Page 33 of Time After Time

“I hear that you are a skiing champion?” Calypso flutters her eyelashes at Aksel, trying very hard to curry his favor.

Freja barks a laugh as she tightens her gloves. “He is! Even got a medal from some prince of Liechtenstein.”

“We met Anika and Thomas before we got here,” I tell the group, and then turn to Ember, “Anika said she’s almost ready for the tougher slopes.”

“She has a good seat.” Ember smiles fondly. I know she adores her niece and nephew. “Balanced, centered. She listens well, doesn’t fight the slope. For an eight-year-old, that’s gold.”

“She’s better than Aksel was at that age,” Freja ribs her older brother.

“My kids and my wife are pretty much better at everything than I ever could be,” Aksel concedes. “Speaking of spouses, where’s Jonathan?”

“His chief of staff wanted a meeting about a reconciliation bill that’s coming up.” Freja adjusts her goggles.

“It’s hard for me to see you with the DC set.” Calypso presses her back against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin on her shoulder.

“Why?” Freja frowns.

Calypso shrugs. “Just that you’re very blunt…borderline rude, which I know doesn’t land well in politics.”

“Rude?” Freja repeats.

Calypso bites her lower lip, chagrined. She knows she said something she shouldn’t have, even if shedidmean it.

Jesus!

I’m about to diffuse the situation when Ember speaks softly, with a slight curve of her lips to temper whatever she’s about to say.

“Freja is not rude.” Ember looks at her sister for a beat and then at Calypso. “She’s honest and sincere, and without artifice. She’s also a talented journalist and has to be extremely diplomatic professionally. She’s at home with her family, people she loves; this is a safe space for her, and she doesn’t bother to have a filter. But she’s not rude.”

“I…I just….” Calypso moves away from me and brushes against her skis that are leaning against the cable car window. They clatter onto the floor. I help her get them in order.

I also take the opportunity to walk Calypso to the other end of the car, where the German tourists are taking photos.

“Cali—”

“I know,” she groans. “It just slipped out. But sheisrude, Ransom.”

“No,” I disagree. “Like Ember said, Freja is among family and friends, and she’s being herself. When she’s with Jonathan in DC or working, she has to keep a tight leash on what she says and how she says it; here with her friends and family, she doesn’t have to.”

“How am I supposed to know that?” she hisses. “And…yourEmber was just rude tome.”

Everyone looks at us because she’s so damn loud.

I rub my temple, shaking my head. “First, she’s notmyanything. Second, she wasn’t rude; in fact, she was downright polite. And, third”—I let out an exhausted sigh—“let’s try and have a good day, okay?”

Her eyes darken, her lips pressing into a tight line. “I’d love to if you’ll just stop making me feel bad for being myself.”

She flounces back to where the Rousseaus are gathered, leaving a faint trail of perfume and bruised ego in her wake.

I hang back, feeling guilty.

Is she right? Is that what I’m doing? Giving her a hard time when she’s just being herself? I must admit that there is some truth to that.

But what’s also true is that Calypso is utterly incapable of reading the room.

You know who’s good at reading a room? Ember. She’s younger than Calypso by at least eight years, and yet she carries herself with a kind of grace that makes everyone pull in, not away.

Fuck me!I needed to pull my head out of my ass and be with the woman I was with instead of the woman whose heart I broke and cast away.