Under a nearby streetlamp, Piper and Kappy looked like they were having an intense conversation.
“Wow, that was a crazy end to the night, eh?” Ali asked beside me through chattering teeth.
I immediately tugged her closer and rubbed my hands up and down her arms. “Yeah, it really was,” I said with a chuckle. “What do you wanna do now?”
“Oh, um…” She looked around the empty sidewalks. “I don’t know. Is our night over?” she asked quietly while her body trembled from the cold.
I shrugged. “Do you want it to be?”
“Me?” she squeaked in surprise.
I looked down at her strangely. “Yeah, you,” I said with a laugh.
She bit her lip in thought. “I don’t really want to go to bed yet, but I am hungry and cold.”
“Same.” I grinned. Her face immediately relaxed, like she was relieved she said the right answer. “There’s a pretty good pizza spot on the way home. We could grab some on our way back? Have our own little after-party in the living room?”
Her face lit up so much I had to laugh.
“Okay, pizza it is,” I said with a grin.
I kept her tucked under my arm to keep her warm as we made our way through the lightly falling snow.
An hour later, we were both three slices of pizza deep and in sweatpants and hoodies, curled up on the lumpy couch in our billet house. The three of us really lucked out with this particular billet family. We had the whole first floor of this house to ourselves, which included three small rooms, a tiny living room, and a kitchenette. An elderly couple, our “billet family,” lived on the second floor and occasionally made meals for us and showed up to games when they felt like it.
“I’m excited to see the roses come back in the spring,” Ali said as she fished another breadstick out of the box. “I really hope I didn’t hurt them when we were pruning.” She frowned. “I’m not the best at it.”
I laughed. She probably decimated at least a few of them, but I’d never say that aloud. “Nah, I’m sure ya did well. My dad’s probably loving it that someone finally listens to him go on and on and on—”
“Oh stop,” she said, playfully swatting my stomach. “Your dad is so nice.”
I snorted. “No, he just has a soft spot for you.” When I was training her at Herb’s over the summer, she broke five pots, tripped and tore down the shade cloth covering a whole section of flowers, and accidentally spilled a huge bag of soil on top of herself in the storefront, but my dad didn’t get mad at her a single time. In fact, each time she messed up, he’d comfort her. I couldn’t blame him. Ali was pure sunshine, and she brought a new light to Herb’s.
“That’s not true,” she said, but she couldn’t hide her grin.
I arched an amused eyebrow. “Okay, so when I over-watered the hydrangeas, what happened?”
“He swatted you upside the head,” she snickered.
“And…”
She scrunched her nose. “And there may have been some yelling involved.”
I nodded. “And the last time you forgot to bring in the display of petite arborvitaes and the deer ate ‘em all up, he…?” I eyed her.
She twisted her lips in an effort not to laugh.
“He…” I motioned for her to finish the sentence.
“He gave me a pat on the head,” she conceded. “But that’s because I was crying,” she argued with a laugh. “He knows I didn’twantto hurt them.”
My eyes widened. “And Iwantedto hurt the hydrangeas?”
She pushed a finger into my chest as her eyes smiled up at me. “You called them stupid flowers.”
I scoffed. “They are.”
“You hurt their feelings.” She pouted her lip out.
