And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be
Right in front of me
- I found, Amber Run

It turned out that Ellie was not too talented at skiing. She managed to turn alright and after a couple of times, she was also quite okay with the steeper bits of the trail. But as soon as there was a single bump that she did not anticipate or a little bit of ice, she would tumble and fall. After a few times, it did not even really hurt anymore and Ellie did get very good at putting on her skis and getting up quickly after a fall but that did not prevent her from falling again.

Quinn was very, very patient with her, though. She never expressed a wish to go faster and always waited for Ellie, making sure she was not hurt after yet another fall and helping her up if she needed help. Ellie felt a little bit bad for forcing Quinn to go so slow when she normally went much faster and also on more difficult trails. But the other girl assured her that it was fine and that she would not have asked Ellie to come with her if she did not want to wait for her.

They were barely even home, still cleaning their skis and shoes from the snow and ice that stuck to it after a long day of skiing when Quinn asked Ellie to go again the next day.

"Are you sure you want this?" Ellie asked back, "I was awful today."

"You were not," Quinn protested, "you're still learning. I bet I was awful at first, too."

"So you admit that I'm awful!" Ellie chuckled, "You said you were awful, too!"

Quinn joined in and threw her head back a little.

"You're a relentless little shit," she laughed, "okay, maybe you're a bit awful. But again, you're learning. And if we go skiing often, you'll come home a champion."

"I guess I don't have a choice," Ellie made a show of dramatically sighing and pretending to really think about this decision, all the while cleaning one of her skiing boots, before finally saying: "I guess I can go again tomorrow."

That earned her a playful first to the shoulder from Quinn which Ellie gave right back. Quinn fake-gasped and clutched a hand to her chest in fake-shock before diving in and practically throwing herself sideways at Ellie. The latter did anticipate a hit back but not one as powerful as this one. Since Ellie was still standing on one leg and the boots did not allow for much movement, she lost balance and plummeted into the soft snow.

"Hey!"

To get some sweet revenge, she picked up a fistful of powdery snow and threw it up at Quinn, catching her in the chest and face.

"Oh, you're going to pay for this!" Quinn announced giggly and knelt down, picking up some snow as well and thrusting it at Ellie. The other girl managed to turn her head away but the snow still caught in her brown curls. Quickly, she lunged and pushed Quinn gently but hard enough to knock her over. Quinn burst into a fit of giggles and tightly held onto Ellie's jacket, pulling the other girl with her as she fell backwards into the snow.

Suddenly, the two were very close to one another, Ellie barely managed to catch herself with her arms. She could feel Quinn's hot breath on her face, her nose mere inches from Quinn's nose. Ellie held her breath as her heart beat heavily against her ribcage. Before her brain was able to fully process to situation, she had a mouthful of snow. Quinn had secretly grabbed some snow next to her and shoved it directly into Ellie's face.

The action eased the sudden tension Ellie had felt between them but also destroyed the feeling of intimacy she had felt. But seeing how Quinn was laughing and already gathering the next handful of snow, Ellie quickly snapped out of her train of thought and got ready on revenge, too.

Within mere minutes, a snow fight had started between the two. They did not even bother pressing the snow into balls, just threw the fine powder at each other.

When they went inside a little while later, their faces all red, noses running and cold bodies welcoming the warmth inside the house, Quinn suddenly pressed one of her cold hands to Ellie's face.

"My hands are like really cold — here, feel them."

Ellie did not really have a choice as Quinn's fingers were already touching her skin that was slowly heating up from being outside for so long.

"My cheeks are just as cold," she shrugged. Without warning, Quinn dropped her hand to Ellie's neck, giggling when the latter shrieked and pulled away.

"Jeez, your hands are freezing!"

"That's what I said!" Quinn laughed as well and then cast a look at the clock, "I gotta be at the restaurant in a little over two hours, want to watch a movie until then?"

"Sure!"

Since the living room was occupied by their parents, Ellie and Quinn went up to Quinn's room and sat down on her bed together, huddling close to both have a look at Quinn's laptop. They did not manage to watch the whole movie as Quinn still had to shower and get dressed for work but the blonde girl assured Ellie they would complete it the following day.

In lack of better things to do, Ellie went to bed quite early that night. Still, she just was not able to fall asleep. Tossing and turning for what felt like hours, her mind was racing with the thoughts she had tried to suppress the whole day. Now they came back with full force, hiding in the darkness and crawling out of the corners of her room.

And the feelings she only now realized might be blooming in her heart.

Out of all the people in the world, she had to develop feelings for Quinn. This was quite possible the worst idea her hormones ever had in her entire life. Dropping out of college was genius compared to this.

One, Quinn was most likely straight. And even if she was not, she still had a boyfriend who she seemed to really love and who seemed to really love her. She was definitely not available. And apart from the fact that Ellie was already leaving in a little less than a month, Quinn had already talked to her about Frostfields being rather hostile towards queer people.

Ellie sighed and turned around again, this time facing the wall.

This situation did not seem to get any better. First, her and Quinn could not stand each other and now, that they were finally friends, Ellie had to screw up and fall for her.

Maybe that was a little too much. 'Falling for her'. This was barely a crush, just a silly thought that popped up in her head. But when Ellie replayed the scene of her falling on top of Quinn in the snow earlier, she could still remember very clearly how the other girl's breath had felt on her skin and how fast her heart had been beating in her chest.

Maybe this had been going on for longer than she had thought. Maybe this did make sense. Not really, just a little bit. That Ellie gave her a second chance even though she should have held a grudge for longer. But was that not just her? She had always been quick to forgive, quick to give people second chances and see the good in them and maybe, just maybe, a little too quick to develop crushes.

Most of them had been brief, to be fair.

She could only hope that her crush on Quinn would be short-lived, too. At least there was some hope: in a little under a month, she could wave Quinn goodbye and never see her again. Hopefully, that would be the end of her hormonal weaknesses. But then, the thought of keeping in contact with Quinn did not seem that bad at all. They did get along really well and maybe Ellie could visit again. Or Quinn could visit her and she could show her Jacksonville, away from the suspected homophobic nature of this small village.

But then again, Quinn still had a boyfriend.

Ellie turned around again with a quiet groan.

Suddenly, there was the sound of jingling keys right outside, then Ellie could hear the door opening; Quinn was coming home. That meant it had to be around midnight. Ellie really needed to catch some sleep now or else she would be absolutely sleep-deprived tomorrow. It took her a while to force her mind to relax but finally, she fell into a restless sleep.

The next morning, Quinn eagerly woke a very tired Ellie up to go skiing again.

"Come one!" She said happily, dragging Ellie down the stairs enthusiastically, "It snowed overnight which means that we'll ski on powder today!"

"Is that easier or harder than skiing on hard snow?"

"It's probably a little more difficult," Quinn shrugged, "but we'll manage — and you did really well yesterday."

Ellie nodded and gathered all the clothes she would need for today.

"I'll see you downstairs in a bit."

It turned out that 'a little more difficult' was actually code for 'almost impossible for beginners'. The little turning technique Ellie had worked out for herself the previous day proved to be nearly useless in the soft and powdery snow. It had not snowed that much but it was still a very different feeling to ski without even seeing the boards under her feet.

Ellie stopped counting how oft she had fallen after the sixth time but it was definitely a lot. Twice, she landed in a position that was so unlucky that she could not get up by herself and Quinn had to help her up. Granted, getting up was harder when one was laughing and giggling the whole time. Quinn even managed to film one of Ellie's falls and when they returned to the house for a break around lunchtime, they rewatched the video at least a dozen times, bursting into laughter every time.

They came home a little earlier that day and when they did, Ellie's entire body was hurting. Surely, her muscles would be sore tomorrow, accompanied by one or two bruises. Their dads wanted to stay out late tonight to hopefully capture some of Canada's nocturnal animals and on their way back, they picked up some sushi from the restaurant of Fiona's parents.

A little while later, they were sat on Ellie's bed, eating veggie maki and salmon nigiri from a shared bowl while watching the rest of the movie from yesterday on Quinn's laptop. She had told Ellie that she did not have to work tonight and the bed was partially covered in other DVD's they were planning on watching.

"Oh, we even got some fortune cookies!" Ellie noticed when she checked the bag for more soy sauce.

"Can you hand me one?" Quinn put her chopsticks to the side and eagerly took the cookie that Ellie gave to her, "Did you know that they aren't even Chinese? I think they're originally from Japan but here in the US, every Chinese restaurant has them."

"No, I didn't," Ellie carefully unwrapped her cookie and looked at the small baked good, "that's really weird, though."

"I know, right?" Quinn broke off a little bit of her cookie and offered it to Pasta, who was sitting in front of her bed, but the little dog turned his head away. Quinn just shrugged and broke the cookie in half with a crunch to get to the paper inside.

"Stop, you're getting crumbs all over my bed!" Ellie protested half jokingly, then broke her own cookie in her hand very carefully. Quinn just giggled and brushed the crumbs off of the mattress, where Pasta interestedly sniffed them and tentatively licked the floor to taste them.

"You don't like that," Quinn reminded him, "you always spit them out."

Pasta looked at her with eyes that seemed to say 'but what if I want to spit them out?' before promptly spitting cookie crumbs onto the floor.

"That's nasty," Ellie informed the little dog which earned her a playfully shocked glance from Quinn.

"How dare you speak to my baby like that?" She said ironically and slid down onto the floor to knead Pasta's ears gently. He sighed in contentment.

Slowly, Ellie pulled out the paper from her cookie and read the short message with a short laugh.

"What does yours say?" Quinn asked and leaned closer.

"It says 'You have a secret admirer'," Ellie read, "and yours?"

Quinn studied her paper and her cheeks reddened a little bit with embarrassment as she read:

"Mine says 'Love is right in front of your eyes'," Quinn looked up at Ellie, "both of them are love themed."

"Aren't many of them love themed in a way?" Ellie asked, "I think I once had something like 'Love is like sweet honey, good to the last drop'."

"That's really cheesy," Quinn agreed, biting into the fortune cookie and — of course — crumbling onto Ellie's bed.

"How do you even do that?" Ellie asked, "You're not even sitting on my bed and yet you're crumbling all over it!"

She leant forward to brush the crumbs off and could not resist nudging Quinn's shoulder in the process.

"Ouchie," Quinn protested with a fake frown, "I am very much hurt."

"Your ego is very much hurt," Ellie corrected, leaning down a bit and brushing the curls out of her face, "you're just being dramatic, that didn't even hurt."

She expected Quinn to return the banter but the latter fell silent all of a sudden. She seemed a little nervous, her eyes darting up to Ellie's eyes and then down a little. Before Ellie could react in any way or pull back, Quinn quickly leant forward and pressed her lips to Ellie's.

Ellie was caught by surprise and tensed up immediately. Still, she found herself moving her lips against the lips of the other girl. The kiss had been fast, almost forceful and her lips still tingled from how their lips had crashed together.

She was kissing Quinn.

She was kissing Quinn!

As if Quinn had suddenly had the same realization about Ellie, the blonde girl pulled away almost at the same time as Ellie did. For a few seconds, the girls just stared at each other. Ellie's lips felt hot and she ran her tongue over them. She could still taste Quinn and the fortune cookie on them. Quinn's face was flaming red and from the hotness of her own cheeks, Ellie knew she probably looked just like her.

"You have a boyfriend," she finally managed to say.

"I know," Quinn replied, sounding very unhappy about that fact.

They fell silent again.

"I... I think we need to talk," Quinn said after a little while.

Ellie nodded.