Page 179 of On His Mind

Percy kisses the top of my head, and I lean into him while we all laugh at Stanley running away from Aspen.

We leave the next morning for Boyne Mountain. Break has officially started, and everybody is excited.

I drive my car — Gianna up front because she called shotgun, and then Percy, Blue, and Melly in the back. Melly sits in the middle, but she’s leaning on Blue for most of the drive. Gianna is the DJ that nobody asked for. Her music taste is a variety of everything. Benson is in the truck in front of us with Lucy, Rowan, Stanley, and Aspen.

The drive north is three hours of nothing, and it’s one of the best drives of my life. Percy’s behind me with his hand on my shoulder half the way, and every time I catch his eyes in the mirror he’s already looking. Gianna vetoes songs. Blue says something dry from the back that makes Melly laugh for a solid minute. We stop for gas and terrible snacks and pile back in, andthe mountains come up white ahead of us, and there’s not one part of my life I’m hiding anymore. I hadn’t realized that was all I needed.

We pull into the lodge at noon with the snow coming down.

Stanley buys lunch. He announces it at the door of the restaurant, loudly, arms spread — “This one’s on me. Don’t fight me.”

Nobody knows what that means, but Aspen grabs his ribs, causing him to put his hands down. We take up a long table, and the snow is coming down outside the window. The restaurant’s warm and loud and the whole house is crammed in elbow to elbow.

Percy sits next to me, and he doesn’t stop touching me the whole meal. His arm across the back of my chair, his knee against mine, his hand finding mine on the table between courses — easy, unbothered, like he’s making up for lost time. I keep waiting for him to pull back into himself the way he used to in company, and he doesn’t. He just stays close, and I lean into it, and I like it more than I know how to say.

When the waiter comes, he orders me a glass of wine — the good one, the one I’d have chosen — without asking, because he knows, and the whole table lights up.

“Excuse me.” Aspen points a breadstick at him. “Excuse me. Did he just order her wine? Did Percy just—”

“He knows her order,” Gianna teases.

“He’s romantic,” Melly says, delighted. “He’s secretly the most romantic one, this whole time—”

“Where do you think he learned it?” Stanley says, leaning back, gesturing at himself with both hands. “This didn’t come from nowhere. I’ve been mentoring this boy for years.”

“You did not teach me anything,” Percy says.

“I taught you everything you know. The juice was practically my idea––”

Percy chuckles, letting that one go. “The juice, Stan? Okay.”

The table continues. Blue argues with Stanley about something else, and Percy pulls me into his side and kisses my temple. The girls are watching us, and I realize we’re the only couple here who can’t keep their hands to themselves.

“Okay, logistics,” Stanley says over dessert. “Who’s skiing and who’s snowboarding? I need numbers for the morning.”

“Skiing,” Aspen and I say, at the exact same time, and point at each other, and the table groans at how in sync we’ve gotten this semester.

“Obviously,” Gianna says. “The two elegant ones. I’m snowboarding. Melly, Lucy — you’re snowboarding with me.”

“I don’t know how to do either,” Melly says.

“That’s the fun part. We fall down together. Lucy?”

Lucy considers it. “I’ll try it once. If I hate it, I’m going in the hot tub.”

“Deal. She’ll try it once.” Gianna points around the table. “We’re all trying it once.”

I turn to Percy. “Are you skiing or snowboarding?”

“Snowboarding.”

“You’ve done it before?”

“No.” He steals something off my plate. “But how hard can it be? I’m athletic.”

“You’re going to be so bad at this,” I tell him, and he actually grins, and I decide that watching Percy Deveroux fall down a mountain is going to be the best day of my entire life.

We’re sharing a room with Stanley and Aspen, which sounded like a lot before and turns out to be exactly right.