If part of her reason for putting it off was because she was scared . . . that was her prerogative. Sue her if she wanted a little more guaranteed time with Olivia before she introduced the possibility of—of losing her into the equation.
It wasn’t like she was never going to say something. Margot had years of practice hiding her feelings from Olivia. What was a few more days?
She swallowed hard.
That was somehow both too long and not nearly long enough.
Chapter Seventeen
“Okay, so you’ve got the wedge technique down. That’s fantastic. The next technique you’ll want to practice is the parallel turn, which is the complete opposite of the wedge. We call it the parallel turn because your skis are—”
“Parallel?” Margot arched a brow, the sharp shrewdness of her gaze tempered by the garish green puffy coat she had zipped all the way to her chin, making her look a little like giant pea. A cute pea. A cute pea Olivia very much wanted to kiss, but couldn’t because they were in public and this was casual.
God, for a word that Olivia usually associated with so many of her favorite things—her most comfortable pair of jeans, her favorite threadbare T-shirt that she’d happened to have borrowed from Margot years ago and never returned, the restaurant down the street that had the best crab Rangoon she’d ever eaten in her life—casual was beginning to grate. She’d ban it from her vocabulary if she could, scrap it altogether.
Screw casual. She wanted the opposite of whatever that was. Complex? She’d take complex any day.
“Yeah, exactly.” Luke nodded. “Parallel turns are kind of the bread and butter of skiing. It’s the ideal position for edging.”
Margot’s brows rocketed to her hairline as she met Olivia’s eyes over Luke’s shoulder. “Sorry, come again?”
Olivia lifted a gloved hand to her mouth, muffling her small snicker. Margot’s lips twitched, eyes sparkling with mischief as she met Olivia’s stare.
“Edging,” Luke repeated, and Margot turned, staring at Luke agog, the tip of her nose turning red and small flurries gathering on her dark lashes. “It’s how you control your speed. By scraping the edge of skis against the snow, you can slow down. The harder you edge—”
Margot snorted loudly.
“Is something funny?” Luke frowned.
Margot’s lips pressed together and a bubble of laughter built in Olivia’s throat, Margot’s laughter catching. A tiny giggle escaped Olivia before she bit down on the inside of her cheek.
“Nope,” Margot bit out, barely managing that one word before her chin quivered and her shoulders started to shake.
“Okay.” Luke looked less than convinced, but shrugged, moving on. “Like I was saying, the harder you edge, the more in control you’ll—”
Margot bent at the waist and burst out laughing.
A smile tugged at the corners of Olivia’s mouth, the sound of Margot’s unadulterated joy filling her chest with more than enough warmth to combat the freezing temps.
“Is she okay?” Luke asked Olivia, dropping his voice and leaning a little closer than strictly necessary.
Olivia nodded and shuffled back to put a bit of distance between them, her legs hampered by the skis attached to her feet. It had been over a year since she’d been skiing and even then, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in total. Rusty was an understatement. “Margot’s fine. She’s just—”
“Sorry, sorry.” Margot flapped her hands in front of her face and exhaled sharply. “I’m good. You were saying?”
Luke frowned, staring at Margot like she’d lost her marbles. “Why don’t you head back up the magic carpet and try a parallel turn at the bottom of the bunny slope? Edge hard to stop, okay?”
The magic carpet was a conveyor-belt-style people mover that pulled passengers up a small hill so they could master the basics before moving on to more advanced terrain. The summit offered two such people movers—one that led up to a small bunny slope, and another that led to a slightly steeper hill for those looking for a more intermediary option. Still not advanced, by any means, but a longer descent perfect for practicing trickier turns.
The rest of the group had headed off to the ski lift, skilled enough to tackle the actual slopes. Luke had volunteered to hang back and help Olivia brush up on her skills and teach Margot the fundamentals. After two trips on the beginner magic carpet, Olivia felt pretty confident that she wasn’t going to fall on her ass, or worse, faceplant into a snowbank.