Chapter 12
TWELVE
JACK
It’s four o’clock when I roll over in bed and look at my alarm clock with bleary eyes to see how much time I have left to sleep. I readjust and close my eyes, reaching for the fragment of the dream I was just having—and suck in a loud breath. Weather!
I sit up and scrub at my eyes, then grab my phone and go to the weather page I left open and hit refresh. The list of school delays and closings is on the bottom, in alphabetical order. F, F, F . . . Fredricks Central School District.
Delayed two hours.
I fall back against my pillow. That’s it?
I turn my screen off and set my phone down, willing away the disappointment. It’s a start, and it’s early. There’s still time.
When I wake at 5:15 and check again I almost bolt out of bed with the rush of adrenaline it gives me.
“Ms. Goodman, you rock!” I whisper, staring at the words Fredricks Central School District: Closed.
I screenshot it and send it to Eli, with a bunch of snow emojis. I could try to sleep longer . . . but I normally wake up around this time, and there’s too much energy arching through me to fall asleep again.
I almost dive under the covers anyway when I stand and my bare feet hit the floor. I rush to the bathroom and come back and change into comfy sweatpants, a long-sleeve shirt, and socks, and nod to myself in the mirror. Ready for the day.
Eli hasn’t responded to my message yet. I want to call him, but if I wait, I can lord this over him when he wakes up. So I turn on my sound, slip my phone into my pocket, and head to the kitchen to grab some food. Mom’s at the table, drinking coffee.
“Happy snow day,” she says with a knowing smile. She’s still in pajamas.
“Are you off today too?”
She sets down her mug. “Steve messaged me. He’s opening midmorning to let the plows go through.”
I grab the orange juice from the fridge. “So you decided not to sleep in, on your surprise morning off?”
“I dozed an extra twenty minutes, for your information. And I could say the same to you!”
I sip my juice. “Point made.”
I sit in the chair across from her. “I was talking to Eli last night and he said his parents invited him to spend Christmas with them. He said he wants to stay here, but I thought you’d want to know.”
He chose us, my heart crows.
Guilt follows the thought, but can’t overtake it. I want him here. I want him to have the full family Christmas he still couldn’t get if he went with them—and he knows he would be sidelined if he went with them. He admitted it.
I take another drink and tell myself not to over-analyze.
“Well,” Mom says, at least a solid minute later. I can’t quite read her tone. “Maybe they’re starting to get better.”
“That’s what I said!”
She hums and is quiet for a few minutes, reading a few more pages of her book. “He still has no idea about his present, right?”
I rinse my juice cup in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. “None. You still want to give it to him Christmas night?”
“I think that’s best. Uncle Henry and his family will have gone to the hotel by then. Eli won’t want an audience.” She smiles. “I’ll have a stocking to give him in the morning, so he has something to open then, too.”
I walk over and kiss her cheek. “Love you.”
Three heavy raps on the door make me jump. “Go let him in,” Mom says, pushing me away.
“How do you know it’s Eli? I don’t even know that.”
“Who else would it be, this early?”
I mutter that that’s another good point as I head to the front door.
A wave of cold gusts in after I unlock the deadbolt and draw the door open.
The light hanging near the door illuminates Eli standing there, completely bundled up: snowpants, boots, a thick winter coat, a scarf wrapped around his neck and half covering his face, a hat pulled down over his ears.
He has an old-fashioned lantern in one gloved hand.
I yank him in and shut the door, taking the lantern from him.
“What are you doing, walking over right now?”
He unwraps the scarf from around his jaw. “We have a snow day,” he says, slightly out of breath.
We stare at each other. He really walked over to say it in person?
“You saw my text.”
He pulls his hat off and unzips his coat. “What?”
“I saw that we had a snow day first,” I tell him.
“I didn’t have any text from you when I left my house. Sorry I took longer to fight my way through wet, heavy snow than usual. There’s probably six inches out there.”
I bite my lip, refusing to admit defeat. “You didn’t text when you saw it was a snow day.”
“Because I thought I’d surprise you in person. Knew you’d be up around now.” He shirks off the rest of his winter gear and hangs it up, then casts me a gloating smirk. “I won this one.”
I take in the redness of his nose and ears. “I can’t believe you walked through a snowstorm.”
He blinks, confusion in the set of his heavy eyebrows. “Are you mad?”
I pull him close and nest my fingers in the back of his soft sweater. “Slightly. Mom didn’t even go to work yet, so the roads must be bad.”
“I didn’t drive.”
“Walking is just as dangerous!”
“I was careful, I promise, but anyway . . .” His hands frame my upper arms and he pushes me back enough to look at me. “I told you at Thanksgiving that I’ll be a fool for you.” His dark brown eyes are scorching, demanding mine. “Did you think I’d forget?”
My breath hitches. “I didn’t think it meant you’d brave a snowstorm for me.”
He drifts closer, his cheek brushing mine as his lips ghost the shell of my ear. “You make it sound more adventurous than it was.”
“I can’t make it sound much stupider.”
He chuckles, a quick, deep rumble of a laugh, and lets his forehead touch mine. “Maybe I couldn’t resist seeing the excitement in your eyes when I told you. I didn’t realize worry would overshadow it.”
“Say it again.”
He pulls back, amusement glimmering in his gaze. “We have a snow day, Jack.”
His vinyl voice sends a ripple through me. He came over for me. “You defied nature to get to me, and now we have the entire day to do whatever we want.”
He smiles. “That’s more like it.”
I kiss him with a laugh. “Good morning, by the way,” I say against his mouth.
He holds me close for a second longer, and we head to the kitchen.
“Mom, can you tell Eli he was an idiot for walking through a snowstorm this early?” I ask as we enter. “I couldn’t.”
She stands and gives him a hug. “No can do, honey.”
I balk. “What?”
“Visibility isn’t great, from what the weather station is saying, but most places are delayed and closed because there’s a good layer of ice under the snow on the roads, before the freezing rain last night became snow. The walk here was mostly on snow, wasn’t it, Eli?”
“Yep,” he says.
“I will say it wasn’t the wisest decision you’ve ever made,” Mom tells Eli, “but you’re here, you’re safe, and you can get warm before you two go out later, like I’m sure you will.”
I grab a banana from the bowl on the counter and throw it to Eli. Well, at him, but he catches it with one hand.
“Someone’s grumpy this morning,” he says, shaking the banana at me. “Bet you’re hangry.”
“The banana tip you off?”
He moves to the pantry and grabs two Pop Tarts from the box, then gestures to the living room with a tilt of his head. “Christmas movie time.”
“Which one?”
“You pick.”
We end up going classic again, but a different kind of classic than White Christmas.
A comedy classic. The Santa Claus. One of my favorites, which I learn Eli’s never seen (and since there are two sequels and he seems to like it as much as I do, we have the next two movies we’ll watch already picked out).
But the world is awake, now. Mom, Janet, and Hugh are all in the living room. Janet draws back the blinds and I wince at the glare of the sun off fresh white snow.
“The storm is done!” I cry.
“Should they have just kept us on a delay schedule?” Eli asks.
“The roads are probably still messy,” Janet says.
“They can’t change it now,” I say, grinning. I look at Hugh. “You wanna build a snowman with us?”
Hugh jumps up and down. “Yes!”
Janet corrals Hugh into his snow gear while Eli and I don ours. I look Eli’s over. “You seem very prepared for someone who said they’ve never fully enjoyed a snow day.”
“I might have ordered a few things after Thanksgiving. Just to be prepared.” Eli clears his throat. “The snowpants are great.”
“Let’s go!” Hugh says, barreling past us to slam his mitten hands on the front door.
“You got him for a few minutes?” Janet asks.
“Yeah, no worries.” I meet Eli’s eyes. “He’s got more weight to him with all this gear, so brace yourself for a snow monster tackle.”
Hugh roars and laughs, and I open the door to let him run out into the snow, hot on his heels.
I can accept him being the first one out the door, but I have to at least tie with him to be first on the snow.
Eli doesn’t count, since he came in the thick of it.
There’s just something about making your footprint on that blank canvas, before anything or anyone else has shifted the powder.
Hugh trips over his clunky kids’ boots and goes down with a chortle. I barrel roll next to him. “I know I said snowman, but maybe some snow angels first? Since we’re already on the ground?”
“You are,” Eli says, standing over me and crossing his arms.
I hook my foot behind his knee and pull him down beside me. He grunts with the landing, then flicks snow in my face.
“Snowman!” Hugh says, tugging my arm while I’m still stunned by Eli’s attack.
“It’d be more of a snow devil anyway, with you doing it,” Eli says with a teasing smile, standing and pulling me with him in the motion.
“Have you ever made a snowman?” I ask Eli.
His expression goes serious. “I make one in the park every year. A little one.”
“Get ready to make a Hugh-sized one. We’ll get him properly dressed, too, once he has a body.
Hat, scarf, mittens. Everything. But no food dye.
” Eli looks at me quizzically. I bite my lip.
“I tried to make my snowman pop last year, and used red food dye around the buttons . . . and around the base.”
Eli’s mouth falls open.
“I wrote his name in red, too,” I say, grimacing at the memory. As it melted, the red spread, the buttonholes looking . . . much less festive than they should. Unless you wanted something like Die Hard.
“What did you expect red on snow to look like?”
“I don’t know! Red catches people’s eye!”
He stares at me, mouth open again as if really stuck on how to respond, and then sighs and pats my arm. He crouches, scooping up snow and rolling it.
“Maybe we could use blue this year,” I say.
Eli flicks more snow at me. “Maybe you can help build the snowman. I have half the torso. Hugh already has the head done.”
He’s right. Hugh has a lumpy, oval mass of snow that could function as a head, and is watching Eli make his section bigger.
“All right. I’ll make the butt.”
Hugh cracks up, and I grin at him. In minutes we have our snowman constructed, and I tell Hugh to go ask for snowman clothes, confident Mom will know what he means. He comes running out with the wooden box cradled to his chest.
“Mom got this kit when she was a kid,” I tell Eli, opening the box and handing him the three sturdy black buttons. “It has all the pieces you need to make a snow gentleman.”
I help Hugh shove the stick arms in place and let Eli put on the buttons.
Black beads form the snowman’s smile, and flat black rocks serve as his eyes.
His nose is a wooden carrot with a plain stick on one end, to be shoved in place so only the carrot is seen.
I lift Hugh to place the top hat that completes the look on our snowman’s head, and then plop onto the snow to look at our masterpiece.
“You know, this may be the best one I’ve made yet.”
Eli sits beside me, knocking against my shoulder in the motion. “It can’t be worse than the holiday horror show you described from last year.”
“It wasn’t a horror show,” I say immediately. “It was like a homicide site.”
“Yeah, that’s much better.”
Hugh walks all around the snowman, inspecting him. “You like him, bud?”
He charges at the snowman, trying to wrap his arms around him. “I love him!”
“Just try not to break him. Maybe we’ll be able to keep him through Christmas.”
Hugh smooths a hand over the snowman’s torso and backs up, and looks at me with an expression I know too well.
“Brace yourself,” I tell Eli, as Hugh roars and charges at me.
I catch him with an “oomph,” and a feeling like a bowling ball just rolled into me, and roll him onto Eli to give myself time to stand.
Eli tries to tickle Hugh, but Hugh’s snowsuit makes that futile.
I had the time I needed, and chase Hugh all around the yard as soon as he’s upright, feigning a dragon roar.
Eli gets in on it, sometimes chasing Hugh, sometimes doubling back to help Hugh chase me, and Hugh’s laughing so hard he drops to the ground a few minutes later and says he’s tired.
Eli rushes over to me, wrapping me in his strong arms. “It’s okay, Hugh,” he says. “I caught him for you.”
I turn my face toward Eli, and he’s so close our noses touch. “That’s two times in the last week you’ve caught me.”
He has the sweetest smile on his face. “You’re clumsy. Odds are I’ll have plenty of opportunities to catch you. And to warm you up. Your nose is freezing.”
“Yours isn’t much warmer.”
I pull Hugh upright and urge him toward the house, Eli following behind. “You admitted I caught you when we were dancing,” Eli says in a low voice. “You know that, right?”
Dang.
“Maybe.”
He pulls me toward the door as he closes it, meeting my lips with his for the briefest instant before starting to take off his snow gear.
Just enough of a tease to make every thought fly from my mind.
“We should see if Seth and Fred want to hang out later,” he says, unzipping his coat.
“We could build another snowman in the park. I’ll show you where I make mine every year. ”
“Sounds great. Right now, though? I need some hot chocolate.”