Page 37 of Bachelor

“Wow.” She grinned. “You’re so cool, Professor.”

“Are you teasing me, Ms. Dahl?”

“You just don’t seem like a snowboarder to me.”

“What do you know about snowboarding?”

She stopped in the center of the bike trail and turned to look at me fully. The scene was a mirror image of that night I’d helped carry her groceries home, and we’d kissed, dropping everything on the ground. She must have felt it too, that same memory coming into view, because she smiled up at me at said in a near whisper, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you.”

“That’s disappointing to hear,” I said, meaning every word even though I knew it was wrong to say it.

Her eyes searched mine, and she exhaled. “Rhys—”

“I’m sorry,” I cut in, turning away from her. “Come on, it’s cold. Let’s get you home.”

“Tell me about how you learned to snowboard.”

“You really want to know? It’s not that exciting. I was a kid.”

“I don’t know anything about you as a child,” she said, falling back in step with me.

I glanced at her, but her eyes were on the trail ahead of us. “My parents took us on a trip every winter to the French Alps. My dad’s uncle and aunt had a little house in Chamonix.”

“I’ve been to Chamonix!” She smiled, looking up at me.

It was a crazy thought knowing at one point in time, before we even knew each other, we might have crossed paths.

“That’s where I learned how to ski,” I said. “I was pretty good at it. Not as good as my brothers, but I gave it my best. It wasn’t until college that I tried out snowboarding. One of my buddies and I went on an expedition with one of our professors in the Himalayas, and he told me I needed to get a split board before the trip. It turns into skis, so you can put an adhesive covering on them and walk up the mountain, then you clip them together to make a board again to go back down. That’s all we did during any downtime for three months. I brought the board to America with me. So I guess I get to dust it off for this weekend.”

“I learned to ski in Alaska,” she said, tilting her chin toward the snowy canopy of trees above us. “Not nearly as exotic as the Himalayas.”

“Well, Alaska is somewhere I’ve never been, so you have me beat there.”

Her smile gleamed in the moonlight and tightened around my heart.

The gate leading into faculty housing came into view much sooner than I wanted it to.

“Thanks for walking with me this far,” she said, turning around and walking backwards away from me. She waved and said, “Good night.”

I opened my mouth to ask if she wanted to come with me tonight, to come back to my place, but repeated, “Good night” instead.

I watched her walk away and fade from view, although everything in my body was telling me to run to her, to take her in my arms, and kiss her like I’d wanted to for weeks now.

For months.

Because I regretted letting her go, even though I knew it was the right thing to do for her. At the time, it made sense.

But now? All I could think was how I was missing her and that she was what I’d been searching for my entire life.

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