"Man, it smells like a zoo in here", the waft of junk food and estrogen hits me square in the face as I open up the door to Mom's Suburban to get in. "Hi Jake!" It's late, and they have already been on the road for a few hours, but their spirits seem high. The giggling takes concerted effort to subdue. The view is pleasant enough: a pert ass in yoga pants moving off the captain's chair to the back row to make room for me.
Emily catches my eyes from the other chair, she shakes her head as only a disapproving sister can, but can't hide a smile.
"Saddle up cowboys," my dad loves a road trip: "and let's ride on out!"
We are heading to our house in Mont-Tremblant for my sister's senior year winter break. My college is about halfway there, so makes for a convenient pick up on the way. I catch a ride as often as I can when my family goes up: the skiing is fantastic and it's good to get away from school.
"I am so glad you can join us Jacob," mom turns around from the front passenger seat: "I think your dad would go completely insane if he'd be stuck with just us ladies for the week." She smiles and nod her head as I hand her an obligatory tray of half-moon cookies; she can get them at her Trader Joe's of course, but apparently those are not the real deal.
"I think you know everybody: Brianna, Ashley, Megan and Emily, of course." Smiling faces all around, halfhearted attempts at a wave.
"Hi guys! Sorry to be cramping your style this week, but dad insisted I come."
"I did no such thing; I can handle this bunch with my eyes closed," my dad jibs from the driver's seat.
"You keep your eyes open, and on the road, love" my mom commands as we take off: "We still got a long way to go."
Em's been friends with these girls forever, well, at least since my junior year of high school, when I suppose I really started noticing them...
I don't know them very well, but there are benefits to being the handsome big brother: I've got Ashley and Brianna on Insta, and their stories keep popping up in my feed. Cute girls. The pert butt greeting me belongs to Brianna, now sitting in the middle seat on the third row. She's the spunky one. Her hair pulled up whatever she posts: a constant smile on her face, always in the thick of things, always with the "go get them" quotes. A real 'joie de vivre', as they would say in Quebec. Ashley on the other hand, is typically playing the mysterious card: often vaguebooking, posting poetry and dreamy pictures of herself: her big dark eyes framed by long wavy hair, a smile not really in her vocabulary.
My sister is the glue that binds the group together, I suppose. Working hard, playing hard, but such an easy personality. "If you make it into her circle you are made for life," Megan said at the breakfast table once. The two of them are BFFs and it's almost like she is part of the family: she's been up at the house so many times she has her own room. The two of them look strikingly similar, but Megan is a little taller and in outstanding physical shape: swimming with the seniors on our swim team the year I left for college, making States.
Outside the car windows upstate New York soon starts zooming past in the dark, it all looks the same from the interstate. The small talk dies down as the car engine drones on, I lean back into the seat and catch some zzzs.
My phone vibrates, not sure how long it has been but the notification brings me back from pleasant dreams of powder snow: "I miss you..."
I hooked up with Shannon at a swim party a few weeks into the school year. She's a sophomore on the team, not tall enough, and too stunning in a swimsuit to ever make the Olympic Trails, but great fun to hang around. She has helped make my transition to college easy: offering introductions to the right people, in and outside the team, and providing her sexy version of home comforts in her room at "the swim house".
"Are you alone?"
"I told you I was going with my family," I send her a goofy grinned selfie with the car roof as background.
She replies with a selfie of herself peering mischievously over the edge of her white duvet cover, steel blue eyes, blond bob: "I decided to stay in tonight, too much hard work getting dressed up to go out in the cold."
"Are you alone?"
"Not quite," she snaps a pic of her purple rabbit vibrator on the bedside table next to her.
"Oh, you naughty girl, you didn't tell me there was someone else."
"I never said we were exclusive."
