Make My Way

Chapter Forty-One

Aria's POV

Merrick and Vivian were adorable. Whenever one of them fell, the other was right beside them, ready to help them up. On lifts, they always say next to each other. This wasn't a problem on the lifts with four seats, but unfortunately, some of the lifts only held two or three people which left me and Xavier together. After a few slopes, this came up. Vivian and Merrick were ushered into a lift and Xavier and I were held back and forced to get on a chair three back from them. When we finally got off the lift, they were nowhere to be seen.

We looked around for a whole or but in the end, we gave up. "Either they don't want to be found or they were too busy gazing dreamily into each other's eye that they didn't notice we weren't behind them," Xavier said. "So where do you want to go?" he asked.

I shrugged and let him lead the way. Although we didn't talk much while skiing, other than to insult each other, on the lifts we talked about anything and everything. We talked about our past relationships, described out perfect boyfriends and girlfriends, about our friends and their relatinships, our families, our favorite TV shows (we made plans for him to come over to my house and watch the new season of Sherlock because I had it set to record), school, and the upcoming speech season.

We both competed in speech as storytellers. That meant we went into a room half an hour before we were scheduled to perform and we were given a fairy tale or folk tale to read and perform in our own words. We both did other events too, but that was one we had in common.

Before we knew it, it was 1:00 PM. We were late for lunch. We skied down to the lodge as quickly as we could and found everyone else already seated at a table, almost done eating. Adrian raised an eyebrow at us. "Where have you two been for the past half an hour. Alone?"

"We were skiing. That's what we came to do right? Plenty of time for other fun back at the cabin," Xavier responded with a smirk at me.

I rolled my eyes and explained, "Merrick and Vivian ditched us at around nine this morning and I guess we lost track of time after that."

Xavier sat down and I took the last empty seat next to him. We ordered as everyone else finished their meals. I got a pasta dish and he got chicken fingers. Very mature. I finished my pasta and looked around. Everyone was pulling their coats back on and planning their afternoons. I stole a few fries from Xavier's plate and receive a hard glare. Blake, Aurora, Easton, Stella, Adrian, and Willow decided they would try some of the easier green and blue slopes on the other side of the mountain but weren't ready for all of them yet so that left is in pretty much the same groups as before.

Merrick and Vivian ditched us within half an hour and Xavier and I decided to go exploring in some of the off-road trails. After almost a whole two hours of discovering, exploring, and each of us running into a couple trees while the other laughed on those hidden trails, we found one leading off from one of the black diamonds and decided to follow it. We found ourselves by a cliff at the edge of the ski resort. It overlooked the Black Hills in its entirety. The violently rolling hills covered with evergreen trees along with others that had lost their leaves months ago.  Even Xavier stopped to look.

A ski patrol man came up behind us as we were admiring the view. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asked and we nodded, "Do you want me to take you picture?"

Xavier and I looked at each other and I shrugged, "Why not?" He pulled out his phone and handed it to the man. Xavier rapped his arm around my waist and pulled my body up close to his.

The ski patrol officer took the picture and handed the phone back to Xavier who then handed me his gloves to hold so he could put it back in his pocket. When I handed them back the officer said, "That's cute. " He turned to Xavier, "You keep her close, now. Let me know when the honeymoon is and I'll make sure this trail is open."

I realized what he was saying and turned to correct him. "We're not-" But he was already gone. I rolled my eyes and we went back to meet everyone else at the lodge. Back at home, we decided to take a day off tomorrow so that we'd be ready for whatever Deadwood might bring.

The next day, Stella and I spent the time to look through what her parents had left in the house for us. I'm not sure what they thought we'd be doing, but they had left $1,500 for us. I know skiing can get expensive, but I didn't think we needed that much. We decided everyone would split up into teams of two. That meant we got $250 per team. We'd pick teams tomorrow. Then, we made the checklist of things we had to do in 24 hours. It was definitely going to be interesting.

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The next morning, everyone was awake, dressed, and ready to go by 10:30 AM. Everyone gathered in the kitchen and Stella set out six envelopes filled with $250 each along with a list of everything Stella and I had come up with for us to do, 11 things total. Then we were trying to decide how to pick teams. Everyone was thinking quietly when Xavier shouted, "Go!" grabbed my hand and an envelope, and pulled me out the door.

We jumped into one of the six taxis we had called that was waiting outside. I told the driver deadwood and we opened the envelope. Xavier pulled out the list.

Deadwood Checklist:

1. Ride the trolley
2. Let your teammate buy you an outfit (before 12:00 PM) and wear it the rest of the day
3. Pants someone (one person)
4. Kiss a stranger (both)
5. Make out with your teammate
6. Boys: buy tampons
Girls: buy condoms
7. Take a picture together at a bar
8. Buy a shot glass from a gift shop
9. Grind with someone (both)
10. Find and book a hotel room
11. Sleep in nothing but your underwear