Let It Snow

by Cassie Cross

  That gets him moving. We spend the next ten minutes in a rush trying to get everything together, shoving clothes in bags and looking under every nook and cranny to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. Josh moves the couch back to its original position as I remove the lights on my tree, careful to not jostle too many of the needles. He takes the bags out to the car and warms it up, then trudges over to the front office to check out while I carefully lay my tree in the car because we don’t have time to tie it up again.

  This is not exactly the morning after I’d imagined. That involved Josh kissing me awake, and us taking a little time to talk about exactly what this is and what we both intend on doing about it.

  Since that whole situation is lingering in the air—we basically just jumped each other and spoke with our bodies instead of our words. But the words are important; I need to see them, I need to hear them.

  It’s a conversation that I don’t really want to have driving down the interstate when I can’t really look at him, or touch him, or have his full attention.

  The ride home is awkward to say the least.

  “Should we talk about this?” Josh asks when he can’t take the awkward silence anymore.

  I look over at him, and would do pretty much anything to make that look on his face disappear, but not here. Not now. “You have to pay attention to driving, and when we talk about this I’d really like it if you were paying attention to me.”

  That gets a soft, genuine laugh out of him and it makes my heart fly. He offers me a tentative smile, and I give it right back.

  Things are gonna be okay.

  I think.

  I stare out the window for a long time, spending a couple of hours just spinning through the different scenarios before me. Something in my life is changing drastically, and soon. Am I getting into a long-distance relationship with my best friend, separated from the get go? Do I look for jobs in New York? Do I live with my parents while I get settled into something new? What if I can’t find a job here? What if I can’t find one in Austin? I could always start freelancing, but that’s kind of how I got into this situation in the first place.

  For someone who doesn’t deal well with change, there’s a lot of it on my plate and quite frankly, I’m freaking out. I look over at Josh, the person who’s always been my shelter in the storm. Now he’s standing outside with me, getting battered by the rain too. Then again, I’ve never gone wrong just reaching out for him, so that’s what I do.

  I twine my fingers through his, resting my arm next to his on the console.

  He gives me this soft look, like just my touch took a weight off his shoulders. He brings my hand up to his lips and kisses the back of it.

  We ride the rest of the way home holding hands.

  My parents meet us out in their driveway; they probably saw us driving up on the security system my dad’s always tinkering with. When my mom recognizes that it’s me sitting in the passenger seat, she runs over with her arms open wide, letting out an excited squeal.

  She wraps me up tight and rocks me back and forth. It feels good to see her, I ache to think that I might’ve missed this. It’s all I can do to keep myself from crying.

  Yet another thing in my life I have to thank Josh for.

  “Baby, I’m so glad to see you,” she says, dramatically peppering kisses on my face. “I thought you weren’t coming home?”

  “Josh helped me surprise you,” I tell her.

  That sends her off toward Josh like a heat-seeking missile with a singular purpose. “Oh Joshie, thank you for bringing my baby home.” He laughs as she kisses his cheek, then notices the slightly blooming bruise there. “Honey what happened?”

  “He defended my honor against a drunk,” I tell her, which earns him another peck.

  “Pumpkin,” Dad says, giving me a hug. “It’s so good to see you.” After giving me a squeeze, he goes over to help Josh with my bag and the tree.

  “We’re having some work done in your old room, Amy. How about you sleep in the garage apartment tonight? I know you probably would like your own space.”

  After living in a 4-bedroom place with three other people, yeah. Having my own space sounds pretty nice, especially when it’s a few steps away from my family.

  “I can take your things up if you want,” Josh says.

  My dad claps him on the back and digs in his pocket for the keys. The two of them walk off toward the garage, talking about something that fades away with distance.

  I watch them, until Mom obstructs my view and takes my face in her hands.

  She looks at me in that way that mothers do sometimes, all the way inside.

  “What’s wrong, Ames? Tell me.”

  I place my hands over hers and give them a gentle squeeze.

  “Not right now,” I say, looking back to where Dad and Josh are standing at the apartment door.

  She looks like she wants to fight me on it, but doesn’t.

  When Josh and Dad come back, we all stand there awkwardly. Mom asks if Josh wants to stay for dinner, but he declines, anxious to get home himself. I’m pretty sure my parents can feel this giant thing hanging between us, but thankfully they don’t say anything.

  He says goodnight to my parents, then squeezes my hand.

  “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” His gaze is intense, a promise.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  As he climbs back into his car, Mom wraps her arm around me and walks me inside.

  I’m curled up in bed in the garage apartment, staring at my little tree. My dad found an old tree stand lying around and it’s nearly the size of the one that it’s holding. I dug a couple of ornaments out of the decorations box my mom hid in the front closet, but it’s missing something.

  I feel like I’m missing something with things between Josh and me so unsettled.

  I check my phone for the hundredth time. No calls, no messages. It’s creeping up on 10:30, the time he’d usually sneak up to see me. Only this year everything is different, and there’s no trellis up to the room I’m currently in.

  A nervous rush races through me when there’s a knock on the door downstairs, but it opens a second later and my mom yells, “Is it okay if I come in?”

  I sit up on the bed, folding my legs under me. “Yeah.”

  I try not to sound too disappointed, because I had a really lovely night with her and dad. I can’t express how happy I am that I came, how grateful I am to Josh for making it possible.

  Mom rounds the corner at the top of the stairs in a peacoat layered over her favorite bathrobe and a pair of warm boots on her feet. She sits down next to me, and pushes my hair out of my face in that very Mom way she has of doing it.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” she says. “Is it work?”

  I sigh. “In a way, yeah. But Mom, I’m in the middle of an emotional crisis so if you could please not criticize my life choices too harshly at the moment I would really appreciate it.”

  “I promise,” she says, caressing my cheek. “If I criticize, it’s only because I want you to be happy, my darling. It’s just an attempt to steer you in the right direction so that you can be.”

  “I’m not happy,” I admit.

  “I know. Want to tell me why?”

  “Well, to start, I’m scared of change.”

  She laughs. “Don’t I know it. You haven’t liked it from the moment you were born. You had this grumpy scowl on your face for a week; I think you resented me for giving birth to you and making you leave your warm little bubble.”

  I huff out a laugh.

  “You’ve always had to work your way up to it; nothing wrong with that.”

  “I need a new job,” I sigh. “I’m underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. I’m scared that I’m lacking the skillset I’ll need to make it somewhere else, scared of taking that leap, scared that I won’t be any good at it.”

  “There’s a learning curve for everything, Ames, even for experts in new environments. But there hasn’t been a single thing that
you’ve put your mind to that you weren’t able to excel at, baby. I could not be more proud of you. You just need to dip your toe into the water and jump in.”

  I wring my hands together. “Well, that’s the other thing. I don’t know where I should be dipping my toes in the water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know Josh is moving back up here.”

  She nods. “The moment Gloria told me, I knew you were going to have a hard time with it.”

  “The thing is…” I dig at a hangnail to delay the inevitable. “I’m kind of beginning to realize that I don’t want to be away from him for…for reasons that aren’t entirely friendly.”

  She laughs and squeezes my hand. “You finally figured that out, huh?”

  I look at her, shocked. “What do you mean?”

  “I have eyes, baby. I see the way you look at each other.”

  “How long have you known?”

  She shrugs. “Years?”

  “Mom!” I say.

  “You always did take a long time to come around.”

  I shake my head, breathing out a soft laugh. “Well, now I’m realizing how I feel about him, and the new job thing becomes more complicated. Do I look for work up here and move? Do I stay in Austin and try to make something long-distance work? But then…if it does, then I’ll have to move eventually, so isn’t that delaying the inevitable?”

  “You two could make anything work, and I’d love to have you home. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for you here if that’s what you want. But if you really want to stay in Austin, you guys will figure it out.”

  “Doesn’t moving up here mean I’m, I don’t know…codependent?”

  She leans in and kisses my forehead. “I think it means you’re in love. And if you were talking about someone you’d just met I might be a little more concerned, but…it’s Josh. There’s nothing in the world that could tear that boy away from you. You think he’s gonna be deterred by a couple thousand miles?”

  I smile, relieved. Yeah, she’s probably right about that.

  I open my mouth to tell her so when there’s a thump outside the window.

  “Speaking of Josh, I think that’s my cue to go.”

  I get up and look out the window, catching the rungs of a ladder along the roofline. “He’s climbing up here?”

  “He asked your dad if he could borrow a ladder.”

  I smile and open the window, anxious and excited.

  “Old traditions die hard, baby girl. I have the feeling you’re about to make some new ones. I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow. I’ll set two places.” She gives me a wink, then heads down the stairs.

  Josh knocks on the window, a sly smile on his face. “Can I come in?”

  And just like that, everything is right in my world.

  “Yeah,” I say, reaching out for his hand. “C’mon.”

  Chapter Nine

  This window is smaller than the one for my bedroom in the house, so it takes a little doing but Josh finally maneuvers his way in. That’s when I notice that he’s carrying a small wrapped box with a beautiful bow on it.

  “Did you climb up here without the full use of both of your hands?” I ask, on the verge of panicking as visions of him falling off the ladder flash through my head.

  Sensing the oncoming panic, he takes my hand and sits down with me on the edge of the bed, placing the box to the side.

  “I worked really hard on wrapping this and didn’t want to ruin the bow.”

  “It’s really beautiful,” I say, then get up and pick up the gift that I have wrapped for him under my tree. I place it right alongside his. “I’m glad you didn’t break your whole body to get it to me.”

  He smiles as I reach up and glide my fingertips along the tender, bruised skin on his cheek. “There’s no trellis here.”

  “Just trying to keep our traditions alive, huh?”

  He smiles and snuggles against my hand. “And starting some new ones, I think.” He kisses my palm, then takes my hand in his.

  “Ames, I messed up last night. I’ve wanted you for so long that when I finally had you, I got too wrapped up in it and forgot to say the things I should’ve said before I made love to you for the first time.”

  A thrill shoots through me. “I think you said a lot without saying anything,” I assure him, wanting to ease the burden of any regrets that are tied to last night. I have none. The delicate tenderness underlying every touch, no matter how heated, was very loud in the silence. He held me and kissed me like a man in love, I have no doubt about that.

  “Yeah,” he says with a soft, knowing smile. “But you don’t jump first and ask questions later, and…I should’ve told you how I felt about you, I was just…really distracted.”

  I laugh. “Me too.”

  He smile melts away from his face into something more serious. He leans in slow until our noses brush, then kisses me soft and sure. “You’re the love of my life, Ames.” He presses his forehead to mine, and I just take a moment to revel in the words, to let them course through me, wrapping around my heart.

  “And you’re the love of mine. I figured it out that day on Lake Austin.”

  He pulls away, searching my eyes. “When you jumped.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, nodding. “I didn’t want to, but you yelled—”

  “I’ve got you.”

  I kiss him again. “Yeah. I realized then that you had me in more ways than I was willing to admit. Did you notice?”

  He smiles. “I hoped. You were different, I wasn’t sure. I knew it’d be a big deal, and I didn’t want to spook you.”

  “When did you realize?”

  He shrugs. “That day in Mrs. Garber’s class when I fell off the swings and you brushed the rocks out of my skinned hands and kissed my tears away.”

  I let out a shocked laugh. “We were six!”

  He laughs back. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

  I kiss him again, not wanting to waste another second. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he says, wrapping me up in his arms. “You were worth the wait, and I think I had some lessons I needed to learn along the way.” He pulls back and glides the backs of his fingers along my cheeks. “I love you, Ames.”

  Three simple words that mean so much: twenty-six years of friendship, a lifetime of togetherness, and a future full of possibility.

  “I love you.”

  We’re both laughing and kissing through our smiles, relieved and happy.

  “Can I open my present?” he asks. He’s always been super impatient when there’s a gift nearby with his name on it.

  “Yeah.” I hand it over, and being the guy that he is, he doesn’t stand on ceremony, just rips the paper wide open. Our Christmas Eve gifts have usually been something silly and heartfelt, but this is mostly the latter.

  Josh puts the white box on the bed next to him, and gently lifts off the top, then pulls away the tissue paper to reveal the frame that I picked out for him. It’s modern, simple and shows off the picture inside.

  It’s one that Parker took of us standing on the shore of Lake Austin, when we swam back after the jump. We’re both soaking wet and happy, looking at each other like a couple in love.

  I guess we were then, I was just too scared and stupid to realize it. Josh’s finger reverently traces the outline of my face, and it’s so cute that I can’t even be mad at him for smudging the frame.

  “I got this for your new place so you could remember me,” I tell him.

  He kisses me, slow and deep. “I don’t need to remember you, I think about you all the time. But I love this, thank you.” He leans in for another kiss, and I think this is going to wind up being one of my favorite things about no longer loving him in silence: kissing him whenever I want.

  “I bought it to go with the stuff that I picked out for your apartment, which I realize was pretty presumptuous of me since it’s your place, and not mine.”

  “It’s our place,�
�� he says. “Whether you live there or not. You always have a home with me, Ames.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, blinking back tears. He always knows just the right thing to say to nip any worry I’m having right in the bud.

  “Yeah. Is that too fast? Too forward?”

  “No,” I say, for once in my life not feeling scared of what’s on the horizon. I’m looking forward to it, actually. I have people who love me and places to go. I’m gonna be all right. “It’s good to know.”

  “You stay in Austin, I’ll fly down every spare moment I have. You move back here and stay with your parents, I’ll make the drive. You move back here and want to live with me? I’ll definitely get that rolling cart for a microwave and a tree. But we don’t have to figure that out tonight,” he says, reaching for the tiny box. “You should open this.”

  I, being sentimental, take the time to undo the bow and pull the paper apart at the seams so I don’t rip it. I know it drives Josh nuts, but he doesn’t say anything.

  Inside is a delicate glass heart ornament, with the same picture inside that I’ve just given to him. In swooping script along the edge of the heart is: Our First Christmas.

  I trace the outline with my finger, overcome.

  “I think this is for married couples,” I tell him.

  He leans in closer, brushing his lips against mine. “Well, we’ll just have to find another one that year. I thought maybe this could be a new tradition.”

  His honey-brown eyes meet mine, promising forever.

  Yeah, I’m gonna marry him, no doubt about it.

  “Sounds like a deal. Although I’m curious…is this the gift you originally planned on giving me tonight?”

  He laughs. “No.”

  My curiosity gets the better of me. “What was it?”

  “A Jolly Green Giant t-shirt.”

  I laugh and pull him up so we can go put this ornament on the tree. We debate over the placement, and after a little adjusting find the perfect spot right in the middle. He wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my head as we admire that little tree that’s come with us on quite a journey. I’m gonna be sad to let it go, but there will be many, many more to come.