He starts laughing so hard, he falls over into the snow.
I slowly lift the bowl off my head as my face burns. “What?”
He struggles to his feet, and points at me, his hand flapping like a bird wing in slow motion because he’s still laughing. “Not that way, you goofball.”
I cock my arm with the bowl behind my head, ready to wing it at him.
“No! Don’t throw it! Just put it on your head the other way!”
I stare at the bowl in confusion. “What other way?”
“Right side up! How’re you going to catch any snow with it upside down?”
Suddenly the lightbulb goes on. “Oooooh, you want me to catch some snow in the bowl? Why didn’t you just say so?” I take it and bend down, planning to scoop up a whole bunch of the fluffy white stuff.
“No, not that crap on the ground. You want the snow from the trees. Hold on, I’ll get it for ya.”
My jaw eases open as I prepare to respond, but then the words are stolen away by surprise when I see him climbing the tree. Tiny limbs and barely-there ridges are enough for his boots to get a grip, and suddenly he’s up to the same level as the branch above me.
“Now put the bowl on your head like I told you.”
I sigh out really loudly, letting him know how silly I think this whole thing is. But I put the bowl on my head now and wait. “This is ridiculous. I feel like an idiot.”
“Just oooone moooore second…” Jeremy climbs up a few more feet, stands on the branch, and begins jumping up and down on it, holding onto the tree trunk for balance.
I open my mouth to protest, but close it when it fills with snow.
Every bit of the frozen white pile that was on the branch is now on me.
“Awesome!” Jeremy yells. “Hold it right there! Don’t spill any of it!”
I’m too busy spitting snow out of my mouth and blinking it off my eyelashes to answer him. He’s going to be in so much trouble when I get my hands on him.
I hear a big BOOF! and realize that he’s jumped out of the tree and into the snow. He struggles through his former path to get to me, a huge grin on his face.
“Are you ready for some dessert?” he asks.
I blink at him, melted snow making it look like I’m crying. “If you tell me my dessert is snow, I’m going to kill you.”
He reaches up slowly and takes the bowl from my head. “Easy now. Wouldn’t want you to spill your dessert.” He gives me a big exaggerated wink, pushes me in between the boobs, sending me on my back into the snow, and takes off running with the bowl held to his chest.
I point at his back, my other arm and legs flailing around, trying to make contact with something that will help me get to my feet. “Kill, Jaws! Kill! Bite him in the ass!”
Jaws picks his way over the uneven snow and stops when he gets to my leg, using it to leverage himself up onto four feet. He starts walking daintily up my leg. When I see him coming for me and guess his plans, I flip onto my side and then get on all fours. “No way, you stinky mutt. No French kisses. Not anymore. Not ever again.”
Struggling through the snow, I make my way back to the cabin with Jaws behind me. The door to the cabin slams shut as I reach the bottom of the stairs. My heart is racing and my pulse pounding, and it’s not all from the workout I just got trying to get through the snow. Jeremy is most definitely flirting. I just have to decide what I’m going to do about it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
STOMPING LIKE A BIG GIANT among Lilliputians as I cross the porch helps to get rid of most of the snow from my body and boots. I leave the rest to melt into puddles just inside the door to the cabin. Jeremy’s already undressed and standing in the kitchen with two bowls.
“Do you prefer maple syrup or blueberry?” he asks.
My plans for revenge are tempered by two of my favorite words. “What?” Maple syrup? Blueberry? Sex on a beach? What?
He holds up two bottles. One looks like regular old maple syrup like I’d buy for my pancakes, and the other looks like something that would be at a snow-cone machine at a state fair. I can’t help but grin like a kid.
“You have snow-cone syrup?”
“Always. It’s a tradition up here at the cabin. But you have to use the right snow. You can’t risk anything that’s been on the ground. Too many critters with bladders around here.”
I sit at the stool where I had my dinner and watch as he pours maple syrup over a round ball of snow in a bowl.