The Boy Next Door

ｅｉｇｈｔｅｅｎ

Rachel

Outside the sliding glass door, there was a guy on a snowmobile waiting for us. It was one of the strangest situations I had ever been in my life. It was like Colton had called a taxi to pick us up, except it was someone on a snowmobile instead.

"Thanks for letting us use this, Justin." Colton said to the guy, getting off of the snowmobile.

"Yeah, it's cool. Who is this?" Justin asked.

"This is my girlfriend, Rachel." Colton said, squeezing my hand. The guy gave me a confused, almost disgusted look.

"I see. What ever happened to Lacey, or Allie, or even Katelyn?" Justin asked.

"Justin." Colton said in a serious tone. His forehead crinkled in frustration. He was holding back an explosion of emotion.

"Oh sorry. I guess she doesn't know that much about you." He shrugged.

"I don't know what?" I asked. I didn't want to pry, but when someone says something about the person you're dating, it is hard not to wonder about it.

"Nothing." Colton said. "He doesn't know what he is talking about." Colton glared at Justin.

I could tell that there was something that he wasn't saying, but I didn't want to start any type of argument with him right now, when he was obviously already agitated about the subject.

"That is fine." I replied. The thought didn't leave my mind, though. It was something that I was going to have to bring up to him later.

"See you later, Justin. Feel free to eat anything in there. There is leftover pancake batter. We should be back around five." Colton said.

"Don't worry. I was going to do that, anyway." Justin said, going into Colton's house.

Colton helped me onto the snowmobile. I didn't even think about the fact that I was on a snow mobile because my mind was so focused on who this other person who was making comments about Colton was. "Why is he going in there? Who is he?" I asked.

"That's one of my cousins. He is a pain in the ass." Colton explained. He got on the snowmobile in front of me. "Hold on to me."

"Please drive safely." I requested. I was going to complain about the fact that we didn't even have helmets on, but before I could even say a word, he started moving.

"Don't worry. This isn't my first rodeo." He said.

I wrapped my arms around him. We started to move on the flat ground, and eventually down the mountain. The icy breeze bit at my face as snow flew around the sides of us as we created fresh tracks in the snow. I squeezed my eyes shut. Before I knew it, we came to a stop. I kept my eyes closed and continued to hold onto Colton. I felt him rotate backwards to face me.

"Rache, you can open your eyes. We have stopped now."

I slowly opened my eyes. We were at the bottom of the mountain. I looked back up in the direction of the house. The only trace of the house was the smoke rising from the chimney into the cold air. There were fresh tracks in the snow from the snowmobile. The trees were covered in frost. Snowflakes fell to the ground.

"This is so pretty." I said. I was so focused on not dying on the snow mobile that I hadn't even taken a second to take in the surrounding nature.

"Yeah, it is. This one reason I love it here." He replied. I smiled. I think that if he could, he would move back to this exact place in a heartbeat. "Let's go pick up the lift tickets." We walked to the ticket window on the side of the building we had parked the snowmobile in front of. There were few people walking around yet. The lifts did not start running for another couple hours. The lady at the window smiled as we approached.