Page 308 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I headed back into the lodge, feeling shell-shocked. My feet found their way over to where Kayla was sitting at the front desk. I wanted to say something, to tell her how unfair Ian was being. Or to tell her that I had finally kissed Adam. But instead, when she asked what was going on, I just shook my head.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
ADAM
I was glad for the snow on Saturday, if only because it gave me a new set of chores to attend to on Sunday. I had been shocked, on Friday night, to look at my schedule online and see that I had been taken off on Saturday as well. I had thrown myself into chores around the house, making my way through literally everything that was on my list. Only to look on Saturday night and see that I had been taken off the schedule for Sunday as well.
What else was there to do? Ordinarily, if I had found myself with sudden free time, I might have taken Ethan out skiing. But I wasn’t sure if I should be seen around the resort at the moment. I even thought about heading to one of the other resorts in the area, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that picture that Ethan had drawn of him skiing with Bailey. I knew that he would pitch a fit if I suggested going anywhere else, even though there were plenty of great resorts in the area. No, he would want to ski with Bailey, and when he found out that that couldn’t happen, he’d be upset.
I’d rather not open that can of worms at the moment.
So on Sunday morning, after a big breakfast with Ethan, I clapped my hands together. “Time to shovel,” I said.
Ethan groaned. “Do we have to?” he asked.
“Of course we have to, buddy,” I told him. “It snowed nearly a foot last night. That means if we want to get to town, we need to clear the driveway.”
“I don’t want to get to town,” Ethan grumbled.
“You never want to eat again?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow at him. “Because the grocery store is in town, and we’re almost out of food in this house.”
Ethan sighed, but then he cocked his head to the side. “If we shovel now, can Gramps come over this afternoon and play on the PowerBox with me?”
“We’ll have to ask him if he can, but I think that’s a great idea,” I said, relieved to hear that plan. That would keep Ethan occupied for most of the day, and there would be no question about why we weren’t going skiing that day.
We bundled up in our winter gear, even though I knew we would probably both be stripping off layers as soon as we got moving. It wasn’t actually that cold outside, and the sun was shining brightly off the snow. Perfect bluebird day, I thought with a sigh. If only we were on the mountain.
I wanted to call Bailey and hear what the story was. Had she talked to Ian? What had he said? How long would he be sticking around, and how long was I going to have to avoid the resort for? Were she and I still okay? Did she regret letting me kiss her?
So many things that I wished I knew the answers to, but I didn’t dare call her. It might only make things worse. And anyway, it was the kind of conversation that I would rather actually have in person with her. I just had to be patient.
I forced myself to focus on shoveling, letting myself fall into the mindless rhythm of scooping snow and throwing it off to the side of the driveway. “Thanks for your help, buddy,” I told Ethan as we took a break when we were about halfway down the driveway. “This would take forever if it weren’t for you.”
“Did Mommy used to help you shovel the driveway?” Ethan asked suddenly. It wasn’t too surprising to hear him ask something like that. He was always curious about his mom. And I had long since gotten used to talking about her with him.
“She did used to help me,” I told Ethan. “She was the fastest shoveler that I ever knew, in fact. And she used to really love the snow. Every time it snowed, she was happy as I’d ever seen her. Even if it meant that she had to shovel.”
I could still see her in my mind’s eye, her face turned up towards the sky, snowflakes dotting her cheeks as she grinned and twirled in a circle. She had always had such a pure, almost childlike excitement with each new storm. Even at her sickest, she seemed better on the days when she could see snow falling outside her window.
“Plus, when we finished shoveling, she would always go back inside and make cookies,” I added, smiling at the memory of those warm afternoons by the fire, the scent of gingersnaps drifting through the cozy house. I shook my head. “She was the best woman I ever knew.”
That last I said quietly, almost to myself, but Ethan responded. “I think Bailey is the best woman I ever knew,” he said.
I had to laugh at that. “Oh, really?” I asked him. “What makes you say that?”
“She skis and she’s pretty and she listens good,” Ethan said, shrugging.
I didn’t want to tell him that Beth, his mother, had all of those qualities as well. I knew that Ethan remembered his mom somewhat, but I sometimes wondered how much he actually remembered of her and how much he only knew about her from what I had told him. Not that I could blame him for not remembering more of her; Beth had died when he was only four, and she had been sick for a while before that. In all honesty, it was probably better that he didn’t remember more about her from there at the end, when she’d been in pain and bedridden and sickly.
If there was a bargain that I could make so that I could only remember the earlier days in our relationship, I might have considered it too.
“Can we see Bailey soon?” Ethan asked, his tongue poking out between his teeth as he focused on his shoveling for a moment.
I leaned against my own shovel as I looked over at him, trying to think of how to respond to that. He was old enough that at some point, he was sure to realize how strange it was that I had suddenly stopped going to work. But that didn’t feel like a conversation I could start with him until I understood what my employment situation was, myself.
So finally, I just nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, buddy,” I promised him. It was kind of a cop-out answer; it wasn’t a yes or a no. But it would have to do for now. I was still trying to figure out when I would next get to see Bailey.
