Count Your Lucky Stars: A Novel

“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.

Margot lifted her hand in a sassy two-finger salute before waddling over to the magic carpet, her skis spreading further apart with each step she took. Olivia cringed. “Shuffle, Mar. Don’t lift. Push forward. Use your thighs.”

“Got it.” Margot waved a gloved hand.

“Liv and I are going to head up to the next hill, okay?” Luke said, resting one hand on the small of Olivia’s back, guiding her toward the longer of the two magic carpets, the one that would take them slightly higher up on the mountain.

Margot’s shuffled footsteps faltered, her eyes dropping to where Luke’s hand rested on Olivia’s waist. Her jaw slid forward and she nodded. “Sure. Meet you back down here.”

Olivia bit back a cringe, at the touch, the use of her nickname, and Margot’s reaction. It wasn’t that she minded being called Liv, it was that Luke hadn’t bothered to ask. It grated, reminding her of how Brad had glommed on to the nickname Dad called her. For over ten years she’d suffered in silence, because at first she hadn’t wanted to be rude or abrasive, and later because it was too late. She’d let it go on too long to say anything after he’d been calling her Livvy for over a year.

Now, she didn’t want to make a scene. What did it matter if Brendon’s friend called her Liv? The chances of seeing him again after this weekend were slim.

He was a nice guy, but that was just it. Olivia didn’t want nice. She wanted Margot.

Olivia smiled as Margot waddled over to the people mover, shuffling awkwardly, looking a little like she had a wedgie. Olivia wanted that. Margot with her sharp laugh and sly smiles and dirty jokes and huge heart. Her quiet confidence and how fiercely loyal she was. Even her inability to ski—though she seemed bound and determined to figure it out—and her tendency to act first and ask questions later. Everything, even Margot’s flaws, was endearing to Olivia.

What Margot wanted, that remained a mystery. It was hard to say, with how she blew hot one minute and cold the next, acting like this thing between them was casual before looking at Olivia like she was something precious, looking at her in a way that no one else ever quite had, not even Brad. Keeping a solid three feet between them when they were around Brendon and the rest of her friends but kissing her sweetly in the privacy of the elevator. Wanting to keep whatever this was between them quiet, keep it from her friends for the week—or so she said—but glaring at Luke from across the deck.

It didn’t feel like she was imagining a shift, an intensity in Margot’s gaze and an urgency in the way she touched Olivia that hadn’t been there before. But a terrible, anxious little voice in the back of Olivia’s brain whispered that Margot was only acting this way, acting like she wanted something more with Olivia, because someone else wanted her, too.

Olivia wasn’t sure how much more of this whiplash she could take.

“So would you want to?” Luke stared at her expectantly as they reached the top of the slope.

Olivia winced. “Sorry? I missed that. Would I want to what?”

Luke smiled patiently and repeated himself. “Would you want to hang out sometime? You said you were relatively new to the city, and I haven’t lived here in a few years, but I’ve got a good grasp of the general lay of the land.” The right corner of his mouth lifted a little higher than the left, his smile going crooked. It was a credit to how intensely gone for Margot she was that her heart didn’t stutter at the sight of his dimple or his perfectly white teeth. Her heart didn’t even speed up. “I could show you around. Take you to some of my old haunts. If you’re interested.”

Internally, Olivia cringed. “Um, yeah. You know, last night was so much fun. Wouldn’t it be fun if we all got together again? As a group. I think that would be great.”

Hint, hint.

“Here.” Luke fished around in one of the many pockets of his cargo pants, pulling out his phone, pressing it into her palm. “Give me your number and I’ll text you mine. We can set something up sometime.”

“Sure.” She added her number to his contacts and handed him his phone back.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he simply pocketed his phone with a smile and didn’t push the issue, asking her to commit to a date. She adjusted her grip on her poles, leaning forward, bending her knees slightly in order to gain speed. As she approached the bottom of the slope, Olivia pointed her skis together, careful to keep the tips from crossing. Snow fluttered around her legs as she stopped fairly quickly, managing to keep herself steady, only wobbling slightly.

Luke sent a spray of snow up as he cut his skis hard to one side. “That’s it. You look like you’re getting the hang of it.” He slipped his goggles over his head and grinned. “You think you’re ready to head up to the lifts?”

“Um.” She raised her goggles and glanced around the base of the slope looking for Margot. Her pea-green jacket and matching ski pants were hard to miss and yet zilch. Margot was nowhere. Olivia licked her slightly wind-chapped lips and shuffled her ski in a semicircle. “Have you seen Margot?”

“Huh.” Luke lifted a hand to his forehead, blunting the glare from the sun, eyes squinting as he searched. “No. It’s not like she could’ve gone far or—”

“Hey!”

Olivia’s jaw dropped.

Wobbling slightly, knees too straight to balance properly, Margot careened down the hill Olivia and Luke had just skied, gaining speed. She lifted one of her poles and waved. “This isn’t so hard!” Margot laughed, shrieking when she hit a bump that caused her to veer slightly to the right. “This isn’t—fuck.” A flicker of fear flashed across Margot’s face, visible even from several yards away. Olivia’s gut clenched, her chest tightening. “How do I slow down? How do I stop?”

“Wedge!” Luke shouted. “Skis together!”

Oh, shit. In her panic, Margot brought her skis closer together, but not only at the front, causing her to pick up even more speed.

Luke swore under his breath. “Pizza, not fries! Pizza, not fries!”

“What?” Margot shouted.

“Did I forget to mention that analogy?” Luke gripped the back of his neck. “Shit.”

Shit was right. Margot was rapidly approaching the bottom of the slope, with no sign of slowing down.

Olivia cupped her hands around her mouth. “Wedge, Margot! Wedge!”

Margot bent her knees, the front of her skis coming together, her speed slowing as she skidded to the bottom of the slope and kept on sliding, beyond where Luke and Olivia stood, heading straight for the neon-orange plastic mesh barrier.

Olivia’s heart stuttered then seemed to stall out completely as Margot skied straight into the snow net, coming to an abrupt stop before toppling backward. Powdery snow flew up around her, raining down softly.

Luke started to shuffle forward on his skis, but Olivia wasn’t willing to waste that much time. She crouched down and pressed on the heel levers at the backs of her bindings, stepping free from her skis. Leaving her poles and skis in the snow, Olivia sprinted across the clearing to where Margot lay, staring up at the sky with a dazed expression.

“Mar?” Olivia fell to her knees beside Margot, hands trembling as she patted Margot’s snow-streaked face. “Are you okay? Say something.”

Margot’s face scrunched and a terrible whimper escaped her lips, the sound piercing Olivia’s heart and putting a lump in her throat.

“Mar?” she repeated, this time softer, more desperate, her voice cracking as a flurry of the worst what-ifs flashed through her brain. She cradled Margot’s face in her hands. “Please say something.”

“Ow.” Margot coughed, lashes fluttering as she cracked open first one eye, then both, blinking dazedly up at Olivia.

Olivia’s throat seized. She had to swallow twice before she could get another word out. “What hurts? Your back? Is it your back? Don’t move. I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to move.”

She’d read that somewhere. Heard it? You weren’t supposed to disturb someone after a bad accident, falls and collisions and—Olivia gulped in a breath, needing air.

Margot groaned, then made the sweetest sound Olivia had ever heard in her entire life. She laughed, albeit slightly pained-sounding, her lips twisting in a grimace as she huffed softly. “My pride.”

“Your what?” Olivia swept her thumbs along Margot’s cheekbones, fingers trembling softly.

Margot shifted, lifting up onto her elbows with a slight wince. Olivia let her hands fall to Margot’s shoulders.

“My pride,” Margot repeated, face turning scarlet, and that was what Olivia had thought she said. Margot’s lower lips jutted out. “And my ass.” Her eyes swept down her body, lower lip jutting out in a pout as she stared at her feet. “And my pinky toe.”

Driven by a soul-deep sense of relief, Olivia clutched at the collar of Margot’s hideous green ski jacket and hauled her closer, sealing her mouth over Margot’s, swallowing the tiny gasp of surprise Margot made.

One of Margot’s hands rose, cradling the back of Olivia’s head, fingers threading through her hair. Her hand trembled, or maybe it was Olivia that was trembling. It was hard to tell, pressed so close, Olivia’s knuckles aching from the ferocity with which she clutched at Margot’s jacket, keeping her from going far. Keeping her from going anywhere.

A throat cleared from somewhere behind her, and with great reluctance, Olivia loosened her stranglehold on Margot’s coat. She lifted her head and froze.

Luke smiled, albeit awkwardly. “Looks like you fell pretty hard there.”

Olivia’s heart stuttered over one beat then sped, crashing against the wall of her chest as she met Margot’s eyes.

Yeah. She had.