Page 56 of The Mountain
It could have been us. If those other guys hadn’t rushed ahead on the trail, if we’d left a little earlier this morning, it would have been us. Only, we would have been buried alive, without beacons or transceivers or anything. And she would have lost us all forever.
“Shhh.” I press the phone against my ear, my free arm wrapping around myself, as if I can somehow hold her to me. “Honey, we’re okay. We’re all okay. I promise.”
Suddenly, the need to hold her, need to feel her against me is almost unbearable. I don’t even care if she’s at work. I need her.
I squeeze my eyes shut, taking in a steadying breath. “Where are you? You at the mountain?”
“Uh… I’m actually at the Canyons,” she admits, sounding almost embarrassed. “I came here with Jackie…”
Jackie?My brow dips with confusion.Who is Jackie?
“She wanted to try riding at a different resort for the day. That’s how we knew about the avalanche. We… we saw it.” Her voice tightens. “From the other side of the bowl. It was too far to see who was on the slope, but I thought I saw some people on the ridgeline…”
“Oh, honey…”
“We’re at the base. At the ski patrol headquarters, next to the main lift.”
I look at the other guys, ignoring the ski patroller glaring at me impatiently. Matty, Liam, Eddie, and Antoine are all watching me expectantly, their eyes fixed on my phone. “It’s Lily,” I tell them, stating the obvious. “She’s at the Canyons, waiting for us at the base.”
I don’t need to tell them the rest—that she’s been terrified and heartbroken waiting to hear from us. That she’s spent the past thirty minutes not knowing if she’d ever see us again. They know.
Antoine’s eyes widen, one hand pressing against his chest reflexively. Matty’s face pales, lips parting. Eddie’s throat bobs, and he looks like he might be sick. And Liam…
“Look, mate.” Liam turns on the ski patroller, his gray eyes hard as stone. “We’ve been out here digging for ages. We’re exhausted. You’ve got our numbers if you need to get in touch. But we’ve got someone waiting for us and”—he tilts his chin pointedly in Matty’s direction—“these guys just need to go home.”
Chapter 20
Liam
I spot her first. Her snowboard helmet dangling from one hand, cell phone clutched in the other, face so pale her hazel eyes appear almost brown as she scans the crowd. Looking for us.
The moment she sees us, her whole body relaxes, face lighting up with relief and joy and… something else. She lets out a choked sound, something between a laugh and a sob, her helmet slipping from her fingers and skittering across the snow, twin braids fluttering like flags behind her as she sprints toward us.
Towardme.
“Lily.”
Her name comes out on a gusting exhale, forced out of my lungs by the impact of her body against my own, by this unexpected embrace. I don’t hesitate, wrapping my arms around her, pulling her close, pressing my face against her hair.
I’ve never held someone like this before. In public. Affectionately. Outside a club or bar, in broad daylight, with nothing but coffee and adrenaline coursing through my veins.
It should feel uncomfortable. I should feel the prickling awkwardness I’ve always felt each time some girl I’d been seeing tried to hold my hand. Instead, everything inside me relaxes, and there’s a sense of rightness, like puzzle pieces slotting into place.
“You’re okay. Oh my god, you’re okay.” Her words whisper against my neck.
Antoine comes up beside me, his shoulder leaning against my own, and the sense of rightness deepens, expanding behind my ribs, rooting my feet to the snow.
“Ma puce,” he whispers, reaching up to gently toy with one of her braids. “We’re okay. Everything’s fine.”
Except it almost wasn’t.
His eyes meet my own over her shoulder, wide and blazing, the whites pink from stress and exhaustion, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.We almost lost each other. We almost lost everything.
If we had, it would have been my fault.
I swallow hard, then carefully pull back, gripping Lily by the shoulders. She stares up at me, her eyes dry but red rimmed. “We were lucky,” I tell her honestly, and the truth of it burns my throat. “And so were the guys who got caught up in it.”
Eddie lets out a derisive snort, shooting me an amused look before pushing past, reaching into the space between me and Lily, then pulling her out of my arms and into his own.
