom lip, then dip so we’re eye to eye. “It sucks you live in Toronto, Shay.”

She slides her hand from my neck and chews the lip I just had between my teeth. I imagine I’ll spend a lot of hours in the coming weeks picturing Shay on the chairlift as she came, as well as in the snow and the bathroom. Both bathrooms. But it’s the way she lay next to me on that run, talking quietly about her dog and PEZ and writing on my hand, that lingers now.

Fascinated. There are so many things about her life I never got to ask.

“Actually,” I say, my words leaving before I can contain them, “I might be in Toronto this summer. We could pick this back up while I’m there?”

She inhales deeply, then her breath rushes out. “I can’t even think about that. I still don’t want to get into it, but my last relationship messed with my head enough that I need to be more focused on me and on the present.” She swirls her glass on the bar top. “I’ve got a lot to figure out when I get home, including a massive job overhaul.”

I nod, almost relieved, unsure why that’s my gut reaction. Shay and I have a connection I can’t quite figure out. I wake up thinking about her and go to sleep reliving our time together, but we live on opposite sides of the country. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that long-distance relationships are a no-go.

“Okay,” I say and kiss her cheek. “It’s been fun while it lasted.”

I step to the side, angling so we can talk to the group. Lily catches Shay’s eye and mouths Oh my God and We’ll chat later in reference to our PDA, then the five of us shoot the shit about ski trips—the places we’ve been, the mountains we’ve conquered. Just to make me look like a dick, Sawyer retells how I skied into Laura Millner in high school to get her attention…and accidentally broke her arm.

Eventually, Shay gets up to use the washroom. I watch her ass in her tight jeans, until a heaped bowl of sweet potato fries passes by us. Knowing she’d be all over that, I place an order with the bartender, smiling in anticipation. It’s refreshing being around a woman who doesn’t eat like a bird, someone who enjoys the pleasures in life.

A few minutes after she returns, my fries arrive.

Her eyes widen. “You didn’t.”

“I did.” I grab a few, dip them into the chipotle aioli, shove them into my mouth, then groan like she did that day in the ski lodge. “Better than sex,” I say.

She pinches my side. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Five minutes later, Lily, Raven, and Sawyer are staring at us and the empty bowl. “Do you guys have worms?” Raven asks.

I pat my stomach. “I offered. None of you wanted any.”

“We ate dinner an hour ago.”

Shay and I shrug at each other. “And?” she says.

They all laugh, then Lily suddenly bounces on her seat. “Oh, Shay. I forgot.” She dips her hand into her massive purse and emerges with a journal. “You almost left this at the condo.”

She reaches to hand it to Shay, but I snatch it first. “Is this a diary?” Holy fuck, if it is, that whole don’t-argue-with-Shay-during-our-last-hour thing is history. I’m not missing the opportunity to read her thoughts from the past four days.

“Give it here, Kolton. It’s not a diary. It’s my drawing journal. I scribble in it, like ideas and stuff. There’s been lots of inspiration in Aspen.” She puts her hand over her heart and leans toward Lily. “Thank God for you, Lil. I’d be screwed without this.”

Before I hand it over, I flip through the pages, pausing on the ones with shading and color. If this is what Shay calls scribbling, my drawing skills are up there with Jackson’s. Some pages show sections of a room, others a full panoramic view, each three-dimensional sketch bringing the spaces to life. One of them has a suspended wall leaning at an angle, modern but edgy.

Something like this would kick ass in our new store. “These are great. Like, really good. Where’d you say you work?” I hate how little I know about her. How superficial most of our conversations have been. But she did tell me about Snoopy.

Her hazel eyes darken. “I didn’t say, and it doesn’t matter. I’m quitting when I get home, and I won’t settle until I land a decent job.”

“Judging by this, I don’t imagine you’ll have much trouble.”

She tries to yank the book from my hands, but I pull it closer, amazed by the next page. The space is filled with a skull dissolving into a flock of birds. I pause, sure I’ve seen the image before. “Isn’t this on your shoulder, Raven?”