“Are you sure you want to spend all of break here? You could do half here and half with your family.” I push her hair away from her face. “I don’t want to make things worse, Presley.”
Her arms squeeze around my waist. “It can’t get any worse than it already is. Besides, here,” she buries her face in my chest, “is exactly where I want to be.”
Her words warm my heart and all I can do is whisper that I love her and listen as she tells me the same thing. I hold her tight as I drift to sleep.
~
“Levi! Wake up!”
I roll over to see Presley looking out the window. “What?” I groan.
“It’s snowing!” She grins at me quickly before looking back outside.
Laughing, I say, “It’s not Christmas morning and it’s not like we’ve never seen it before, Smarty. We live in the North. Snow isn’t uncommon.”
“I know that, but I love when it snows in the morning, especially around the holidays. Don’t be such a grinch, Levi.” Presley’s smile is breathtaking in combination with her crazy bed-hair. “What are you grinning about, Carr?” she asks, coming over to the bed.
I grab her wrist and pull her dow
n on me, causing her to giggle. “I’m grinning because you’re beautiful and all mine.” Quickly, I kiss her. “You should go get dressed.”
“Why?”
“So I can take you outside where you can play like a little kid.”
“Are you going to play with me?” She raises an eyebrow and I chuckle.
“We’ll see.” We get dressed, head downstairs, and find Pops in the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m fixing you lazy bums some breakfast.”
“Are you sure you need to be doing all of this?” I ask, which earns me a glare.
“C’mon, Levi,” Presley says, pulling me outside. “He’s fine,” she adds when we walk outside. “He won’t overdo it, so don’t worry.”
I nod, keeping my thoughts to myself. Presley kneels down and picks up some snow, molding it in her hands. I look around at the houses nearby, all decorated for the holidays. Something hits my shoulder and I look down at the remnants of snow, then to Presley who is grinning widely.
“Oops. It slipped from my hands.” She smiles.
“And flew across the yard?”
Smarty nods.
“You’re going to regret that, Smarty.” I bend down, pick up some snow to make a snowball, and throw it at her. Quickly, I make another as she does the same while running for cover. Soon, we’re in a full-blown snowball fight and she is losing terribly.
“Levi,” Presley calls out from behind her pitiful cover of a tree. I’m behind my SUV. “I’m cold, hungry, and ready to surrender.”
The front door opens and my father announces that breakfast is ready.
“We’ll be in soon, Pops. Presley was just surrendering.” No way am I going to let her give up, especially when she got the last hit. I have to throw at least one more.
“Son, you let her come in. I know you better than you think.” He turns to where Presley is hiding. “He’s going to get ya one more time, pretty girl.”
“Is that true?” she yells to me.
“Of course, it’s true,” Pops answers. “Now, Levi, you are going to stay right there and let her come in. Understood?”
“Sure,” I lie.