She gave me a small wink and I smiled gratefully. Mattie was right. I had absolutely zero experience with bartending or customer service, but I could learn, right? Besides, I could only stress about job applications for so many hours of the day. I needed something else to keep me busy before I suffered from a complete mental breakdown.

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Mattie asked.

Something about the way my sister insisted I couldn’t do this made me want the job that much more.

“When should I start?” I asked.

SIX

Oliver

“Want to grab happy hour with me when you finish up with this lesson?” Giles lifted the goggles away from his eyes and balanced them on his snowboard helmet.

I nodded and lifted my own goggles. “Sounds good. We just finished up our last run so I’ll be done in a few.”

I didn’t want to ask, but part of me wondered who might be joining us at this happy hour. I hadn’t had the pleasure of running into Frankie again, but even after a week, the memory of our kiss still sat heavy on my mind.

Giles headed in the direction of the employee locker room, leaving me with the two guests I had spent the entire afternoon with. They were pretty chill and in their mid-forties. Both had spent their younger years skiing and wanted to try something new. They weren’t very good, but I respected the effort. A lot of people hit a certain age and decided they were done learning new skills—especially skills some might consider dangerous. But not these two. They had committed, fearlessly sending themselves down each intermediate run I’d taken them on. No matter how many times they took a tumble.

“You guys killed it,” I said, holding up my fist for them each to bump.

“Thanks. You made it seem easy,” Jim, the shorter of the two, said.

“Yeah.” Tony laughed. He was almost as tall as I was, which was saying something, given my six-foot-three stature. “I wish I had the energy you do. You must have been doing this your whole life.”

A lot of people had that misconception about me. Many people I’d met in Colorado over the years assumed I was a local and had been doing some of these sports since I could crawl. They never guessed I was from the Midwest. The most I’d done was skateboard in the old neighborhood before I picked up and moved out here. “I started when I was nineteen, so only about ten years.”

“Only about ten years,” they repeated, looking at each other and laughing good naturedly.

“Kid, you’re in the prime of your life. I hope you’re enjoying it.” Jim patted me on my shoulder.

Little did he know, living every day like I was checking something off an imaginary bucket list was basically my life motto.

We chatted for a bit longer before we parted ways. I’d see them back on the hill tomorrow for another lesson.