Two days later, Buffy, Xander and Will decided to join Joyce and Helen on the slopes. It turned out to be a terrible idea, as none of them had any idea what they were doing. Buffy spent the whole time complaining about the cold and Xander gave up after fifteen minutes and went into the lodge. Will stuck it out a bit longer, but ended up swearing in front of a lot of young children when he kept crossing his skis. The three of them ended up in the lodge together, drinking hot chocolate with little marshmallows.
“Well, so much for that,” Xander said, licking some marshmallow foam off his top lip.
“Hey, at least we tried it this year,” Buffy said.
“Skiing is bloody stupid,” Will grumbled.
“Here here,” Xander said, raising his mug.
“Well, what should we do instead?” Buffy asked. “And don’t say go home and play video games, cause we’ve been doing that the whole time we’ve been here.”
“Well,” Xander said, “we could-“
“And no smoking weed!” Buffy interrupted. “We did that yesterday. You don’t wanna kill the few brain cells you have left.”
“That hurt, Buff,” Xander joked, putting his hand over his heart.
“Oh oh! I know!” Buffy said excitedly. “We could go ice skating! I’m a really good ice skater.”
Buffy had done a lot of ice-skating when she was younger and had even had dreams of being a professional figure skater someday. She had long since given that up, but still enjoyed it when she could. Their father, Hank, had tried to get Xander to play hockey when he was seven and though he never took to the sport, he had learned to skate pretty well as well.
“I don’t know how,” Will said, a little embarrassed.
“That’s ok!” Buffy said cheerfully. She was very excited at the prospect of ice-skating. “We can teach you!”
***
A half hour later they were at the skate rental of an outdoor ice skating rink. Having grown up in southern California, Buffy was used to skating indoors. She became very excited at the idea of skating outside in the fresh air and seemed to bounce in anticipation.
They got onto the ice and Buffy took off, gliding along the ice gracefully. She wasn’t ready to try any jumps, as she hadn’t skated in a few years. She was just happy to be doing it again and spread her arms out as if she was flying. She did a few laps around the ice, weaving in between the families and couples that took up most of the ice.
Will stumbled onto the ice with Xander following close. He immediately grabbed onto the wall to catch himself. Xander started to skate backwards in front of him as Will slowly moved, keeping an arm on the wall for support.
Buffy skated toward them and stopped next to Xander. She didn’t know if it was the endorphins or what, but something made her feel bolder and she held her hand out to Will.
“Come on,” she said. He looked at her hand like he didn’t know what it was. “Grab my hand,” she urged.
“I’m not gonna hold your sodding hand!” he exclaimed.
“You’re not gonna learn how to skate if you hug the wall the whole time,” she retorted.
“Ugh, fine,” he said, taking hold of her hand. “I don’t need to learn how to bloody skate anyway,” he mumbled angrily to no one.
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” Buffy said with her nose in the air. She started to skate slowly, making sure not to move to fast for Will.
“Just try and glide,” she instructed him.
“I’m trying…whoa!” He started to falter a bit, then righted himself and didn’t fall.
Xander skated up to his other side and grabbed his other hand.
“C’mon, man, it’s not that hard,” Xander said.
“Easy for you to say, mate,” Will replied.
With Buffy and Xander on each side, Will was able to keep steady and actually start moving a bit faster.
“See, you’re doing it,” Buffy said with an encouraging smile.
As he turned to look at her he lost his balance and was unable to steady himself this time and the three teenagers crashed onto the ice together. Luckily, none of them were injured.
Buffy expected Will to let out a stream of angry British swears, but he didn’t. He started to laugh. Buffy and Xander joined him a minute later and soon the three of them were in fits, lying in the middle of the ice. Other people skated around them, giving them annoyed looks, which they ignored.
Sobering finally, Will looked at both Buffy and Xander with narrowed eyes. “I’m never bloody skating again.”
Buffy and Xander exploded into laughter once more.
***
Later that day, they found themselves sitting in a local coffee shop, just a five-minute walk from the condo. It was one of those fancy rich people coffee shops with over-priced drinks and wait service at the tables. It was decorated to look very “French,” or something that the owners assumed you would see in Paris. Buffy just thought it looked tacky, with its coffee cup shaped plaques on the wall, reading “Bonjour” and “Café.” There was also a poorly done mural of Paris on one of the walls, which Will immediately criticized when they walked in.
They sat down at a table by the window, where they could look at all the people walking down the snow-covered streets. A few minutes after sitting, a waiter came to the table to take their order. He was about average height and looked to be about twenty or so, probably a college student. His nametag read Matt and he was cute, with shaggy black hair, a nice face, and was paying far more attention to Will than Buffy would have liked.
“What can I get for you guys?” he asked, giving Will a quick flirtatious smile.
“I’ll have a large hot chocolate,” Xander ordered, as he hated coffee. “And a cinnamon bun,” he added.
“I’ll have a medium coffee, just a little cream,” Will said, giving the waiter his charming smile. He was far more pretentious with his hot beverages than Xander, and liked his coffee strong, but not actually black.
Buffy was squinting at the menu on the wall, trying to decide what she wanted. “Can I get a small mocha latte with a shot of peppermint?”
“Sweet tooth,” waiter Matt said knowingly.
Buffy smiled back politely, but only because it would have been rude not to.
“I’ll be back in a few,” he said next, giving Will another look over before turning to go put in their orders.
Subsequent to his exit, Xander gave Will look of disdain and accusation.
“What?” Will asked, playing at innocence.
“He was flirting with you,” Xander said, clearly irritated.
“So what,” Will replied. “People flirt with me all the time. I’m very cute,” he added with smirk and a wink at Buffy, making her blush red.
“Well, why would he assume you’re interested in him?”
“He wouldn’t know unless he tried, now would he?” Will replied, starting to get annoyed.
“Yeah, well you’re embarrassing Making moon eyes at him like that,” Xander huffed.
Buffy was surprised by the exchange. She couldn’t understand why Xander was acting this way. ‘Is he jealous?’ she wondered.
“I’m bloody embarrassing you?” Will asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, you are,” Xander said shortly.
They stopped their argument as the waiter came back with their drinks. He place cup ans saucer in front of each of them as well as giving Xander a plate with a pastry on it. Xander grumbled a short “thanks” and started eating.
Will, however, gave the waiter a long look over and said “Thank you, luv,” in the sexiest voice he could manage. Buffy’s eyes widened as this happened and she tried to hide her blush by sipping her hot latte.
Waiter Matt gave Will an equally seductive smile and before turning to walk away again said, “let me know if you need anything else.”
Will made a show of checking out Matt’s ass as he walked away, then turned back to Xander with a satisfied smile.
“You’re an asshole,” Xander said, getting up from his seat and putting on his black Northface jacket and ski hat on.
“You’re really gonna fucking walk out?” Will asked, becoming more angry.
“Yup,” was all Xander said as he strode out the door, not looking back at them.
Buffy instinctively got up from her seat to run after him, ignoring Will’s “let him be, pet.”
“Wait, Xan!” she yelled as she ran. She caught up to him as he was about to turn the corner outside the café. “Stop!”
“What, Buffy?” he turned to her with an exhausted look.
“What is your problem?” she asked with upset in her voice.
“I should think it was fairly obvious,” he said.
“Xander, it really wasn’t a big deal,” she tried to be rational with him.
“Whatever, Buffy,” he said, turning to start walking away again. It was then that Buffy realized she hadn’t put on her coat and began to shiver in the cold. She decided not to chase after him. ‘It’s not worth it when he’s like this.’
She walked back into the café and saw that Matt was back at their table talking to Will. She watched for a minute as Will laughed at something Matt said to him, took out his cell and punched in some numbers.
‘Did Will just take his number?” she wondered, confused. She approached the table slowly and part of her wanted to interrupt their interaction. The other part wanted to just grab her coat and get the hell out of there.
“There you are, kitten,” Will said as he saw her coming.
“I’ll just leave you two,” Matt said with a smile before walking away.
Buffy didn’t know what to say to Will after seeing what she just had, so instead of sitting down, she hurriedly put on her grey pea coat and her striped scarf.
“I’m just gonna go back,” she explained when she saw his confused face. “I gotta make sure Xander’s okay.”
Will was too stunned to say anything, so she hurried out while she had the chance. She walked down the street, thinking about the last fifteen minutes. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about this.
‘What the hell just happened? I mean, Xander was being a little ridiculous. He acted really jealous! But, he said he was embarrassed. Is that what embarrassment looks like? I guess, maybe sometimes. But, why would he be? It really wasn’t a big deal. They aren’t together.’ She then stopped her train of thought, and jumped to another.
‘But what if Will did lie? What if they really are together? Then I guess his anger was totally justified. But, why would Will take the waiter’s number? If that’s even what he did. But, it couldn’t have possibly been anything else!’ Buffy felt overwhelmed with the thoughts and questions running through her head.
I light of the holiday, she had spent the past few days in blessed ignorance of all the rumors. Now, everything was coming back with the force of a hurricane. As she started to stomp through the snow-covered path to the condo complex, she thought of some other things.
As much as Buffy wanted Will for herself, she hated seeing him and Xander fight. She also really hated seeing Xander so upset. He was her brother and he came before anyone else, even Will. She was starting to feel real anger toward Will for the first time ever. How could he do this to Xander?
‘Can I even trust him anymore?’
***
Buffy found Xander lying on his bed with his new headphones on and his eyes closed. She called his name about five times before throwing a pillow at his head.
“Jeez, Buffy! What the hell?” he yelled, taking his headphones off and sitting up.
“Are you okay?” she asked, trying for sympathetic.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, annoyed, trying to put his headphones back on.
“Xander, you stormed out of-“
“I don’t wanna fucking talk about it!” he exclaimed, ignoring any further protest by putting on his headphones and turning up the music on his iPod.
“Xander, I’m on your side!” she yelled, but he didn’t hear over the volume of the music.
Buffy turned to leave the room, closing the door behind her. She sat down on the couch, exhausted from the day, and felt tears start to prick her eyes.
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