Ryan sat in the ski lodge debating what to do. His knee was throbbing, maybe he should have taken Connie up on that offer to have ski patrol check him out. He needed to call someone and have them pick him up he decided. He just needed to get home, and get some ice on his knee. Maybe Seth could come get him…

"Chino?" A familiar voice spoke, Ryan turned around and had never been so relieved to see Summer Roberts.

"Hey Summer," Ryan actually managed a smile, he was very happy to see her, but Summer looked less than thrilled to see him.

"Where's Marissa? And Oliver? I thought you were all together."

Ryan sighed, "Well we were, they took off down the mountain, and I haven't seen them since."

"They left you all alone? Really?" Ryan shrugged, he decided to leave out the side note about his adventures with Connie.

"Pretty much…" He admitted, "Weren't you with Luke?"

"Oh yeah, he's getting us some cocoa. Then we were gonna take a lift back up and ski back to the house." Summer blushed slightly. Was she embarrassed about getting cocoa with Luke? Wait… was she actually enjoying spending time with him? Ryan smirked to himself.

"Chino?" Luke came up, holding the two cups of cocoa. "What are you doing here?" He did not sound happy to see Ryan.

"Ah… I was gonna call Seth…" He fumbled for his phone. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he decided maybe he'd better get out of the way.

"No, it's fine. I just thought you were with Marissa." Luke said, exchanging a glance with Summer as he gave her the cocoa, Summer seemed to deliberately avoid the eye contact.

"Yeah, he got ditched." Summer said, shaking her head and picking up her cocoa. She didn't seem deeply concerned.

"Really, that sucks man. Have you been on your own all day?"

"Well… sorta…"

"I can't believe Marissa would do that to you. That's totally bogus." Summer interjected. "You can ski back with us,"

"Right…" Ryan said, feeling relieved then slightly panicked. He could barely stand, how was he going to ski? But he really didn't want to admit weakness in front of Luke.

"Yeah… Ski back with us…" Luke growled. Okay, now Ryan was sure he had done something wrong, but he wasn't sure what. They finished their cocoa and got redressed and ready to head back out.

Ryan's knee fired angry warning shots of pain as he stood, but he managed to get to his feet and stay there.

Somehow, they managed to make it back to the lodge without incident, even though they barely spoke. Ryan was in too much pain to take the effort to form words, Luke kept looking at Summer funny, and Summer was staring straight ahead, as if to avoid interactions with anybody.

They stumbled back into the lodge and found Seth and Anna cuddled in front of roaring fire.

"Hey! Close that door, you're letting the cold air in!" Seth hollered.

"Wow Seth, you actually a built a fire…" Luke joked and Ryan smiled, he hadn't thought Seth had much Boy Scout in him.

"No, I built it." Anna smiled.

"Fine, take away my manliness." Seth made a face. Ryan would have stuck around but right now all he wanted was a bed. Oh right, it was a bunk bed, so that would have to wait, until at least he iced his knee a little.

He went into his room and stripped off his wet gear. "Ryan, I…" The door opened and Summer barged into the room, as he was down to his boxers. "Oh jeez, I'm sorry!" She stopped for a moment and let herself check out his six- pack. "Nice…" She said, before she backed out of the room.

Chuckling to himself, Ryan pulled on a pair of sweats, and a t-shirt and his familiar hoodie, then he limped out of the room and into the kitchen to find some ice.

"Ryan, sorry, I just wanted to know if you wanted anything. We were going to order some Chinese food."

"Oh, yeah, wanton soup would be good and some spare ribs."

"Alright, we'll put it down." Summer made on a pad then left to find out everyone else's order, and call her wayward friend. She really didn't want to be in a house with these people, especially Luke after they had… Oh never mind. She was going to pretend that didn't happen.

Ryan found the ice in the kitchen and filled a plastic bag then dropped down on the couch and put the ice over his knee. Luke was already there watching football. "You okay?" He asked, nodding at the ice pack.

Ryan nodded, "Yeah, just strained it a little I think." In truth he really hadn't even looked at it.

"It was stupid of Marissa to leave you alone up there like that. You could have gotten seriously hurt."

"Yeah…" Ryan refrained from mentioning that his only falls had been because someone had skied into him, seemingly quite deliberately.

"Beer?" From out of nowhere it seemed, Luke managed to produce one.

"Yeah, thanks." It probably wasn't a good idea to mix the Advils he had taken with it, but well, he really needed both.

They relaxed in silence for awhile, and finished their first beers and started on round 2. "Sure your knee's okay?" Luke asked again. Ryan glared at him and Luke dropped the subject. "I kissed Summer." Luke said, after a moment's pause.

"What?" Ryan almost dropped his beer.

"I don't know how it happened… One minute we were just talking, and the next we were kissing. It was weird. And then I asked her to get some cocoa with me before we came back here… Then we saw you… Then she started acting really weird. I think she's kind of embarrassed that she kissed me."

"That's okay, I've been abandoned twice today by girls."

"Really?"

"Yeah, first Marissa who went off with Oliver. Then…." Ryan started to laugh, "This ski instructor found me after I fell. We skied around for awhile then I asked her to meet me for coffee in the Lodge. I figured, what could it hurt, and I owed her one."

"She hot?"

"Kind hard to tell with all those clothes, you know?" Luke laughed, "But yeah she had a pretty face. Anyway, we went down to the lodge and started talking. She found out I was high school. I've never seen a girl turn and run so fast."

Luke laughed, "Oh man, that's a good one."

"To women," Ryan raised his beer in a toast.

"You can say that again," Luke clinked his beer against Ryan's.