“I’ve only ever skied, but I am pretty good at that,” he admitted, pulling down his bandana.

“I know the lesson is technically over, but how about one more run?” I asked.

Kevin pulled out his phone and checked it briefly before sliding it back into his pocket. “Let’s do it.”

It was unusually cold today, with light snow flurries drifting down during the few afternoon runs we’d completed. Usually, days like these were reserved for late January or even February, but by March, I had come to expect blue skies and warmer temps. I’d always take fresh snow though. It extended the season and made the conditions better.

“I ski too. I’ve always preferred boarding though.” I unstrapped my back foot and glided over to the ski lift. The mountain was crowded considering it was Sunday, but thankfully there was a second line reserved for lessons. Kevin and I moved to the front of the line, and I nodded my head in greeting to the younger guy working the lift before we were back on the chairlift and heading up the mountain.

I leaned back in the seat as the ground whizzed by below us. Everywhere I looked, skiers and boarders were catching turns or tumbling into the thick snow. I fucking loved it here. Honestly, it was kind of hard to believe I’d spent so many years in Denver when places like this were only hours away. Granted, many of them were expensive as hell, but Key Ridge had managed to maintain much of its quaintness despite the big resorts and developments coming up around it.

“Do you ski a lot out in Cali?” I asked Kevin while the lift slowly moved us up the hill.

“Not as much as I used to, but we always try to visit one new mountain every winter. The last two years, we’ve gone up to Canada.”

I whistled. “I’ve been meaning to get up there.”

Kevin swept his glove through the air, gesturing toward the endless expanse of snow-covered mountains stretching out before us, their peaks disappearing into the horizon. “Well, it’s tough to leave when you’ve got all this at your back door.”

“That’s true,” I said, breathing it all in.

Kevin was cool. Even though he was older than me, I saw a similarity in us. Hell, a new mountain every winter? Now that was the kind of plan I could get behind.

I had never been the kind of kid who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. And now that I was partially grown, I still didn’t have the faintest idea. Nathan was always the successful genius in the family, leaving me to be the adventurous one with the wanderlust spirit. Maybe I could drift from mountain town to mountain town. Frankie was all excited about helping me find a life plan, but maybe what was next for me was to be planless. Everyone acted like I was falling behind while they moved on with their lives, but I wasn’t even thirty, for Christ’s sake.