“Okay, okay, I’ll stop mama-bearing you. And for what it’s worth, I’m totes jealous that you get to rock the snow bunny look without the bulk.” She patted the thick padding of her down jacket and gave Audrey’s black yoga pants, fur boots, and cozy oversize sweater a covetous look.

“Go,” Audrey commanded with a laugh, pointing her friend out into the bright, frigid sunshine with the rest of the group. “They’ll leave without you.”

Erin turned away, and Audrey allowed herself one last look at Clarke. Other than Erin, he was the last one out of the lodge. He glanced her way and hesitated. For a second, Audrey thought—hoped—that he was going to walk over and finally address the weirdness between them.

But just as he stepped forward, Elizabeth poked her head back into the lodge. “Clarke. You coming?”

Clarke stopped in his tracks, glancing over his shoulder at Elizabeth, then back at Audrey. As she silently begged him to choose her, Audrey saw the indecision in his gaze and knew him well enough to know which path he was going to choose: the easy one. She was disappointed in him, but more so, crushed to realize which side of the coin she fell on. Not so long ago, Audrey had been his easy path, his safe space.

Now she was the one he didn’t want to deal with.

“Yeah, coming,” Clarke said to Elizabeth with a grin. He turned his back on Audrey and walked outside without a backward glance.

Audrey swallowed, a little alarmed to feel a lump in her throat. Apparently, they were really, truly done pretending to be engaged, even though neither had explicitly said it to the group. She could handle that. But at the moment, it felt like they were done being friends. And that felt like it would kill her.

Taking a deep breath, she turned on her heel and scanned the mostly empty lodge. There were a handful of people who apparently had the same idea as her and had staked their claim on various chairs and couches with a laptop or book in hand. But for the most part, she had her pick of places to sit and opted for a cozy chair near the window facing opposite of the way her friends had gone. The last thing she wanted to do was watch the group get on the chairlift. Each chair seated two, and it didn’t take a genius to know who Clarke would be paired off with.

Audrey ordered a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, and though it took her a few false starts, she finally managed to lose herself in her book, a psychological thriller that everyone had been talking about but that she was just finally getting around to reading.