Ripley

Ripley~

Granted, I didn’t have anything pressing going on right now, but these weekends of babysitting weren’t exactly high on my list of things to do. While I didn’t mind going to the cabin, the trip would be more welcoming if it were just me and my brother.

However, it wasn’t.

A year after graduating from college, I’d taken my love for snowboarding and had tried my hand with going at it professionally. I’d been blessed with enough athletic talent that snowboarding had come easy to me, and for the past five years, I’d been killing it in competitions, making a name for myself and making more money than I had ever expected. Endorsements were where it was at, and I had plenty.

Originally, I had gone to college to get my engineering degree, and I’d gotten it. I enjoyed the puzzle that was engineering, and I enjoyed figuring out how things worked and what was the best way to make things fit together. I liked stimulating my mind. I liked figuring things out and finding out how to make a new trick work was what did it for me with snowboarding.

For the past five years, I’d been living the dream. I traveled, met new people, experienced new adventures, and I’d been able to take care of my family, though they were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. After all, Julius and Chanel Storm had managed to put two kids through college, so they obviously knew what they’d been doing financially to be able to accomplish that.

Dad was a police officer, a detective to be exact, and he enjoyed it. He was a real ‘serve the community’ type of person, and while there were a lot of bad cops out there, my father wasn’t one of them. He was one of the good guys, and mine and Roark’s sense of integrity came from him.

As for Mom, she owned her own salon, and it was a very successful one. After my first serious win, I’d taken most of my winnings and had ‘invested’ in her dream of owning her own shop, and the stubborn woman had paid me back after only two years in business. When I had tried to argue that we could call it even, especially since they’d paid for a degree that I hadn’t even been using, she had pulled out the mom card, and that had been the end of that. Before opening her own salon, she had worked for someone else in their shop, and it was nice seeing her do what she loved on her own.

Then there was my only sibling, Roark. He was two years younger than I was, and I loved the kid to death. Though a pain in my ass, I wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world. We were extremely close, and there wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for him. In fact, as a CPA, not only did he manage Mom’s books, but he managed mine, too. It was a no-brainer on who to trust my money with.

Along with being smart as fuck, Roark was also just a really good guy. In fact, he was such a goddamn gem that his goodness was the only reason that I had agreed to these torturous annual cabin trips. Even though I was probably more reckless than Roark could ever be, our parents had insisted on an ‘adult’ accompanying Roark and his friends to the cabin. Granted, I didn’t fault them since the cabin really was located in the perfect place for an ax murderer to get his fill, but Roark had been a legal adult the first time that he had planned the trip.

Four years ago, I had purchased a cabin that had been perfect for blocking the world out. During spring and summer, there was greenery as far as the eye could see, and the place was surrounded by so many flowers, plants, and animals. Think Snow White and where the Dwarfs had lived, and that was where the cabin was located.

However, no matter how beautiful the scenery looked during spring and summer, the fall colors were rather remarkable. It was like living in a painting, stunning and serene. Still, my favorite time to visit the cabin was during the winter months. As concerning as the winter storms were, the snowfall and cold winds were more beautiful to me than all the other seasons combined.

Well, back to my brother and this trip. About two months after I had purchased the cabin, Roark had begged me to let him go up there with a few of his friends. They’d been drunk one night and had gotten to getting all sentimental about losing touch after college. In their cups and in their feelings, they had vowed to start a tradition of an annual trip, so that they would never lose touch with each other. Roark had offered up my cabin as their meeting retreat, and after begging me to let them use it, our parents had insisted that I go along, too. They’d been worried about their youngest and had been concerned that he’d get lost or burn the forest down to nothing. When I had pointed out that all cellphones had GPS and that the cabin had a working fire extinguisher, Mom had pulled out that goddamn mom card of hers again, and that was how I had ended up chaperoning a bunch of grown ass adults once a year.

Did I mention that they were all grown adults?

So, every last weekend in July, I went to the cabin to clean, stock up, and make sure everything was working, especially the generator. I turned on the water, ran the plumbing, checked the electricity, and washed all the linens to get ready for the following weekend. I could easily hire someone to get the cabin ready, but I liked the quiet time. The following weekend was a long one, so the few days that I spent at the cabin alone were welcomed ones.

Collectively, my brother’s group of friends had chosen the first weekend in August as the one that would work for everyone. Excluding me, there were seven of them, and August was what had ended up working for all of them. It was just unfortunate for me that it’d been August and not December or January. Summer was my down time, something that my mother had made it her mission to point out.

My phone rang just as I was zipping up the last of my bags. Their weekend trip started tonight, then continued until Monday midday, when everyone left to go back to their lives. Even though I went with them, it was still their trip as far as I was concerned.

When I saw who was calling, I answered immediately. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Me, you, and two hot blondes at Lake Mirror for the weekend,” came the reply.

Aside from Roark, Phineas Moore was my best friend and as crazy as they came. We’d met my third year into the pros, and the guy was solid people. Sure, he was off his nut a lot, but he was loyal, honest, and talented. He also had enough decency to earn his money the hard way, and he never cheated during the games or competitions.

“I can’t. I’ve got that weekend up at the cabin,” I reminded him.

“Ah, shit,” he grumbled. “I forgot about that.”

Carrying my last bag into the living room, I said, “I wish that I could.”

Always feeling the humor, he chuckled. “Awe, c’mon, it can’t be that bad,” he replied cluelessly. “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to weekend boot camp or something. You get to chill with your brother and his friends. How bad could it be?”

“There’s nothing fun about babysitting grown folks, Phin,” I stated dryly. “Roark is twenty-six already. The man works, owns a house, pays his bills, and even feeds himself regularly. There’s no need for me to continue to tag along on this thing.”

“Maybe your mom just wants to make sure that you and Roark spend time together,” he said, doing his best to play devil’s advocate. Again, Phineas Moore was a good dude.

“We spend plenty of time together,” I semi-lied. When I was busy during the fall and winter months, Roark was busy during the winter and spring months. Tax season was no fucking joke, and I often wondered how my brother didn’t lose his mind with all that tax law shit. So, credit to Mom, summer really was the only time that our schedules could line up for us both.

“You’re lying, but I’m going to let that go since you’re gifting me with a second blonde, now that you’re not going.”

“Like you weren’t going to end up with both of them anyway,” I snorted.

Phineas Moore was a ladies’ man, and I’d seen him entertain up to four women at once, and I just didn’t get it. There was no doubt that he rocked his good looks in that All-American type of way, but women really didn’t seem to care that he was free with his affections. Maybe it was that whole The Bachelor reality crap that had women thinking that it was okay to date a guy that was dating a bunch of other women, but I just didn’t understand it. There was no way in fucking hell that I’d date a woman that was dating other men freely. Never mind that I was too possessive for that shit, but what did people get out of dating multiple people at once? Granted, I couldn’t care less how other people got their rocks off, but I’d never seen the appeal. If I was investing my time in a woman, then I expected her to be doing the same, not juggling me around three different other balls.

“Dude, that’s your problem,” he retorted, a familiar conversation coming on. “It’s like you’re saving yourself for marriage. If you are, just tell me. I have no problem respecting your choice to preserve your virginity for your future wife.”

“Phin?”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck off.”

His laugh was clear and happy over the phone. “Fine,” he chuckled. “I’ll leave you and your virginity alone.”

“Look, I gotta go,” I told him. “I’m supposed to pick up Roark in an hour.”

Getting serious, he said, “Okay, friend. Have fun and be careful.”

“Always,” I promised, knowing that fun was the last thing on the menu this weekend.