“False? Do you think you’re in danger with me?”
“Oh, true. I suppose I’m not. But on my TV shows they never say, ‘The victim was lulled into a safe and secure location and lived happily ever after.’”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“A little,” she agrees with a nod. “I guess I’ll have to keep them for myself,” she says a little sadly. “But this view is too pretty not to capture.”
There’s a group of young boys ahead of us at the Forest Flyer. I nudge Chloe in the ribs and nod my head towards the kids. “Look, Chlo. If the slide is safe for children it’s probably safe for you too.”
“Shut up.”
I scan over the sled setup as one of the employees recites off the safety instructions and then I ask Chloe how much she weighs.
“Excuse me?” She stops dead and stares at me like I’m a monster.
“We can ride together.”
“I don’t think so.” She’s shaking her head.
“Sure we can. You can’t possibly weigh more than one fifteen. We’re well below the weight limit for one sled.” Her eyes bug out, but I grab her hand and tug her along to the loading zone anyway. The sled is designed to hold one or two people and grips a metal track a few feet above the ground. I easily throw my leg over and sit then pat the empty wedge of a space in front of me for the second rider. “Hop on.”
Begrudgingly she does. The height is too high for her so she places a hand on my shoulder and steps onto the sled before turning and dropping her bottom into the seat. Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. Her legs are tucked between mine and when I press the side handles allowing the sled to slide or slowing it down, my chest and arms are damn near wrapped around her. The workers make sure our seat belts are fastened and reiterate the distance we need to keep between sleds and then we’re flying three thousand four hundred feet down the side of the mountain, curving around trees and over drops. But she laughs the entire way down so the ache in my balls from having her pressed against me is worth it.
The slide is designed to pull the rider back to the top so the exit and entrance are at the same place. But when we reach the gate house Chloe wiggles in her seat and says, “Again!”
“Again? What are you, eight?”
“Shut up,” she replies happily and tilts her head back to smile at me upside down. We take two more runs down the mountain before she’s satiated.
We walk around the top of Vail Mountain until Chloe gets bored taking pictures and after I manage to photobomb a couple of the selfies she tries to take. She finally hands me her phone and I take one of the two of us and then text it to myself from her phone.
After taking the gondola back down the mountain we wander around the village, ducking into and out of stores as we walk. The chocolate shop interests her but not much else. Mostly she likes to look. She does pick up a t-shirt in one store and as she’s heading to the cashier with it I ask her what she’s doing.
“It’s t-shirt day at school on Friday,” she says.
I look at the shirt and then back to her, raising my eyebrow at her in disbelief.
She glances at it again and shakes her head. “It’s a bad idea, huh? I was going to wear it to school, but I’d probably forget and wear it in front of Everly and then she’d be all, ‘Chloe, when were you in Colorado?’ and then I’d have to lie and yeah, that’s just a mess.”
“Not what I was thinking,” I tell her.
“Oh. Were you thinking I should just tell her I came with you to Colorado?” She tilts her head back to look at me, her expression serious, and I’m totally confused about where she’s going with this but I don’t have time to think about it because I start to laugh.
“Chloe, what do you think that shirt means?”
She makes a disgusted face at my laughter and shakes the shirt in the air. “It’s a highway sign, Boyd.” She says it like I’m crazy. “The 420. See? All the highway signs in this country have the same shape. Or maybe it’s an interstate sign. Is there a difference?”
“And you think the 420 is a highway?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s probably that highway we took to get here from the airport,” she says. And then she nods at herself. “Probably, since they’ve got all this stuff with the 420 on it.”
I can’t help it. I start laughing.
“What?” She looks confused.
“The 420 highway does not exist. It’s a pot reference.”
“No, it’s not.” She starts to laugh but stops. “Really?”
“Really.”
The blood drains from her face as she politely refolds the shirt and places it back on the stack she got it from. Then she straightens her back and walks primly out of the store. She starts laughing as soon as she hits the sidewalk.
“I would have been suspended by lunch.” She’s laughing so hard she has to bend over. “How is that a pot reference? Why is it on a highway sign?” Then she crosses her legs and announces she’s gonna pee if she laughs any harder as she falls sideways into me.
I grab onto her so she doesn’t topple to the ground and then, fuck it. I kiss her. Her legs are still twisted and she’s off balance with her chest pressed against mine. She makes a squeak of surprise that quickly turns into the softest moan I’ve ever heard and then her hands are on my shoulders. I have a moment of apprehension that she’s going to push me away but it vanishes when her fingers tentatively wrap behind my neck, because she’s not pushing—she’s pulling me closer. I keep one arm wrapped around her for support while moving the other hand into her hair. Which allows me to do what I’ve wanted to do since the first time I saw her—wind it around my hand to maneuver her soft pink lips exactly where I want them. Well, no, not exactly where I want them—not with an audience.
I move my lips down to her jaw. This kiss is the best of my life. Every kiss with Chloe is the best kiss of my life, but this one, fuck. This one will be hard to top. Better than against her doorway when I shocked the hell out of her. Better than at the wedding when I wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t just playing along. Her thumbs are rubbing little circles into the skin just above the collar of my shirt and the soft sighs and low moans coming out of her are driving me wild. And God help me, somewhere in all this she’s managed to unwind her legs and hike one of them around my thigh, trying to grind herself against me.