Page 76 of Holiday Home 3

This was a bad idea. He knew it, Avril knew it, and Anna certainly knew it. But… some bad ideas could lead to something special. A memory worth the bumps and bruises. And hey, they might even make it all the way to the bottom in one piece!

Yeah, right.

They made it about fifteen feet, which was honestly more than he’d expected, before his flexibility proved insufficient for the gap that opened between the girls’ sleds. For the first ten feet, they’d stayed close enough that he almost let himself believe that they might at least make it halfway down the hill before he tasted snow. Five feet later, precisely one second later, he’d rectified that foolish hope.

If it’d been intentional, Avril took that secret to the grave. He didn’t think it was, even if she enjoyed prodding him every winter after about how “he should have been nicer tobothhis drivers, not just one of them.” But her sled tilted just a few degrees away from the direction Anna’s sled was headed. Which was more than enough.

Five feet after that, the white maw of snow between their sleds had opened to more than a foot. Liam immediately felt the strain in his groin as his knees widened the gap between them. His gaze snapped down, and he knew then they wouldn’t all make the trip.

Just five feet after that, he chose his fate. Releasing their coats at the same time, he tried to hop off his knees to his feet behind their sleds. He believed that they weren’t going too fast just yet and that he might be able to land upright, take a fewdashes, and pick one sled to make himself the passenger for the rest of the trip.

He overestimated his balance, acceleration, and the kindness of snow and gravity.

“Oop, there he goes!” Avril yelled to Anna as they felt him leap back before he ended up forced into doing splits, which would have definitively ended in him tumbling gracelessly head over heels as the sleds left him behind. They both looked over their shoulders and saw his failed attempt at doing something mildly cool.

His left foot hit the snow first. When he tried to push off it into a run, he slipped. His right knee hit the snow before his right foot did. So did his elbow and forearm.

The hill was at its steepest when he’d made his ploy, and it was as if it marveled at him for thinking he could manage to keep upright after the stunt he’d just pulled. He didn’t end up rolling head over heels. Instead, with enough foresight to save him from that fate, he tucked his right shoulder in and turned his whole body.

He did roll for quite some time, like an enormous iron pipe that had fallen off the back of a truck on the highway. Compared to his first fall, it wasn’t as disorienting. After about twenty feet of collecting snow, he grunted and tried again to hop to his feet.

His momentum and lack of balance allowed him to get no further than his knees, which he slid on for another ten feet before his traction through the snow tipped him over face-first. Shoving his hands out, hefinallyarrested his tumble, skidding to a halt still halfway up the hill.

By then, Avril and Anna were already sliding to a halt at the bottom of the hill. In this instance, his body was more bruised than his pride, though Avril’s guffawing tried to tip the scales as he marched down the hill. He quieted her down by digging out aclump of snow that had lodged itself between his neck and coat collar and hurling it at her.

“We’re not quite ready for the Winter Olympics,” Avril grinned, joining Anna in helping slap the snow off his back. “Aww, we should have videotaped things. Tess and Victoria will never get to see your spill like we did.”

“What a loss for them,” he grunted, shaking himself like a wet dog once both women stepped back.

Their teeth chattered for ten minutes, Avril’s for fifteen, as they warmed themselves with hot chocolate and the centralized heating in their apartment. The women had swapped out of their heaviest clothes, though Avril had stopped him when he started doing the same.

“Just remember, you’re taking those home. Anna and I don’t need them.” She’d grinned as she’d held her arms out. “No receipt for you to look at for these.”

Rolling his eyes, he’d shunned any petty argument over the gift—for now. Once they’d all warmed themselves up and spent a little longer socializing, Liam collected his things so he could get going. As he made for the door, not one but two unfairly beautiful women joined him.

“Don’t mind me,” Avril said, wearing a skewed grin as they realized she wouldn’t lend them the same alone time she had the other day.

He stood between Anna and the door, and when she leveled her attention upon him, he shrugged. He didn’t intend to force anything on Anna, and he wouldn’t have been upset if a hug was all she’d seen him off with. However, he did give her a slight nudge.

“You heard her.”

Blushing, Anna nodded and climbed onto her toes. This kiss was possibly the briefest they’d ever shared, but itwasthe first they’d shared in front of someone. That that someone happenedto be her best friend and roommate, and his… well, he still wasn’t sure what he and Avril were, certainly played a part in how red her face was when their lips separated.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He flicked his gaze above Anna’s head, finding Avril’s grin unbothered by the affection she’d just witnessed. “Both of you. I’ll be expecting my first real trip to a ‘casino’ to blow me away.”

“Oh, it will,” Avril declared. “Just you wait.”

Many hours later, he thought his day was over and that waiting was all he had left. For tomorrow, for a chance to see what four unnaturally beautiful women would have on, for the game of poker he intended to win. Lying in Tess’s guestroom, staring at the ceiling a little after midnight, struggling to find sleep due to the anticipation pumping through his veins, one of those four women gave him a reason to stay awake even longer.

His phone buzzed, swathing the dark room in light. Before it vanished, he rolled onto his side and snatched his phone from the wireless charging station Anna had bought him for Christmas. He didn’t imagine she’d expected he’d have so far only used it in Tess’s house when she’d gotten it for him.

Two words emblazoned themselves upon his screen. A file accompanied those words.

I lied.

Liam’s heart began to race seconds before he comprehended Avril’s message, or the video attachment with it. His body knew before his mind, but the latter quickly caught up. A tap of his thumb expanded the video underneath her message over his entire screen and began its salacious tale.

“Best part about a surprise is when it’s a surprise,” Avril said, winking at her phone, which she held above her body. Her very nude body.