Tolerance || Daddy's Home

Skiing Gone Wrong

While I wasn't able to talk with the cute guy, I did have his number, which meant texting him all afternoon. How do I have his number? Well, that little business card happened to be his. I entered the number and next thing I knew I've been talking to him for almost an hour, nearing two.

While everyone else was doing some fun, non-electronic activity— besides Adrianna, I was on my phone with the cute guy. Also, I leaned his name is Tommy Yeun.

I was sitting in the corner of the room getting the perfect view to watch everyone. They were all chatting making the gorgeous place we were in lively. But our peace, came to a short end with a simple song.

   "It's too loud, Dylan. Turn it down."

   "I don't know how."

The kid covered their ears at the loudness of the song. If it remember correctly it's a classic Christmas song that dad would put every year, 'Don't you know it's Christmas time?'

   "Hey, hey, hey, turn that down!" Dad ordered coming down the steps with a women's silky bathrobe. "Griffy's asleep."

Dad walked down to the jukebox turning the volume down.

Dusty approached dad as they began to speak. I went back to my phone to see three new messages.

"Skip it. Skip it, guys." Sara said. Dusty had told dad in a soft voice to skip the song. Something about not standing it.

"Oh, no, no, no! No, Sara." Pop-pop interrupted going over to dad and Dusty. "This is a great song."

Then Adrianna came following behind with her phone in her hand. "This is my real dad's favorite Christmas song."

Thinking about it, I've never seen her go one day without looking at her screen. Dusty processed to explain his hatred for the song. Apparently, he joined the glee club when he was younger and had bad memories regarding the song.

"I got no recollection of that." Mr. Mayron said with a beer in hand.

"Yeah, well, I do, all right?" Dusty fought. "And I got a lot of other stories just like it."

And he really did. Names after names came out of Dusty's mouth that Mr. Mayron shrugged off until he remembered someone's mom and aunt.

"Yeah, yeah. That went into extra innings. You know what I mean, kid?"

Dusty placed his pool stick down walking away with a frown. Pop-pop gave dad a nod telling him to go after his co-dad. I sighed back into the couch refocusing on my phone.

Oh, shit. I'm slowly turning into Adrianna... anyway...

'I was wondering if maybe you want to do something?' Tommy texted. I've learned so far that he is a fast texter and very fun to talk/text with.

'Like what?'

I patiently waiting as the three dots bounced.

'My uncle works at this snowboarding place. My sis and I were going tomorrow if you and your family want to tag along.'

I pondered in thought. This could be such a great time or things will go terribly wrong. As I thought, dad had just enter the room with Dusty. Perfect timing. Putting my phone away I walked up to them.

"So, I was thinking, you know with all the snow... maybe we can go to that snowboard place we saw?" I rocked on the ball of my feet waiting for their response. Dad appeared a bit shocked while Dusty seemed excited. Truth be told, I don't really like snow. It's so cold and with all those layers of clothing, I'd rather be inside, all toasty than cold. But I will not give this chance up with Tommy, so yeah, I get why dad was shocked.

"That's a great idea, sweetie." Dad nodded that eventually turned to a smile.

Dusty lightly smacked dad in the chest with a smile as well. "Yeah. I can even teach you how."

I thanked them before returning to my spot that now accommodated the kids. They were near the chair as they ran around playing— well Dylan and Megan played while Adrianna followed behind with her phone.

I shrugged them off turning my phone back on.

'Yeah, sure. Sounds fun.'

———

White, cold snow laid on the ground in piles creating a magical, Christmasy feel. Yeah, we do snow back at home but this was something straight out of a movie.

As we got to the resort, Tommy was the first to greet me. His sister, Casey, was somewhere with her parents leaving us alone for the time being. Dad and the rest of the family, and Mr. Mayron, had gone to get everything set up.

"So, we officially meet." Tommy smiled holding a hand out. I took it in a soft hand shake.

"Well, it's nice to officially meet you."

We broke apart at the sound of dad. He had approached us to introduce himself which went a lot better than I first imagined. Thankfully, Dusty wasn't present. Who knows what he would say or do.

As the time went by we began to ski down the small mountain of snow. Snowboarding wasn't so bad once you got the hang of it. Of course, Tommy was a lot better but I was slowly making my way to being decent at it.

Meanwhile, we skied, the family went down on the tubes. At one point, dad and Dusty shared one as they went down, ultimately showing Tommy the overall relationship those two had. It's great to see him think my family was nice. That's something I feared, since in the past certain people said ill things about dad.

"I haven't had this much time in a long time." Tommy admitted. His cheeks had a hint of red from the harsh cold winds.

I bashfully looked down playing with the snow. "Neither have I."

"Maybe we can—"

A loud shout interrupted him.

"Griffy!"

We turned to see Sara get flipped by a speeding man— wait, oh shit, that's my dad! I raced towards her seeing her cradle Griffy. She held my hand helping herself to get up. As we got up laughter erupted. We turned to see dad's body stuck in the snow. We went down the hill slipping a couple of times. Dusty and another kind person helped dad up as his body was stuck in the snow. But I seriously wish they hadn't. Meeting the crowd was dad in his underwear. I cringed turning away. As I did, Tommy's gaze met mine adding to the humiliation. I heard him chuckled and the crunches of snow.

He placed his glove-covered hand on my back telling me if I'm alright. I nodded not being able to look at his face.

This was not how this day was supposed to go.