With his hands pressing on my back, Jonah began to count down from three before, with a squeal of joy from him and a scream of horror from me, he launched me away.
My heartbeat thumped as the wind rushed through my hair, gravity giving me significant speed. The cold air was almost unbearable, like jagged little spikes against my soft skin. I would have hated it…if it weren’t for the absolute thrill of going down.
I felt like a child again, the magic of the snow finally having some appeal, the discomfort worth the experience, the rush.
When I came to a stop at the bottom, I barely waited a moment before I was turning back around, clambering back up, the snow deep and slowing against aching muscles, the absolute joy unabating as I summited the hill once again.
“Did you have fun?” Jonah asked, his smile a mile wide.
“It was alright,” I said with a slight shrug of my shoulders. As I grew closer, I held out the sled. “Your turn.”
“Admit it,” he teased. “You loved it.”
I couldn’t help my telling grin as I held the sled towards him. “Fine. Maybe it wasn’t completely terrible.”
“You don’t want to go again?”
I shook my head. “We can take turns.”
Jonah smiled gratefully before climbing on board, his large body almost taking up the entire thing.
“Want me to give you a shove?” I offered.
“Hell yeah!”
I wanted to roll my eyes at him, but it was too irresistible. The effort he was putting in, all for me, to turn my trip around. And that goofy lopsided smile? The way his nose and cheeks turned rosy with the cold and brown tuffs of hair stuck out of his knitted hat? None of it helped.
With all my strength, I pushed Jonah down, watching as he whooped and yelled with glee as he accelerated away. At the bottom, instead of slowing down, he crash-landed, laughing as he rolled over the snow.
For a moment, he was still, and fear began to bite alongside the cold.
“Jonah?” I shouted. “Are you okay?”
Then, he pushed up, sitting straight upright from the snow, his arms stuck up in the air. “That—was—awesome!” And then he was up, running back up the hill. We took a few more turns, alternating, the freezing air burning our lungs as we laughed.
Back home, I’d probably be bored shitless at some A-list event, trying to avoid all the men searching for their fourth wife. Here, with him? I didn’t need to pretend. Around him, everything felt special.
I hadn’t felt like this in so long. This alive.
“Right.” Jonah clapped his mitten-clad hands together. “Are you ready for the big one?”
I followed his gaze behind me, the much bigger hill standing proud behind him. “Absolutely not. It’s practically a Munro.”
“Barely. It’s a little taller,” he retorted. “Come on, do it once, and if you hate it we can go back inside.”
I thought of the bottles of white wine we’d stuck in the snow at the cabin to chill, his fridge too full with tomorrow’s feast. All that food had looked like far too much for one person.
“Really?”
He nodded. “I promise. Try once.”
Reluctantly, I followed him up the peak. I was almost sweating when we reached the summit, the snow difficult to track as we climbed, but the view from the top made it worth it. The entire glen was lit up in moonlight, the snow sparkling under its glow. Tall, white-peaked mountains curved round the distance, a forest of trees between us and the sleeping giants, stars littering the sky between dark storm clouds. Not even a runway at Paris Fashion Week could look this beautiful.
“You ready?” Jonah asked.
“To die? No, I’m far too young,” I joked. “Are you going first?”
“And leave you to chicken out? Never!”
