The whole flight, Colleen and Cushla had been chatting merrily away. Dublin to Vancouver being a nine hour flight, their bubbly excitement had required liquid encouragement to maintain, but the pair were more than happy to follow that plan. It was the first time Colleen had flown and the longest Cushla had needed to fly for, and distracting one another had felt like the best way to ward off any anxiety.

Waiting at the baggage claim, Cushla was beginning to regret that. Her eyes were half-closed and her teeth gritted; before they got into the shuttle bus she intended to acquire some water to chase down a couple of ibuprofen. Colleen, on the other hand, was now running on the adrenaline of having got past her first flight safely.

A number of their fellow travellers with the same end destination in mind were already bracing themselves against listening to their excitement for the duration of a three hour shuttle to Whistler. Others were quietly shooting looks at the girls’ figures, now revealed more clearly than they had been while contained in airplane seats, and the long auburn hair sported by both, and quietly wondered what opportunities for other winter sport the two amateur ski bunnies might provide.

For the most part, of course, travellers had been aiming for the city of Vancouver itself, or looking to connect with a cruise liner which was putting in early the following morning; these simply collected their baggage and swept away, relieved that the ongoing bouncy squeals which had kept them awake through the flight were now behind them as they headed elsewhere.

Ireland itself has few great opportunities for skiing. Ten years earlier, in their late teens, the two friends had visited Scotland on vacation one winter and fallen in love with the sport; the thrill of the slopes, the ease of the movement, and the apres-ski.

They’d gone back to Aviemore year after year, sometimes with friends or boyfriends, sometimes just the two of them. Nobody else had become a fixed part of the group, their friends enjoying the experience but not finding it compelling enough to commit to an annual trip, especially in winter where most days off were already spoken for.

For their tenth year skiing, they’d decided to go further afield, and they’d chosen a Canadian ski town over the nearer European options simply to minimise any language barrier. The trip itself had built up more and more importance until it overflowed into their behaviour on the plane.

In point of fact by the time they climbed aboard the shuttle they were relatively subdued, and while they did still remark on the beauty of the landscape - even as evening was setting in - their conversation was no further irritation to those they travelled with.

It was dark outside by the time they fetched up outside their rental, a pretty little cottage built seventy years earlier for a member of the idle rich and presently one of seven owned by the same company to get the most value possible out of an AirBnB listing. While compact, it was beautiful, and the caretaker, on hand to drop off the keys, had been sure to kindle a fire in the main lounge and switch on every electric light in the place. As a consequence it fairly blazed into the darkness, becoming a welcoming, homely beacon.

“What do we do for food tonight?” Colleen asked. The caretaker, Ethan, smiled. “My cousin runs a shop that stays open 24/7,” he said, and pointed along one road. “You go down that way about three blocks, you’ll see a green neon sign, you can stop in and shop there for anything but alcohol.

“If you’d prefer something made for you, there’s a few options.” He ran through several fast food joints whose names they recognised and restaurants which they didn’t, pointing out the right direction for each. “The best bars are on the slopes,” he concluded, “but unless you’re staff you need to have that day’s ski pass to get in. We have some places that do us well enough, though, even if they’re not such a party atmosphere.” Again, a few brief directions and descriptions. “Most folks who get here this late in the day, they either go buy food and cook for themselves or they get some takeout and bring it back. I see a lot of them go shopping the following morning.”

Colleen wasn’t sure if this was suggestion or criticism. “Is that not wise?”

“I think honestly it’s the smart way,” Ethan said. “Get yourselves something nice and filling tonight, you’re on holiday and you don’t want to be making more work for yourselves Then tomorrow walk out, maybe grab breakfast somewhere before you shop, maybe just shop, and you can drop it off and head to the slopes.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a warm smile, and Cushla added a half-smile of her own - all she felt up to at that point.

Ethan took his leave. Colleen smiled at her friend. “How about I go fetch us dinner,” she said, “and you relax a bit? Then you can return the favour for breakfast.”

“I guess you’ll likely sleep in well past me,” Cushla conceded. She settled on the sofa and Colleen went out for food, deciding on a whim in the crisp, cool night air that what she wanted most was chicken wings and fries.

*

The following morning saw Cushla indeed up while Colleen still slept. Neither woman had actually made it to bed, both dozing off on their own sofa in front of the fire. Cushla had woken first not because she had been more tired but because she was more sensitive to the falling temperature now that the fire had burned low.

She adjusted the thermostat and tidied away the detritus of the previous night’s meal. Colleen hadn’t stirred. Smiling to herself, Cushla shrugged her coat back on and stepped out into the street in search of breakfast.

Halfway down the street she spotted Ethan up ahead. She watched him cross the road briskly and step into a diner.

“When in Rome,” she murmured softly to herself. For all her relative inexperience with travel, she had picked up enough to know to watch where the locals went to eat. Oftentimes these places were better quality for the prices; it wasn’t even uncommon for them to be cheaper than anywhere a tourist was likely to go.

She followed him in. Standing on the threshold, she was surprised to see the place fairly empty; was on the verge of taking a seat of her own when a wave caught her eye. Ethan had spotted her; he was waving her over invitingly, an amused expression on his face.

As she sat down opposite him he said “You made a good choice of diner.”

“I was wondering.” Cushla wasn’t the type to be abashed, even if she’d been absolutely caught following someone. Her own smile was a knowing one. “Clearly you like the place.”

“But?”

For answer she looked over her shoulder. Aside from the woman behind the counter, who was drinking from her own coffee mug before moving toward them, there was only one other person there, another man leaning against the counter rather than take a booth. “The place isn’t exactly busy.”

“It only opened a couple minutes ago,” Ethan answered reasonably. “It usually takes the first hour and change for it to fill up.” He turned his head slightly to say, “Usual please, Maggie.”

The woman - Maggie, presumably - had made her way over to take the order. “No problem, hon,” she said. “How about you?”

Cushla briefly considered reaching for the menu, but didn’t. “Pancakes,” she said. “And bacon.” After a moment she added “Coffee, too.”

“We can do that.” Maggie turned and headed back toward the kitchen, collecting the other customer’s order on the way.

Knowing the place had only just opened made it look completely different; the emptiness, rather than suspicious, was suddenly reassuring.

“So, you’re getting enough fuel for your day, huh?” She flashed him a grin.

“Maybe.” Ethan shrugged. He had produced his phone from his pocket and was fiddling with it. “Depends on if anything comes up that needs more of my energy. But if it does, you’d be able to find me down the street for lunch.”

“You always eat out?”

Ethan shrugged again. “Breakfasts and lunches,” he said. “Dinners I cook for myself, but I never remember in time to prep for the morning, and then I’ve slept in.”

Cushla, whose food at home was strictly economised so she could afford to enjoy her holidays and her nights out, shook her head at what seemed to her absolute profligacy. “Fair enough.”

“A good stack of pancakes should prepare you for the slopes,” he said. “Your friend not with you?”

“Still sleeping, or she was when I went out,” Cushla told him. “I’m going to take her back a surprise.”

Ethan nodded.

“So do you often have… what, energetic days?” It was such an odd way of putting it, she mused. Most people would have said Depends on if I end up busy or something like that.

“Not lately,” he said. “Hard to predict. Half of what I do is in the tourist houses, but I also have some contracts in town. Mostly business stuff, that, not residential.”

He was smiling again, casually. Chatting about this was something he enjoyed doing; Cushla wondered why. If all he did was caretaking buildings, it seemed an odd thing to be so pleased about; on the other hand, who was she to judge? He clearly saw a lot of tourists, and maybe that was the gossip he liked to indulge in.

She considered the possibility that she should make sure he didn’t gossip about her, but neither she nor her friend expected to be there again the following year; what would it matter? “What kind of business?” she asked, mostly to keep the conversation going.

“Clubs, mostly.” He smiled. “I’m mostly paid to keep an eye on things and fix any issues that come up, so it’s wear and tear on the houses, the occasional accident that needs putting right, and anything a cleaner can’t handle at the clubs.” Their coffees arrived and he nodded to Maggie, then took a long gulp of his own, something she copied. “To be honest,” he said, “when I first saw you come in I thought maybe you’d been out to one last night.”

Her look was a question, and he answered it readily, gesturing at her appearance. “You’re still wearing yesterday’s outfit,” he said. “And I know you both had plenty of bags.”

“I should have changed before I came out,” she admitted. “I just woke up hungry.”

“You’re in the right place, then.” Ethan smiled. “You girls are Irish, right?”

She laughed. Emphasised her accent. “Now whatever gave us away?”

His smile became a grin, enjoying her own response. “There’s a very stereotypical answer involving red hair,” he said. “Actually it was the names. I’m not even sure how to say one of them.”

“That’ll be me, then,” she said. Everyone could say Colleen, and if they couldn’t, they’d think they could. “It’s actually said like it’s spelled,” she said. “Cushla.”

“Is it short for something?”

“Kind of. So it’s from a Gaelic phrase. Cuisle mo chroide.” She didn’t spell it for him. Like a lot of Irish people, she was sick of people acting like her name was impossible to learn. “Which means, roughly, ‘the pulse of my heart’, Like telling someone they’re as dear to you as your heartbeat.”

“That’s pretty,” he said. “Which part is Cushla?”

“Pulse.”

“Or heartbeat, I suppose.” Something had changed in his manner over the conversation, she realised. Especially when she translated her name; there was a light in his eyes now which hadn’t been there before. Cushla felt sure, though, that his expression had shifted before, and she simply hadn’t noticed until something was too obvious to ignore. “Do you think about your heartbeat much?” he asked.

She blinked. “Pardon?”

“Just a thought,” he said, his voice soft. “A heartbeat is so central to our lives, but we don’t think about it, except when we notice it.” He leaned forward in his chair, focused and intent. His gaze was suddenly electric, she thought; no, not electric. Magnetic. She felt as if looking away would be somehow cowardly. “But you’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you?”

She nodded, just a fraction, not enough that she wasn’t returning his gaze. The moment was charged suddenly, heavy with… with… with potential, she decided, not having a better word for it. Her scalp was tingling.

“You might be able to feel it, even.” He reached across, his eyes not budging from hers, but he found her hand with his, turned her arm so that her palm was upwards. “Let’s see,” he said, almost in the same breath. It didn’t occur to her to protest, to pull away, or even just to wonder what she felt about him doing that. It was a moment of magic, she thought; almost as if the two of them were in the boundaries of a spell, one that would fail if Ethan stopped talking.

She wondered if she should interrupt him. By then he had two fingertips resting on her wrist, making very fractional adjustments in position. “There it is,” he said. “I can feel your heartbeat there. Your pulse. Your Cushla.” His smile was briefly arch, utterly indulgent of his own intent.

Her parted lips were suddenly very dry, and she was not at all sure why.

Ethan was still talking, still weaving his picture. Spinning his spell. “Beat by beat,” he said. “And your heartbeat isn’t just a sign of your life, of course. It’s also a measure of how active you are. Remember I mentioned, sometimes my days are active? Other days, my heartbeat never gets much past resting. Like yours, right now.” His fingers began to tap against her wrist, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. “Slow and steady. You went to sleep in these clothes, Cushla, and according to your pulse, according to your Cushla, you’re not much more awake now. You must be very relaxed.”

After a moment he spoke again. “You must be very relaxed,” he said, and he stressed the second and fourth words, synchronising them against the pulse beat on her wrist. “Is that true?”

She nodded wordlessly. Her eyes, having fluttered down to his hand on her wrist, bobbed up to meet his, and found him still studying her with that same gripping, magnetic intensity.

“And that’s only fair,” Ethan continued. “After all, you’re on vacation, aren’t you?”

She nodded again.

“And on vacation, it’s great to relax, isn’t it?” Again the same strange pattern of emphasis, again coinciding with the beat of his fingers on her wrist.

She felt like maybe he was slowing down the rhythm of his finger beat, the rhythm he had been copying from her pulse (from her cuisle, a stray thought put in). But maybe she was imagining it.

And maybe she was just relaxing. She hadn’t really got much more awake since she’d dropped off the night before. She had to be very relaxed. She nodded.

“You’re probably still tired, Cushla. Drained after your travel. Your pulse… your Cushla… it’s slow… and sleepy… and so… so… relaxed…”

The tapping was definitely slowing, but her dizzy, tired, drained head couldn’t tell whether her cuisle was slowing or his fingers were changing their pace. She was at low ebb.

She nodded once again, agreeing with a question that he had not asked, but which would have fitted the rhythm.

“You’re going back to sleep for me now, Cushla,” he said, just as soft and just as gentle. “Isn’t that right?”

She was vaguely aware of the saliva in her mouth as she nodded, but as her head went forward she slept, her eyes closing and her head dropping heavily forward, and she lost all awareness, her head empty.

*

Cushla braced her bag of groceries carefully, lifting one leg so her thigh could support them, and fumbled in her coat for the keys to their rented house. Unlocking the door she shouldered it open and made her way in. “Morning!” she called. It was her considered opinion that if Colleen hadn’t woken up yet, all bets were off.

After all, she’d been out long enough for a cooked meal (although her pancakes had been lukewarm at best when she tucked into them, she remembered - her own fault, obviously, with them arriving at the same time as Ethan’s food and his plate being almost clean by the time she took her first bite, not that she could remember why she hadn’t started eating when he did) and to shop for breakfast.

Colleen answered her call with an audible groan, but brightened when Cushla presented her with a steaming takeout cup of coffee. “Oh thank God,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Cushla answered cheerfully. “You can put these away,” she gestured at the bag, “and fix your own breakfast while I shower, and then it can be your turn. Sound good?”

“Sure,” Colleen said with a smile. She looked at her watch. “Jesus, it took you two hours?”

“Huh?”

“I woke up when the front door closed,” she said. “I remember it took me a few moments to work out what the sound was, but I saw you weren’t here and that kinda helped me put it back together. But I’d checked the time by then.

“I, uh, meant to get up and get things sorted,” she said sheepishly. “Went back to sleep. But it was definitely two hours ago you left.”

Cushla shook her head. It could barely have been more than half an hour but not much more; the food had been served quickly and she’d demolished it afterwards. Then the shopping had taken almost no time. And the walk wasn’t even a long one.

“It’s probably fine,” she said. She opened her case, grabbed her washbag, and headed into the ground floor bathroom. Ethan had pointed it out the night before, and she’d taken a long look at a walk-in shower with enough room for three close friends to wash at once and almost regretted breaking up with her ex.

They’d made a practice of sex in any place that felt like it would be a fun new experience, and a shower cubicle had been one of the spots on their list. She mostly remembered the experience from banging her elbow against the glass and her funnybone complaining for a long while afterward. Repeating the experience there would be much more pleasant.

On the other hand, he’d cheated on her with a married woman, so she was better off without him.

Dismissing him from her thoughts she turned on the flow so it could warm up and began undressing, stripping down naked. As she stepped out of her (wet, she was surprised to realise) panties she stepped across to the tall frosted window and opened it, then passed her panties out to Ethan who was standing there with a smirk.

“Aren’t you a good girl?” he asked. She nodded, instantly relaxed, her head drifting slightly, and closed the window again.

It surprised her somewhat how much she’d enjoyed that brief chill of exposure.

She got into the shower. As the hot water sluiced across her, she forgot that Ethan had been there, or that she’d given him her panties, but her thoughts remained on him.

Ethan wasn’t her type - the smirk was wrong, he seemed like he was amused at people instead of just by them - but he was also the last man she’d spoken to at any length. Maybe that was why he was on her mind.

She wondered what he’d look like with that bulky jacket and the loose plaid shirt glimpsed underneath removed. Wondered how his chest would feel under her hand.

Her hand, at the same moment, was creeping across her own chest. Cushla was worked up and feeling needy. It didn’t feel like her at all.

Was it just Ethan on her mind? She remembered the gentleness of his fingertips tapping out her pulse, and shivered under the steam. She could feel tensions in her body opening up and evaporating, the fingertip memory seeming to have as much to do with that as the hot water.

It was so relaxing, and yet somehow, feeling so relaxing didn’t stop the arousal building within her. In fact, the more she relaxed, the more she felt the heat.

Teasing her own nipples with one hand, she bit her lip against a moan, worried that Colleen might be able to hear it through the walls. Her other hand unhooked the shower head and brought it down.

She braced her back against a corner of the shower, delighted to find the tiles there, though wet, were still cool against her body. With her thighs parted she began to tease herself further with the shower itself, the stream sending bliss shuddering through her over and over again.

She couldn’t get Ethan’s eyes out of her head. She had no idea why. He seemed somehow intimately connected to the arousal she felt, even though all they’d had was a quick chat, and not even a flirty one - a little jokey at most.

But it was thinking about him that finally tipped her over the edge into orgasm. She bit down on her cries as best she could, knees wobbly, allowing herself to sink down slowly against the no-longer-cool shower wall.

Breath coming raggedly, she rose and wrapped herself in a towel, before heading back out to plan the day with Colleen. It was, she thought, past time they were both on the slopes.

In the evening, she thought, she’d stop by that club Ethan had mentioned and see if he was there. That was important, even if she didn’t know why.