Page 23 of Avalanche (Endless Winter #3)
Seth
Eddie: SOS. Matty is going to propose to Lily and we need your help.
Eddie: Today.
Eddie: When she gets home from work.
Eddie: You have four hours.
Eddie: Can you pick up flowers? You’re the only one with a car.
Eddie: No pressure though mate.
“Everything okay?”
My head snaps up at the sound of Grant’s voice, my phone clattering to the work bench next to the skis I’ve just finished tuning.
It’s the quiet part of our day, the hours between ski rental pick up and drop offs, when we turn up the music and work on maintaining all the gear.
My favorite part of the day, if I’m being honest. Or at least, it used to be.
“Yeah. All good, man,” I say, forcing a smile and swiping my hands on the rough canvas of my work apron, trying to brush off the ski wax clinging to my fingertips.
Grant gives me a skeptical look before flipping the board he’s working on, angling it so he can work on the edges.
It’s a nice board, not a rental, but one an instructor brought in at lunch for a tune.
Grant had promised her he’d get it done before her afternoon lessons started—something we really only do for instructors or regulars.
“That was a lot of text messages,” he observes mildly, his attention focused on the scrape, scrape, scrape of the diamond file against the metal edge.
I huff in agreement and give my phone an accusing look, my mind racing as I try to make sense of Eddie’s messages. Matty’s going to propose to Lily. It’s on the group chat too—not the one we share with Lily, but the one with just us five guys.
I drag a roughened palm over my face.
What are these guys up to? Lily marrying Antoine is one thing—that can be explained as a necessity.
As Lily helping him claim his inheritance.
Just a piece of paper. But Lily marrying Matty?
That’s something else entirely. That’s a real marriage, the kind where people promise to be together through the hard times, where people agree to share their lives and look to start a family together.
There’s no way Lily is ready for that.
I swipe my phone from the work bench and pocket it with a groan. Grant chuckles, his gaze still fixed on the board.
“I’m going to take the trash out,” I tell him, hurriedly pulling free the half-empty trash bags from behind the register.
“Yep,” Grant grunts, though somehow he makes that one word sound like ‘ I told you so ’. I ignore it and head for the door that leads out the back of the building.
The icy air hits me like a slap, but the midday sun is warm, coating the back steps of the building with an almost tantalizing promise of warmth.
I let the door swing shut behind me then lean against it, trash bag at my feet as I close my eyes and drink in the rare sunlight, feel the caress of it on my pale winter skin.
You have four hours.
My pulse ratchets up at the memory of Eddie’s texts and I drag in a steadying breath, doing my best to ignore the smell of car exhaust and the faint hint of trash from the bins around the corner. What do they expect me to do from work? They know I get home around the same time as Lily most days.
Matty is going to propose to Lily and we need your help.
This is complete insanity.
The sound of an engine revving punctuates the sun-soaked stillness and my eyes fly open, vision sparkling and swimming as I squint into the employee parking lot. A familiar pick-up truck is idling beside my car, exhaust billowing out in a cloud behind it.
I’ve seen that truck before. Seen the guy climbing into the driver’s seat too, know the shape of his shoulders, the way his cap sits on his close-cropped hair…
My breath punches out of me, hot anger rushing through me as recognition dawns.
Tom. That’s Tom. It has to be.
I leap down the cement steps, boots skidding dangerously as I stride through the slush coated parking lot towards Tom’s truck.
I see the driver stiffen behind the wheel, see him lean forward and squint in my direction.
I’m close enough now that I can make out the panicked expression on his face, the sharp hatred in his beady eyes.
“Tom!” I bellow.
Slush and snow fly out from beneath the tires, spraying my car as the truck peels out, reversing so fast it nearly slides into the next row of cars.
The engine revs. Tom yells something from behind his closed window, the words impossible to decipher behind the glass and over the rumbling engine.
And then he’s gone, his truck skidding out onto the road and out of sight.
I jog after it, instinctively wanting to give chase, then pull up short, panting with anger in the space left by Tom’s truck.
“Fuck,” I hiss, scuffing one booted foot against a pile of slush. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
My phone pings in the pocket of my work apron, but I ignore it, glaring from the tracks left by Tom’s truck to my own car.
My car, that now has a long scratch running across it, from the driver’s door to the taillight.
I bend to look at it, my stomach in my throat as I rub one finger over the line, feel the faint cut beneath it going from paint to bare metal.
“Son of a bitch.”
I pull my hand back, fingers curling into my palm as I scan the car for further damage. When I get to the back, my heart sinks.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
Both my taillights are completely smashed, broken plastic and glass scattered in glittering fragments among the melted snow. I scrub at my face, then bend to pick up some of the broken pieces, turning them in trembling hands, as if I somehow expect to be able to put it back together. To fix it.
But some things can’t be fixed.
The phone in my pocket pings again, the sound piercing against the violent whooshing behind my ears.
I drop the broken shards of plastic and scramble to pull it free.
More messages from Eddie, but the words blur and swarm in front of my eyes, suffocated by the white anger creeping in at the edges of my vision.
I push the call button by Eddie’s name instead and lift the phone to my ear.
He answers on the first ring.
“Seth. Mate.” He gives a sheepish chuckle, but there is no mistaking the relief in his voice. “Sorry for texting you at work.”
“No worries.” My voice sounds distant, echoing down the line like it belongs to some other person. Someone who isn’t currently standing in a parking lot staring at their vandalized car.
“Look, is there any chance you can get off work early today? I know you guys are short staffed?—”
He pauses, no doubt remembering the reason why I’ve been having to pull extra weight. Because I’ve been busy supervising Grant, the guy I hired after I fired Tom. Not that it was ever an option to keep Tom employed. Not after what he did, what he said.
No, it was either fire him or go to jail for murder.
My gaze drifts over Tom’s tire tracks, following them to where his truck disappeared only moments ago. Maybe I shouldn’t have held back. Shouldn’t have let Matty and Eddie pull me off him.
Maybe the world would be better if Tom didn’t exist at all.
“—but I really need your help. Well, mainly I need your car, but also your help.”
“You want me to pick up a few things?” I ask hollowly.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I know I should be asking Eddie what the hell they’re doing.
If they really think it’s a good idea for Matty to propose to Lily, especially the day after Matty stormed out.
After Lily spent the early hours of the morning crying into her pillow.
But all I can think about is Tom’s face, that half-crazed scowl he’d shot me over his steering wheel, the hollow cast of his cheeks as he’d yelled at me through his closed window.
“…so I’ll text you a list. Matty said he’ll transfer you the money. You’ll be here around three?”
“Around three?” I echo, my finger poised over the scratch etched deep into the side of my car.
“Yeah, man. If you can. Lily should be home around four, so that’ll give us enough time to put the finishing touches on everything.”
My fingers tighten around my phone as I scrub at my face with my free hand.
I’m going to need to take my car to a mechanic to get the taillights fixed at least, otherwise I’ll risk getting pulled over.
I don’t really have money to take the car to a body shop to deal with the scratch, and I doubt my insurance covers this sort of thing…
“I’ll see if Grant can cover me,” I tell him, then drop my phone from my ear, stare unseeingly at the screen of my phone and try to make out the time, wondering if I’ll have time to get to the mechanic before I head home.
Eddie’s voice hums distantly from the receiver.
I’m going to have to tell them about Tom, too. That he didn’t leave town like we’d thought. That’s he’s back.
Back in Park City, and angry.