"We have the bonfire at Yew Dales on Friday." She was, as Dillon would have put it, giddy.

"Nice," Dillon said.

"Last time we did that," Lauren said, "Tyler was too smashed to drive us home and I had to call my sister. I'm not doing that again."

"So you're not going to come?" Brianna cast a pout at her.

Lauren smiled. "No, I'm coming, I'm just going to bring my own car and a twelve pack of Brisk."

"Do I have to drink Brisk if I ride with you?" Brianna asked.

"No. I'll have room for you and a max of three additional idiots."

Satisfied, Brianna turned her attention to me.

"Soaparty at your house. Kind of." She laughed.

"So you can, like, rent the bonfire?" I asked.

She nodded. "Tyler's parents have a ton of money. They get us the bonfire grounds a few times a year so we'll have something to do besides watch the trees grow. It's cool. You have to come. And you don't even have to worry about driving," she chirped.

Great, I thought as I gave Brianna a stiff smile. She took this as my R.S.V.P. and moved on to talking time and the weather forecast and what to wear. I didn't know if I was up for standing around in the cold for hours watching people drink, but it would make my mother happy a" the socializing, not the under-aged public drunkenness a" so I resigned myself to going and ate my fries.

After school, I signed a board out of the rental shop and trudged out to the bunny hill. Over the weekend, I had begun to get used to avoiding other people on the slope, but I wanted to get out before the ski clubs to warm up. Standing on the crest, I saw that the hill was still mostly empty. A girl sat in the very middle about halfway down, her board attached to her outstretched legs like one of those green plastic army men, and closer to the trees, a teenaged boy was teaching himself to ride switch a" with his usual back foot forward a" and concentrating hard to keep his balance. At the bottom, three small kids and an instructor, all on skis, were gathering at the lift.

On the way up on the lift after my sixth run, I congratulated myself on having only fallen twice. Once on my badly bruised knees, a stumble so painful that I knelt in the snow with a wince frozen on my face for what felt like at least a full minute before I could push myself up again, and once on my back, which was nearly painless due to Bren's helmet intervening on behalf of my head. My arm ached, but I couldn't remember which fall had caused it, so I shook it off as my chair cleared the top of the hill.

I had just registered that nervous feeling in my stomach that came with remembering my odds of making it off the lift without falling when I spotted Bren standing off to the left, clutching his board with a bare hand and waiting for me. I felt a flutter in my stomach.

I broke eye contact and tried to push my mind onto the task of staying upright. As the chair approached the ramp, I let my board glide on the snow, careful not to catch the nose, leaned on the chair until I was standing, and let it push me forward. Once I was free and moving, I let my back edge dig in just a little so that I would curve toward him, but at the last minute I looked up at him and my board caught on a choppy mound of slush. I wavered, my arms windmilling, my pride seeping away, and felt a yank on my jacket as he pulled me toward him.

"Thanks," I said as casually as I could. "I hate this lift."

He laughed. We were close enough so that I could feel his breath on my face, but I was on my board and couldn't back away.

"You've been practicing," he said.

"A little, over the weekend."

"You'll have to start working on your s-turns now."

I knew what he meant. I was going down on either my front or back edge, and not switching edges to turn because the switch entailed crossing over the flat of the board, which made it especially easy to catch an edge and fall hard.

"I'm not ready for that," I said. "I can barely make it down without falling."

"People stay on one edge for too long because they're afraid," he said. "It's a bad habit."

"Yeah well, it hurts to fall. Do you even remember what that's like? Or were you born on a board?"

He laughed again. "Either you want to learn or you don't."

"I do. I am." His ability to aggravate me in the space of a second was as stunning as he was. I was glad for the balance.

"Okay," he said, nodding. "And you're doing a good job. So now it's time to learn your turns."

As I looked at him, I thought of Brianna. Had she really been with him, kissed him, touched him?

"You know what?" I said. "You're pushy." I tried to smile, but I didn't feel like it.

"Because I'm trying to help you?" The sun shimmered off the top of his head and lit his face, but he didn't squint. His eyes were wide and shot through with gold. They searched mine.

"I didn't ask you to." I said. "I'm not trapped in a well or hanging out of a burning building. I'm just learning this stupid a"" I slipped on my board a little and struggled to remain upright "- sport. If that's what you want to call it." He watched me, grinning until I steadied myself. I narrowed my eyes at him. "And why are you, anyway?"

"Why am I what?"

"Trying to help me?"

"You look suspicious."

I shrugged.

"No." He shook his head. "Do not shrug at me. I want to know what you're implying."

"Nothing," I said, feeling stupid now. "I mean, people don't usually just help other people for no reason."

"They don't?" He cocked his head.

"I mean, not people our age."

He raised a brow.

"Not guys," I finally clarified.

"I see," he said. He crossed his arms and stared at me. It was the same thing my mother had done that morning. "So you think I'm trying to sleep with you."

"I didn't say that." But that was exactly what I was saying. And now I had an even worse thought. What if he wasn't? What if it had never crossed his mind?

"Well, this puts me in a losing situation, doesn't it?" He said. He was clearly amused. I was a teetering mess on my board, so I bent and undid my bindings, tripping as I stepped out of them. He held my arm while I stood upright.

"I'm fine," I said, pulling away. "What do you mean, *losing situation?'" Now I was aware that I was still wearing his helmet. I unbuckled it quickly and took it off, handing it back to him.

"I don't want it back if it means you're not going to wear one," he said.

"I'll get my own. What do you mean, *losing situation?'"

Well," he said, accepting the helmet, "If I say you're right, that I'm only helping you hoping I can talk you into sleeping with me at some point, then I'm an ass. But If I say you're wrong, that I want nothing to do with sleeping with you, then I'm basically telling you that you're unattractive to me so you don't have to worry about it."

He was actually waiting for my answer, as if I was going to admit I'd be upset if he didn't find me attractive.

"Well?"

"Well what?" I asked testily.

"Which situation would you prefer?"

"It really doesn't matter what I'd prefer. What matters is what's true. So why are you helping me?" I cringed inside at the hard sound of my voice. My mind often cowered when my mouth went on a rampage.

"I want you to learn your turns." His patience caused a swell of frustration inside me.

With no warning to either one of us, I blurted, "You're seeing Brianna, right?"

And here was that deep laugh again, that hollow ha ha ha.

"What makes you think that?" He asked me. Not an answer.

"We're kind of friends," I said.

He stared at me for a long time then, his head still cocked to the side, a slight smile on his lips. Then he said, "come on." He lowered his sunglasses and reached out for me. I looked down at his hand just as the sun glinted off of a silver ring on his right middle finger. It was thick and had a distressed, chiseled look. There was a clean gap about a centimeter wide just below the center of his knuckle, as if a tiny slice had been taken out of it.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I hesitated, then took his hand, telling myself I was exaggerating the feverish, raw charge of his skin on mine. He began to walk, leading me past the lodge and toward the buildings beyond. As we squeezed between a row of evergreens and the deck, a branch brushed through his hair and released the scent of pine.

He glanced back at me. "You need better friends."

Chapter 7.

The employee housing was a walk across three resort parking lots and over a wooden bridge that straddled a small lake. Bren and I didn't speak on the way. I knew where we were headed, and although I was pretty certain he wasn't trying to lure me into his lair for dubious reasons, his comment about my needing new friends made me nervous. I slowed on the bridge, pretending interest in the icy sheet beneath which no life moved or grew. Bren stood a few feet away and waited for me to regain my nerve.

Once we stepped off the bridge, I stopped and stared up at the row of white, two-story buildings in front of us.

"This is where you stay?" I asked.

He nodded and pointed to the one in the middle, then started walking toward the red double doors in the center of the building.

"Which floor is yours?" I called, sticking to my spot.

"The bottom," he said over his shoulder. "The first floor rooms have kitchens."

"Kittens?" I told myself I was trying to be funny, but he turned and looked at me like a mother whose kid was asking for a second glass of water at bedtime.

"Yes, kittens." He said. "We insist that all our rooms have kittens. They are the fastest way to lure women. Without kittens, we would have to rely solely on our charm."

"Well," I said, trying to stifle my laugh into sarcasm, "then you're lucky the kitten rooms were available."

When he reached the doors, he opened the one on the left and held it, standing to the side and making a sweeping motion with one hand. After a moment, he raised his brows. "You want to see the kittens, right?"

I laughed this time, and crossed the space between us. Once I stepped over the threshold, I let him lead the way again.

His apartment was directly on the right. The door wasn't locked. He made another sweeping motion and then closed the door behind us. It was a small space. The kitchen opened immediately to the left. The countertops, appliances and floor were white. A microwave sat to the left of the sink, with a coffee pot on the other side of it. The refrigerator stood against the far wall, and directly across from it was a small wooden dinette with four chairs.

"Hey," I said dragging the word out, "This is a kitchen, not a kitten."

He pressed his hand to his forehead and grinned. "Yeah, I always get those two confused."

Across the room was the start of a dark hallway that looked like it continued left behind the kitchen, and I assumed that's where the bathroom and bedrooms were. To our right was the living room. A set of sliding glass doors hung with long vertical blinds faced the lake, and a large T.V. flickered against the far wall. The news was on. An earthquake somewhere. Two identical tan couches a" one facing the T.V. and the other dividing the living room from the kitchen a" and a long glass coffee table were the only furniture.

The girl with the red braids lounged on one end of the sofa watching T.V. The tall boy was stretched out across its length with his head in her lap. Her long fingers were creeping through his hair. Beneath the warm brown strands, I saw a thinner version of Bren's ring circling the middle finger of her right hand.

She looked up at us and gave me a feline grin.

"Hello." Her voice was soft. Everything about her seemed soft, right down to her fuzzy blue and white sweater with the brown snowflakes and her white pajama bottoms.

"Hi," I said.

The boy in her lap raised himself up on one elbow and craned his neck to peer at me. Then his gaze shifted to Bren, his brows arching high on his forehead. I threw a quick glance at his hand and saw what I expected, thick silver ring on his middle finger, gap slicing through the width.

"This is Jenna," Bren said.

"Hi Jenna." The girl's voice was a purr. There was something in her smile. Not sarcasm exactly. More like satisfaction.

"Hi," I said again.

"This is Frieda, and my brother Dag," Bren told me. He tossed his helmet on the table and opened the refrigerator. I tried to keep my expression from registering the strangeness of their names. I nodded and tried a smile.

"You want a soda or something?" Bren was crouched behind the refrigerator door. It sounded like he had shoved something in his mouth while he was searching. A few seconds later he emerged with two sodas and closed the fridge with his elbow.

I shrugged. "Sure."

He tossed me a long black can with some blue lightning scrawled across it and I cracked it open, taking care not to slurp the first sip.

"So Jenna," Frieda said, sitting up straighter, her green eyes like kryptonite. "You live here?"

I stepped forward and rested my soda on the back of the empty sofa.

"Yeah," I said, "we just moved here. My mother and I."

A chunk of hair fell into Dag's eyes and he let himself collapse back into Frieda's lap. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them on the news once more. Frieda swept the lock from his forehead with one long, black fingernail.

"Good for you." she said. "It's nice here."

"Except I don't do any snow sports," I said.

"Oh well, you'll learn." She waved a hand at me. "Bren will teach you. He's reasonably competent." She threw him a sly glance.