Page 29 of Stuck on the Slopes

“Oh, God. Hold on,” I said. “I gotta get rid of this icicle in the frame.”

I stepped away from the tripod and started walking to the icicle in question which hung from a bush. Maybe it was my dirty mind amplified by my realization I wanted to kiss Juniper this morning, but the icicle didn’t match the others that decorated the bush with their long, white points. This one had a rounded tip with two smaller, rounded balls of ice at the base near the tree, the remnants of icicles that never fully formed.

It looked like an ice penis, and it was the star of the last four photos I took. Never mind the beautiful wooden architecture of the lodge—no, the only thing anyone would talk about if they saw these pictures was the phallic icicle in the frame. Comments left by Generation Z on Instagram asking why the tree was so hung flooded my mind, a premonition of what was to come if I used any of these on social. While I would love for the lodge to go viral and be a smashing success, that wasn’t the marketing plan I had in mind.

“Why?” Juniper asked. “The bush looks pretty with all the icicles.”

“Yeah, but there’s one in particular that’s distracting,” I said.

“What’s distracting about an icicle? There’s, like, ten on the bush.”

Out of fear of sounding unprofessional, I kept my mouth shut. Hearing my exasperation as I spoke, I said, “Just trust me.”

I snapped the icicle off the bush, ready to toss it behind me once I reached the tripod again. But after taking only a few steps forward, I lost my footing and fell flat on my ass. The dick icicle—dickcicle?—flew out of my hand, landing in the snow, right at Juniper’s feet. When he looked down at it, he stifled a laugh and covered his mouth with his hand.

As I stood, I winced, more from embarrassment than any pain. My ego was more bruised than anything else, though I was sure there’d be a nice purple mark on my left butt cheek in the morning. On my walk of shame back to the tripod, I wiped the snow off the back of my pants.

“You okay?” Juniper asked, still holding back some laughter.

“I might steal some of your meds later, but yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

He finally released his laughter. Juniper, with his cheeks now flushed, sounded so carefree I wasn’t entirely convinced it was even him standing next to me. “God, all that over the forbidden dildo over there.”

Well, he said it, not me.

I let myself laugh with him. “Not the forbidden dildo!”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he shifted his weight and cracked his hip, “that was crude.”

“No, no, I mean, it’s why I got it out of the shot.”

“Fuck, I can imagine the comment section now.”

“Right?”

As if to make matters worse, I also imagined what other sorts of crude things might come out of Juniper’s mouth.With his dry wit, there was no way that didn’t translate into—

I stopped myself. No way was I about to let a fucking dickcicle, of all things, derail me like this.

It was just an icicle, and it was just a dick joke.

“Sorry,” Juniper said, still laughing. It had reduced to more of a continual chuckle, a softer sound than I was used to from him. “This is way funnier than it should be.”

“I gotta say,” I said as I resumed taking photos, “I like this side of you, Juniper.”

“You say that like all sides of me aren’t likable.”

“No, no, not like that. You seem genuinely happy, that’s all.”

He sobered at that, the laughter still ringing in my ears but no longer floating through the breeze. I hoped I didn’t fuck it up.

“Some days are harder than others,” Juniper admitted, “but being here and doing this, really doing this? I love it.”

I looked away from the viewfinder and smiled at him. “Me, too.”

I shouldn’t have ignored my sore throat this morning.

After enjoying some lentil soup for dinner, hoping the broth would soothe my throat, the warmth that spread through me didn’t seem to stop. My body couldn’t decide if it was sweltering hot or a personified icicle (not to be confused with a dickcicle).

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