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warning, nipping him sharply on an
inner thigh.
    “Okay, back to bed it is,” he capitulated.
“And, just so you know, feel free to taunt me any time you want,
lady.”
     
    ***
     
    Daniel didn’t know the instant he made the
error that would drastically change the direction of their weekend,
but he could pinpoint it later.
    He stayed over that night out of silent
mutual agreement, and they eventually slept wrapped together and
exhausted. When he woke the next morning, his arm was dead from the
shoulder down after having pillowed her all night, but it was worth
it. He slid himself out from under her and brought her English
muffins and jam in bed, because, after all he had experienced that
weekend, he was still something of the creature of habit he always
was. Only now, he added two mugs of strong coffee and cream.
    “Are you sorry you didn’t get any skiing in
this weekend?” he asked.
    “Yes and no,” she sighed. “I like skiing,
but I can’t say I’ve been under-exercised at all.”
    “I can attest to that,” he said, rubbing his
sore abs ruefully. “It’s been a great workout. I work on my
endurance a bit more, and I can change my major to bagpipes.”
    “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” she
winked. “I don’t think your endurance needs that much work.”
    He watched her take a hungry bite of muffin
and lick a glob of grape jelly off her lip. How beautiful she was,
so natural and at ease with herself in a way the young girls he had
known never were.
    “It snowed last night,” she noted. “Build a
snowman with me?”
    Laughing and shaking his head, he couldn’t
deny her any request, and soon found himself running to his house
for enough winter wear to survive her seemingly inexhaustible
appetite for outside activity.
    The snowman, lopsided and slightly pathetic
from their failure to take the project seriously, was his first one
in years.
    “Here, I think this side is a bit wonky,” he
said, aiming to adjust the oddly deformed shoulder, but ending up
knocking half the snowman’s body off.
    Deflecting her mock revenge for the death of
her masterpiece, Daniel scrambled over the mass of defunct snow
person, and sought refuge on the porch.
    “Prepare for icy death, Vouks,” she growled
though clenched teeth in an adorable improvement on Clint
Eastwood’s most menacing moments, and launched a fleet of snowballs
at his head.
    Dodging off the steps, and away from the
fragile window panes, he headed to take cover behind the obscured
bench in her backyard.
    “Are you running from snow?” she scoffed,
foiling his attempts to avoid a soaking by twanging the branches
above him and dumping a slew of icy slush down upon him.
    “Hey now,” he yelped, shaking off the
burning cold and tackling her into the snow bank behind her and
falling on top of her in a laughing heap. “No more Mr. Niceguy,” he
ground out.
    “Good,” she sighed. “I was wondering when
Mr. Badboy would arrive.”
    “You want bad?” he asked. “You want mean?
I’ll show you mean,” shoving a whole glove full of snow up under
her shirt, just as she countered with a wad of snow down the back
of his jacket.
    Shivering and giggling, breath coming in
puffs that hung around their chilled mouths and red noses, they
laid there a moment, feeling the heat rise again within them. All
of a sudden, as his awareness of her rose, his realization that
every curtain twitch brought a prying eye from one of his mother’s
long term friends nagged at him.
    “Wanna go in and… warm up?” he recommended,
suggestively.
    “Thought you’d never ask,” she smiled, and
bounced towards the house, having rolled him into the snow for one
last shot.
    He knew what he was feeling for her was more
than a weekend fling, and that sooner or later they would have to
deal with going out in public without worrying about twitching
curtains.
    For now, though, it was enough to have her
all to himself in their own little world.
     
    ***
     
    “Happy