The Skiing and the Living

Posted on Fri Mar 8th, 2019 @ 12:42am by Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Corvus & Staff Sergeant Creighton Arcadia & Civillian Ravi Azad PhD & Staff Sergeant Rhiannon O'Connor

Mission: Aftermath
Location: Ski Lodge, Colorado Mountains

It took just over three hours to arrive, including stopping at the sports store to get appropriate snow gear for Jeremy and Ravi. The area might not have looked large and glamorous like television resorts, but the lodge was large for an independently run slope. The interior was in warm tones of red through a light tan, all wood, with thick area rugs in front of comfortable chairs and lounges. A cocoa bar was made of wood logs with several large fireplaces set with blazing, cheerful fires. Blankets and throws were spread around, along with books, magazines and games. There were no televisions, visible phones, stereos.

Large, thick paned windows looked out over the deep snow of the mountain and into thick pines on one side and the lifts on the other.

Though Arcadia had planned this as a solo trip, he managed to get two additional rooms, the rest of the lodge booked up for the weekend, the first without a major storm predicted and fresh powder laid down over the last week. He and Jeremy would share a double room, with O'Connor and Ravi taking the other two.

They were also lucky that there were plenty of skis to choose from in the rental shop (and because it was three staff sergeants, the staff pegged them as military right away which got them free rentals for the weekend).

That was an hour ago. Arcadia was on his way down the mountain, Jeremy lost track of where O'Connor was at the moment. In fact, he lost track of most things as he slid up to Ravi.

"You've gotta be a bro at the moment," Jeremy said to the engineer. "See those two over there? I need you to go up to the one in the purple jacket" he indicated two women, the one in the purple jacket was average in appearance, didn't seem to take special measures to be appealing to others. But the woman next to her had golden blonde hair, pulled back into a loose braid and wonderfully flushed cheeks from the outdoor activity. Jeremy didn't see the resemblance between her and Jessica Andrews, but anybody else would. "Distract her, make her feel good about herself. It'll not only impress her friend, but leave the friend free for me to talk to. Okay, buddy?" Jeremy asked.

Ravi hesitated. “I don’t know if you want me to do that,” he said. “I don’t do well with girls. I end up comparing them to Cockerspaniels or telling them they smell like ditch weeds. It is all very awkward.”

"Really?" Jeremy asked, smiling as he glanced back over at the girls. "That's even better. You insult her, I come up and defend their honor and suddenly they see me for the hero that I am."

“I don’t know if that will work,” Ravi said doubtfully.

"Girls love heroes," Jeremy said, glancing over again. "C'mon, hurry up, it looks like they're about to leave!"

Ravi, who had never skied before in his life, had signed up for a class which had yet to start. So, with a reluctant sigh, he hoisted his rented skis onto one shoulder and hurried over to the girls. “Hello,” he said to the one with dark hair. “You are very...” He searched around for a word and his eyes landed on a teenager in a school mascot coat. “Foxy,” he finished. “I mean... I didn’t... I don’t...”

"What?" the woman asked, looking at the dark skinned man, then looked him over again. "Foxy?" she asked, her cheeks warming despite the cold. "I don't know what that-"

"He means he finds you attractive," the golden haired girl said.

The dark haired girl blinked several times. "Really?" she asked, her blush deepening.

Jeremy, meanwhile was staring across the way. That wasn't...he said insult...but still. He easily skied over to the pair of girls and the scientiest. "Hi," he said, smiling at the woman in the purple jacket. "I'm Jeremy, this is my friend Ravi."

"Hi, Ravi," the dark haired girl said. "I'm Amelie, this is my friend Ginny."

“Yes,” replied Ravi nervously, not quite knowing what was going on. “Very attractive. It is a pleasure to meet you, Amelie.”

She smiled as she looked down at her hands, her skis almost falling. "Are you...are you here all day? Because, I have to go now."

"Maybe we can all meet up later, in the lodge?" Jeremy said.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Excuse me, but I think Amelie was talking. Go ahead Ams."

She shrugged but gave a quick look to Ravi. "It's just," she shrugged again, trying to compress in on herself, "I have a ski lesson planned. I'm not very good."

"Oh, hey," Jeremy said, "Rav's got a ski lesson as well. Maybe you're with the same instructor." Amelie seemed to brighten at the idea. "Maybe you and I can wait for them to get done then meet them on the beginner slopes? Would that be a good idea, Rav?" Jeremy said, trying to give Ravi a signal to back him up.

"Yes!" replied Ravi, perhaps a bit too eagerly. "Yes, absolutely. Great idea." He turned to Amelie. "I have never been skiing before, so you are bound to be better than me, at least."

"Probably not, I have one left foot." she said, looking down at her plain, but serviceable, ski boots. "Just dissected down the vertical plane."

"So, you wanna go grab something to drink while we wait for them?" Jeremy asked Ginny.

"No, I'm going to hit a slope or two, so I can stay with Amelie while she practices after her lesson."

"That sounds good," Jeremy said, not sure what was going on. He was tall, good looking, fit. A real American hero with medals and everything. Yet she seemed to think he was...annoying?

"Sure, whatever," Ginny answered.

"Oh, I should go," Amelie said, pushing back the sleeve of her coat with an oversized mitten. "Which way to the lesson?" she twirled around absently.

"Uh, this- this way, I think," he said, indicating a spot just off to his left where several people seemed to be gathering. "Oh, yes, see, there is the bunny sign they said to look for."

"Oh, yes, that looks just about right." She leaned over, with a cheeky little girl grin on her face, "I'm really quite fascinated with the whole idea of skiing. Just the mechanics and physics of sliding across snow and ice on thin laminates of wood." She spoke with the fervor of the ones wanting to keep the secrets of the universe as just a secret between the two.

With a blink, Ravi's eyes grew wide. "Yes!" he replied enthusiastically. "It's like physics! If you can only point your feet just so, you can make the skis go where you want them to take you! Like an equation that is just out of reach and if we could only find it, we would unlock all the secrets of the sport!"

"Exactly! Decrease the drag coefficient by creating a frictionless surface with equalized weight distribution on an extended axis! I want it to be like flying!"

Jeremy tossed the ski poles into the snow watching Ravi walk off with the 'ugly' friend, and Ginny headed away to the lift, acting like he was completely invisible. And he knew this was Arcadia's fault because he made the 'no uniform' rule. If he were in uniform, he was sure he and Ginny would be on one of the couches in the lodge with a hot blonde girl. Why was she walking away from him? He was good looking, tall, athletically built, held the pullup championship for his entire unit...not just his team but his unit, and that was straight darned pullups, none of those sissy crossfit kippers either! But RAVI was getting a girl and he was getting a brush off! "Aw, c'mon!" he said picking up one of the poles and throwing it down again. He just knew he should have went with a snowboard!

[Meanwhile]

"Hey, O'Connor," Arcadia said, seeing one member of their quartet. "Having fun?"

"Yep!" Ree said. "I jump out of perfectly functioning airplanes for a living, so you know I'm an adrenaline junkie! Racing down a mountain slope at high speed, dodging crap in the way, going over ski jumps, this is like the best day off for me!"

"Show off!" Arcadia said, laughing. "Always wondered about the jumping out of airplanes bit. Wasn't overly fond of the idea myself. My wife used to kid me about that all the time."

"It does fly in the face of logic!" Ree said. "Static line isn't so bad, but HAHO and HALO, especially HALO. Hi, don't mind me, I'm going to jump out of this perfectly function aircraft and plummet to my doom, except that just before it's too late for my chute to do me any good, I'm going to pull the cord and hope that whatever government contractor built my rig didn't cut any corners! Yeah, it takes a special kind of stupid." Then Ree grinned. "But it's either better than sex or almost as good as sex, depending who I'm sleeping with at the time."

"Whoa! TMI! T.M.I!" he said, laughing, "though, suddenly, I feel sorry for your 'gentleman callers'."

"Yeah, well," Ree said. "There aren't a lot of guys who stick around past my answer to 'so, what do you do for a living?' They're too insecure to deal with me being tougher or braver or whatever thing they've got it into their heads that I'm better at, so I treat the ones who do stick around pretty well. You know, as long as they do the same for me."

"Ever think about dating cops, firefighters, kindergarten teachers? It takes a special kind of tough guy to teach kindergartners. And the plus side, they'll never want kids."

"Ha!" Ree said. "Yeah, I've tried that. A lot of them are even worse than, say, a doctor or a lawyer. The doctor or the lawyer are more likely to be evolved enough to accept a female badass as a girlfriend. Cops? Firefighters? It bruises their poor wittle masculine egos to know that I am probably more badass than they are. And...to be honest, Arc, it gets a little lonely. A lot of guys I meet I know just want to check 'banging the PJ girl' off of their bucket list. Sometimes they seem fun so I go along for the ride. But you know those types of assholes. I have to sleep with one eye open if I'm dumb enough to go home with one those types. It's like I can never just let my hair down and be me."

"Ah, then maybe go the other way. Find some guy with absolutely no self esteem, you know the Type Z personality type. Some smart geek that played way too much Lara Croft. They'll celebrate what a badass you are, too afraid to just bang you and leave and will worship every part of who you are," Arcadia said.

Ree shrugged. "Who knows?" she said. "Okay, well, I didn't come here to stand around and talk. Gonna hit the slopes again! You coming?"

"Lead the way," Arcadia said making sure his skis were free and ready to go. "But, we going to the double diamond, or is that not as good as jumping out of a well maintained, expertly flown plane?"

"That'll work!" Ree said. "C'mon slow poke!"

"Give an old guy a break!" Arcadia said as he took off after her for the ski lift.