Page 34 of After Hours Lectures

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Seeingas Jack owed me a favor, I called him and got him to cover the basketball game for me. Then, I quickly packed a leather duffle bag, grabbed the leftover pizza I had in the fridge, and headed out for the hour drive to the mountains. Tyler had texted me the hotel’s name where they were staying, and then I booked a two-bedroom vacation rental for the night. It was on a lake a few miles from the ski resort, and about fifteen miles from their hotel. I was hoping it was far enough away that no one would run into us.

Granted, I didn’t plan on leaving to go sightseeing or anything.

When I pulled up to the hotel, I parked as far away from the main doors as I could and sent a message to Tyler that I was there.

He texted back:

I’ll be right down

I stuck a piece of gum into my mouth as I waited for him to walk outside. Once I saw him, I sent him a text to tell him where I had parked. He jogged over and slid into the passenger seat.

“I thought you were staying the night?” I asked as I noticed he didn’t have a bag with him.

“I am.”

“Doing the walk of shame or what?” I teased and started the engine.

“Ain’t no shame in my game.” He smirked.

“Oh, yeah? What about a change of clothes for tomorrow?”

“Seeing as I don’t plan on wearing these that long, I figured I can wear them tomorrow too.”

“Is that so?” I chuckled and pulled out of the parking spot, heading in the opposite direction of the hotel’s doors.

“At least I hope so.”

I smiled and followed the directions given by my car’s GPS. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“Good.” He beamed.

“Did you ski or snowboard today?” I asked.

“Snowboarded.”

“Nice. I haven’t been snowboarding in a long time.”

“I’ll be sore tomorrow, that’s for sure.”

“Hopefully from other extracurricular activities too.” I winked.

“Promise?”

I groaned and stepped on the gas, wanting to get up the mountain as fast as possible. “Oh yeah.”

A few minutes down the road, I spotted a grocery store. “Since I promised you breakfast, how about I cook for you in the morning?”

“I thought you said you didn’t know how to cook.” He grinned.

“I said my mom didn’t teach me. Not that I couldn’t.”

“So, you were holding out on me the other morning?”

“No, but you didn’t appear to need my help.” I chuckled and pulled into the parking lot and into a space. “How do lemon ricotta pancakes sound?”

“Fucking delicious.”