a/n: Someone forgot to post again. But here’s the next chapter! Enjoy~
Chapter 10: Winter Wonderland
Zoe woke up with a buzz of excitement. Today was going to be the first day they went to the mountains and hit the slopes. While Zoe was of course excited to see her family, she was more excited to find herself high up in the mountains, ready to make a quick trip down.
She got up slowly from bed, crossing the room as quietly as possible to avoid waking Alice who seemed to still be asleep. Just like the day prior, she made her way downstairs and walked into the surprisingly empty dining room.
“Good morning, Zoe,” Zack said with a sleepy rumble. He cleared his throat, lifting his cup of coffee to his lips. “You’re up early.”
“A little bit,” Zoe replied with a shrug. “I wasn’t up too late yesterday.” She sat down opposite of Zack and reached over to the plate of toast that was sitting on the table. “What time are we heading up?”
“Uhm,” Zack pulled his phone off of the table, squinting slightly as he tried to read the screen in front of him. “I think around 10 or so. It’s still early and obviously mostly everyone is still asleep still.” A slight twinkle was in Zack’s eyes as he gave Zoe a knowing smile. “Why? Is someone eager to go snowboarding?”
“Yeah,” Zoe admitted as she buttered her toast. “I really am. I’m really hoping to have some good runs today.” She was slightly startled when Zack reached across the table to touch her wrist.
“Zoe,” Zack started, leaning slightly forward to look into Zoe’s eyes, “please remember we’re on vacation. It’s a holiday – not a competition.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Dad,” Zoe said. “Vacation, not competition,” she parroted with an eyeroll.
“Hey, I’m just warning you,” Zack said, leaning back in his chair. “We both know how you get around sports.”
“And how’s that?”
“Well…you know,” Zack supplied lamely before being interrupted by Julia walking into the room with a yawn.
“Good morning,” Julia said, pausing to stretch her arms high over her head before dropping herself into the seat next to Zoe.
“Good morning, Julia,” Zack said, sounding grateful for the interruption. “You’re also up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep any longer,” Julia said as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Zara snores like a lumberjack sawing logs,” she deadpanned, earning a snort from Zoe.
One by one, each family member staying in the house arrived in the dining room of the Mason home. The relative quiet turned into lively and excited chatter as everyone was equally as energized as Zoe was to head to the mountains to either ski or snowboard – or in the case of the littlest ones, snow tubing. With everyone so eager to head out, it was nothing short of a miracle that they were out the door and ready to go well before 10 with everyone’s winter gear in tow.
Once situated at the ski lodge, Zoe made quick work of donning her gear, meticulously inspecting and prepping her board and helmet before heading to the lifts. For a moment, Zoe’s heart caught in her throat. It was always an anxiety inducing moment as she hooked herself up to the lift and prayed that she had gotten on correctly. It was even worse when it was a seated lift. But her worries were unfounded as the lift quickly caught on and started to pull her up the mountain.
As she arrived at the top, Zoe got off, sliding a few meters before flopping herself onto her butt to wait for the other daredevils in her family to catch up. As she sat in the cold snow, she couldn’t help but realize, with a slight blush, that her somewhat damp diaper provided a very nice cushion to sit on.
Luckily the rest of the family didn’t take too long to catch up to where she was and with a small grunt of effort, Zoe did one last check that her snowboard was on tight before she pushed herself up. With a whoop of delight, Zoe let herself start her descent back down the mountain, the wind blowing in her face as she made lazy zigzags down the slope. She wasn’t racing just yet, but she loved snowboarding and she knew she needed to start out slow.
It had been a long while since she had snowboarded. It didn’t take her too long to get into the rhythm of things, but it was still a challenge. She slid to a halt at the bottom of the slope and miscalculated slightly. With a slight shriek, Zoe felt her board slip out from underneath her, causing her to land on her butt.
At least I wasn’t carrying any speed, Zoe thought to herself. She lifted herself up enough to rub her tailbone. It didn’t hurt terribly, but she certainly felt it.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked, sounding winded as she slid to a half next to Zoe.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Zoe said, waving Beth off. “It’s just been a while, and I’m horribly out of practice.”
“Well, there’s plenty of time to practice today.”
After another couple runs down the slope, Zoe started to feel much more comfortable with being on her snowboard. She was managing to go quicker and quicker as she started to relearn how to move with the board. Her years of gymnastics training meant that her balance was excellent and that helped translate well into her snowboarding.
After a quick check of the time, Zoe finished up her run just in time for lunch. She made her way back down to the mountain, sliding to a stop at the end of the slope where the rest of her family was waiting for everyone to gather.
With a cheeky grin, Zoe slid in a way that she was able to send a flurry of snow in the direction of her youngest cousins who squealed at the sudden contact of cold snow. But before Zoe had a moment to get herself to safety, her cousins quickly recovered from the shock and before Zoe knew it, she was being pelted by snowballs.
“I surrender! I surrender!” Zoe said through her laughs as she covered her face to try and protect it from the onslaught. Breathing out a sigh of relief when the snowballs stopped, Zoe peered through her fingers to see if the coast was clear. She needed to still be ready on the offchance more snowballs were about to come her way.
When she was positive that it was safe, Zoe removed her helmet, shaking her hair free. She made quick work of undoing her boot straps and stepped off snowboard, brushing the snow off that had accumulated itself from her cousin’s attack.
“We’re going to head in to grab a bite to eat,” Amelia said to everyone before turning her head towards where Marc and Sophia came winding down the hill covered in snow, giggling like children.
“What happened to you two?” Zack asked, his eyebrows shooting up. “You two look like, uhm…”
“A bunch of snowwww mmmeeennnnn,” Dennis said happily, making everyone laugh.
“He’s not wrong,” Zara added as she brushed some imaginary snow off of her jacket.
“Well,” Marc said, trying his best not to laugh, “someone decided that it would be romantic to go down the mountain holding hands.”
“It was a good idea,” Aunt Sophia said with a sheepish grin. “The execution of said idea, however, left something to be desired.”
“We’ll try again, honey,” Marc said as he brushed some snow off of his wife’s back. “Don’t you worry.”
Lunch came in the form of burgers and chicken fingers with warm drinks as they dared to brave the outdoors and eat outside at wooden park tables.
Zoe took a grateful sip of her warm tea. It wasn’t exactly cold outside, especially with the addition of all of the winter clothing, but she had definitely been getting thirsty. She hadn’t realized how much of an appetite she had worked up and hadn’t realized just how much she needed something to drink.
“Hey mom?” Zoe whispered to Amelia, trying not to be too obvious. “Do you think before we go back to the slopes we could go to the bathroom?”
“Yeah, sure thing, honey,” Amelia said outloud, completely ignoring Zoe’s attempts at discretion. “Zack, can you watch the gear for a minute? Zoe and I are going to be right back.”
“Sure, Love,” Zack responded with a shrug. “I’ll wait here. Besides, I’m watching Zara’s stuff anyway, so I’ll be here for a while.” He gave another shrug as he looked around with a slight hum. “I think she’s taking pictures for her Instagram or something.”
“Then you might be there for a while,” Zoe noted. “She always takes forever.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Amelia said, “but at this rate, you’re the one taking forever. So come on.”
Following close behind Amelia, Zoe and her mom reached the bathrooms quickly enough. By some sheer miracle, there were barely any people in the bathroom. Zoe took a quick look around, her cheeks flushing slightly as she followed Amelia into the handicapped stall and closed the door. She turned in alarm as Amelia opened her bag and uttered a string of swears.
“What is it, Mom?” Zoe asked, starting to peel off her winter pants and struggling with it. “Too many stupid layers,” she muttered under her breath.
“Well, uhm…” Amelia started, as she frantically moved things around in her bag. “I think I might have forgotten to bring spares along with me.”
“You what?” Zoe exclaimed, freezing suddenly. She watched as Amelia continued searching through her bag and Zoe’s mouth fell open. “You forgot them? Please say you brought something.”
“I’m looking Zo.”
“What do you even have in there?” Zoe asked with a huff as Amelia started to pull things out of the bag.
“Kind of a little bit of everything,” Amelia admitted. “Spare clothing, some wipes, cream…a towel just in case. There are supposed to be spares in here.” Amelia glanced up at Zoe, feeling her curious and alarmed look before throwing her arms up in aggravation. “It’s your ‘Just in Case’ bag.”
“Well maybe you need a ‘Just in Case’ bag for my ‘Just in Case’ bag,” Zoe said in annoyance. Amelia turned to Zoe with a sharp look and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, starting to put things back in the bag. “Why don’t you just wear panties for now? Let’s say this is an exception to our contract, okay? It might be a nice change for a little while – give your bits a chance to breathe since you’ve been diapered the entire time.”
“Yeah, right, maybe,” Zoe said quietly. “Let’s just do that, I suppose.”
Several minutes later, Zoe wasn’t sure if it was a nice change at all. Yes, it felt liberating to have a more free range of motion without having extra bulk in the way, but it felt strange. The worry about others noticing she was in a diaper was more or less non-existent with how thick her winter clothing was, so it had been perfectly hidden away. Without having a diaper, then she really didn’t have to worry. But the worry she would normally feel was replaced with something else, something that Zoe couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t bad but she felt offkilter, and she missed the sense of calm her diaper brought her.
For some reason it also had an effect on how her snowboarding went. She had more than enjoyed it in the morning, but things weren’t going the same as they were. Had she really compensated that much for wearing a diaper? It didn’t feel right. As she made her way back to the top, Zoe found herself lost in thought. What was so different? She really couldn’t tell. All that she knew was when she made it back to the top of the mountain, she was determined. With a quick adjustment of her goggles, Zoe was ready to go, but she was momentarily distracted.
“Hey Zoe!” she heard her sister call out from her left. Zoe looked over at Zara who had a beaming grin on her face as she stood next to Julia. “Race me and Julia to the botoom of the mountain!”
“Okay,” Zoe said with an answering grin. “Y-y-you’re on.” She grimaced slightly at her stutter, but pushed the thought to the side. Crushing Zara in a race was exactly what she needed, she decided. She took off quickly after Zara and Julia with a whooping laugh. That and a bathroom, Zoe decided as an afterthought at the sudden pang from her bladder from her nerves.
The first quarter of the slope went fairly well as Zoe managed to overtake Julia, but Zara proved to be harder to catch up to. Zara might not be nearly as athletic as Zoe, but they still shared the same genes, and Zara wasn’t exactly bad at snowboarding.
Zoe began to get a little frustrated on her descent. She hadn’t caught up to Zara at the halfway point like she had hoped, and she was starting to run out of time. Every time she would get close, Zara would somehow get even faster and Zoe very seldomly lost against Zara. She wasn’t about to now.
Pushing herself even harder, Zoe managed to speed up just enough to finally catch up to Zara and managed to slowly edge past her before making a turn. As she turned, Zoe felt another sharp pang from her bladder that made her wince. It distracted her for just a second too long and everything suddenly went wrong.
With a sudden lurch of her stomach, Zoe felt her board start to slide out just a little too much from underneath her. In the blink of an eye, she suddenly went head over heels as she ploughed out of the corner into a snowdrift.
Groaning, Zoe pushed herself up, shaking off snow as she went. It didn’t hurt too terribly, but she had gone a few meters before finally stopping and that didn’t feel too nice. Her frustration simmered just beneath the surface. She couldn’t believe that she had crashed and even worse, she couldn’t believe she had lost in a race with her sister and her cousin. That never happened. Zoe hated losing, and her frustration only grew when she noticed Zara celebrating at the bottom of the slope. With another groan, Zoe made her final descent down the rest of the mountain, coming to a slow stop.
“Zoe!” Julia said, quickly approaching. “Are you okay? I saw you crash out back there but I couldn’t stop in time.”
“I-I am f-fine,” Zoe stuttered out tersely as she unclipped her helmet.
“Let her be, Julia,” Zoe heard the grating voice of Zara. “She’s just grumpy that she lost and that I won,” Zara said smugly.
Zara’s gloating was the final straw for Zoe. She tossed her helmet down into the snow, glaring at Zara. “You know, Zara,” Zoe started, “I was quicker than you. I am quicker than you. You just got lucky.”
“I didn’t get lucky,” Zara huffed. “You screwed up, Zo. You fell. You lost.”
“Aarrrggghh!” Zoe screamed out.
“What is happening over here?” Zack interrupted as he slid to a stop inbetween Zoe and Zara. He held his hands up to keep the two separated.
“I won our race,” Zara said gleefully. “I won fair and square and Zoe’s mad.”
“Congratulations, hon,” Zack said before turning his attention to Zoe. “Zoe? Remember – holiday not competition. We’re supposed to be having fun.”
“It’s fine,” Zoe grumbled as she undid her snowboard from her feet and picked it up. “But I’m going to the bathroom,” she added before stomping away. She really did need to go, but it gave her the perfect opportunity to walk away.
“Just leave her alone for a while,” Zoe heard Zack say behind her. “You know how she gets, ladies. Zoe isn’t used to losing, and she also isn’t very good at losing. She’ll come around eventually.”
“Humph,” Zoe grumbled to herself. Maybe her dad was right, she reluctantly admitted to herself. It was supposed to be fun being out at the mountains. She dropped her gear off at a storage locker before making her way inside to the bathroom. She let out another grumble when she realized that she had left her helmet behind, but she wasn’t about to go back for it. Once she made it inside the bathroom and sat down, she let out a groan.
There was a dark blue spot on her light blue pants that definitely wasn’t there earlier. She had to have accidentally leaked during her tumble as she had felt mostly okay before. She had thought she had felt the smallest rush of warm liquid spurting out of her, but she had been certain that was just the heat of adrenaline coursing through her system. Rubbing her eyes in frustration, Zoe got up from the toilet. At least she had only leaked into her inner layers and it wouldn’t be seen from the outside. Now annoyed for a different reason, Zoe decided that she would take it easy for the rest of the day.
Leaving the bathroom, Zoe made her way to the family’s unofficial meeting spot. She was only somewhat surprised to find that the crowd had grown considerably as nearly the entire family was there.
As soon as Zack spotted Zoe, he quickly closed the distance between the two of them, giving her a knowing look as he held out her helmet. Leaning down slightly to be in her vision, Zack raised his eyebrows in question. “Calmed down a bit, Zo?”
“Y-y-yeah, I’m f-fine,” Zoe said. “J-just a little s-stressed. I shouldn’t have blown up,” Zoe added, rubbing the back of her neck. “Holiday. Not competition.”
“You’re right,” Zack said gently. He took a quick look around before lowering his voice. “I heard from your mom that she forgot to bring your uhm…diapers. Everything okay or do I need to get your mom?”
“No, no, I’m dry,” Zoe said with a giggle. Mostly, she thought to herself with another giggle. She joined Zack in walking over to the rest of the family as they made their way to go up the mountain again.
Zoe spent the rest of her day as simply as she possibly could. She chased after her little cousins, showing them how to ski. She engaged in furiously quick snowball fights and even let Mason try her snowboard for a little.
At that very moment, Zoe didn’t have much time to overthink what was happening. She was hiding behind a tree trying to take cover and avoid being seen. Her cousins had decided to gang up on her and after multiple snowballs pelting her hard, she had opted to use the tree for a shield.
“G-guys this is not f-f-fair!” Zoe said, grumpy that her stutter was a little more pronounced than usual. She had just gotten used to wearing a diaper and not having her stutter, now she was without and her anxiety was coming back. Grabbing a handful of snow with a huff, Zoe formed a snowball and carefully aimed it at Dennis who was trying to sneak around the side of her.
A loud shriek told her that she had aimed well before suddenly she let out a shriek of her own as she was covered in a flurry of snow. Alice, Noah, and Mason had taken the opportunity to rush Zoe as she was distracted. Fortunately she was saved by her Aunt Beth who shouted for everyone to gather up.
Shaking all of the snow off of her, Zoe was eagerly patted down by all of her cousins helping her take off the snow.
“Thanks guys,” Zoe said with a bright smile. “I would never have gotten all of that snow off without your help. Although, I wonder how it got there in the first place,” she added cheekily as she shook out the last bits of snow from her hair.
“We’re leaving in ten,” Beth announced to everyone. “Just shove all of your wet clothes and the boards in the back of the trucks.”
Without the extra layer of her snow pants and jacket, both of which had been drenched from snow, Zoe shivered. The air had started to get infinitely more chilly as the sky grew darker. She was about to step into the car when her mom called out.
“Zoe, don’t forget to go to the bathroom before we leave,” Amelia said. “We don’t want any accidents on the road.”
“Yeah that would be annoying,” Zoe muttered quietly before making her way to the bathroom. As she waited in line for a toilet, she felt another small pang from her bladder. She had to admit that it was a good idea that she was going before they left. It was likely she would have been okay on the drive, but it at least saved her the hassle of having to ask for a pitstop. However, the line was longer than expected as everyone seemed to be leaving at the exact same time as her family was. It was so long she even received a text from Amelia asking where she was. With a slightly annoyed breath, Zoe typed back that the line was long and that she was nearly there.
It took another 15 minutes before she was able to return to the cars where, to her surprise, only Beth and her mom was waiting.
“Where is everyone else?” Zoe asked with a slight frown.
“They went ahead, but we’re driving along with Beth,” Amelia said as they followed Beth back to their tall Ford Ranger that Zoe’s Uncle Tommy owned. “You took a little long in line, but we’re not too far behind.” Amelia frowned as she watched Zoe try to get in the car. “Need a hand getting in?”
“No, I can manage,” Zoe smiled, grimacing as her muscles seized up. She backed up a bit before taking a slight run and launching herself into the truck.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Beth laughed as she started the engine.
In no time at all, everyone was situated in the truck and on their way back to the house. Even though it had been a long day, it was a good day. But Zoe couldn’t wait to be back at the house and surrounded by the comfort she had grown used to.