Choosing Henley(18)

Only a few minutes later, we are at the top of the hill, ready to go again. I’m sitting in my tube when Jami reaches over and grabs my hand.

“How am I supposed to beat you if you’re holding my hand?” I tease.

“A promise is a promise,” he says, winking at me.

We slide down the mountain another four times after that before we finally decide to call it quits. Jami takes our tubes back to the hut while I sit on the snowbank. There were a few times where I felt the panic building, but he always made it subside quickly. The way he made my heart flutter was scary as shit. It’s always been a lot harder to avoid it when I’m around him, but now that it is just the two of us, it is nearly impossible.

He never keeps his women for very long, and I know I’d never recover from being another name on the long list of Jami’s ex-girlfriends. But the negative turn my mind has taken stops when he plops down into the snow beside me and takes a thermos out of his backpack. He really is the most good-looking man I’ve ever met, and seeing his chiselled features against the bright-green snowsuit was a hilarious contradiction.

“Hot chocolate?” he asks.

“You brought hot chocolate?” I question back.

“What’s wrong with hot chocolate?” he says, mocking offence.

“You’re just so manly.” I wave my arm around him. “I didn’t expect it. It’s actually kind of adorable.”

“I’m full of surprises, Beatle,” he explains, pouring the hot chocolate into two Styrofoam cups. I take a cautious sip to make sure it isn’t too hot and enjoy the hot steam on my cold face. “So you think I’m manly, eh? Does that mean you find me ruggedly good-looking?” he teases.

“Selective hearing much?” I quip back before taking another sip.

We talk in the snowbank until long after the tube park is shut down. We’ve always spent time together in a group of people, but I am already sure that I enjoy this more. This one-on-one time with him.

Before we leave, he offers to let me keep the snowsuit, but I politely decline. Teal and pink neon are definitely not my colours—though I had a blast in it. When we pull up to the condo, my heart squeezes in my chest. This time, it isn’t in pain or out of panic. It’s because I’m just not ready to leave him.

This time when he gets out of the Jeep, I wait for him to open my door. He grabs me around the waist and lowers me onto the snowy driveway.

“I had fun tonight,” I tell him honestly.

“Me too,” he says, his gaze dropping to my lips.

Aside from the peck on the cheek earlier, he didn’t make any other moves to kiss me tonight. I’m sure that was on purpose. I know I can be a little skittish, especially around him. Now, he leans in, and I’m disappointed when he kisses my forehead.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Well that seems anticlimactic after our night together. I nod and begin walking towards the steps. I’m halfway up when I hear him call from across the driveway.

“Lennon?”

I turn back to look at him. “Yeah?”

“You’re going to love me one day.” He smiles.

I shake my head at him. “Whatever you say.” Then I laugh and close the door behind me, leaning against it.

I know there’s a possibility that this could be the most reckless decision I make with my heart, but I don’t think I’ll be able to say no to that man forever.





“HOW DID IT go last night?” Peyton asks, eyeing me over the edge of her coffee cup.


I start picking at the edges of my bran muffin. “It was fine,” I give her vaguely.

“That’s hardly a glowing recommendation.” Beth laughs as she walks into the kitchen, taking a seat next to Peyton at the breakfast bar. “He’s Jami freaking Henley. I don’t think he’s genetically capable of doing”—she makes bunny ear quotations with her fingers—“’fine.’”

“It was fine,” I repeat, meeting her eyes with my ‘classic bitch face¸’ as Hannah calls it.

“Whatever,” Beth says, twirling her finger in her hair. “Be a holdout then.”

Beth hates being denied good gossip. We’ve butted heads over the topic multiple times during our lengthy friendship.

“Where were you last night?” Peyton questions from beside her. She doesn’t ask with a challenging undertone, not like I would have had, but more out of blatant curiosity I think.

“I was out,” Beth replies nonchalantly.

“Out with whom?” Peyton is pressing her now, and I’m starting to feel like I missed a crucial part of this conversation. Which is impossible because I was in the kitchen before either of them.