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“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE have to make some snow?” Holly asked, eventually falling into step behind me when the apparent shock wore off. “I heard him, but you must have heard his mother. We can’t just make snow fall. I know you are good at Christmas and everything, but you can’t possibly be that good.”
“I might not be able to create actual snow,” I said, “but we can make the next best thing.”
“Sno-cones?” she asked.
I laughed. “Not exactly. I was thinking more along the lines of fake snow the guests can play with. Mostly Vint, obviously, but I think the older children and even the adults would like it too. We just have to find the right recipe.”
I got to her office and stepped aside to wait for her to unlock the door and go in first.
“I would have no idea how to make something like that,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of fake snow for people to play with. Unless you’re talking about that stuff that puffs out of the machines during parades and at theme parks. But isn’t that just soap bubbles? I guess I could fluff up a whole bunch of dish liquid if you think they would like it.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking,” I said. “But you might be onto something for a summertime activity.”
I sat down in the chair behind her desk and wiggled the mouse to wake up her computer screen. The desktop popped right up, and I gave her an incredulous look.
“You don’t have a passcode to access your computer?” I asked.
“I keep my office door locked,” Holly said. “And I’ve never had someone storm my office in search of the internet before. Besides, I don’t know how many people would actually be interested in being able to access my computer. It’s not like there’s anything particularly interesting on it.”
“Like people’s payment information or your banking details?” I asked.
Her face fell a little. “Shit.” She cocked her hip and gestured at the computer. “Well, this is why you own your own successful business, and I got myself fired and ended up...”
“Owning your own successful business?”
“Jury is still out on that,” she said.
“Which is why we need to keep appealing to the guests as much as possible. We’ll talk about your cybersecurity later. For now, we need to find recipes for nontoxic artificial snow.”
“Nontoxic is good. I don’t need death by chemical exposure showing up on my Yelp reviews,” she said, coming up behind me and leaning over to look at the screen.
I looked over my shoulder at her. “I was thinking more along the lines of skin irritation or burning their eyes, but you go right ahead and go there.”
I turned back to the screen and brought up a search engine. My search brought up what seemed like endless pages of different recipes and variations for ways to create snow to play in.
“Which one should we use?” Holly asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve never made any of them, so I’m not sure. I guess we could just pick out a couple of them and try them out. If they don’t work, we can always try other ones.”
“I like your attitude, Lane,” she said. “Be willing to fail upward.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked. “I guess there’s the whole metaphor of failing as falling down or hitting rock bottom or any of those things. And if you are being successful, you’re moving upward or you’re moving on up. But if you fail upward, aren’t you just succeeding? By merit of upward mobility, you are, in fact, succeeding. Perhaps not at what you originally intended, which can make it seem like a failure, but the end result should be the rubric by which the matter is compared.”
Holly stared at me, blinking for a few seconds, and I had a distinct flashback to high school and the many eyes that used to do that exact thing when I spoke to them.
“Well... that... yes,” she said. She looked back at the computer. “How about cornstarch and hair conditioner?”
I bit back a laugh and nodded. “Sure. Though, we might want to go to the store and get more conditioner. Fake snow that smells like coconut probably wouldn’t get them into the holiday spirit.”
A smile curved her lips up as she realized I was talking about the way her hair smelled.
“We can do that. We’ll also get some shaving cream. And baking soda and glue.”
“Sounds like the forecast is calling for a strange and gooey blizzard,” I said.
“Strap on your snowshoes, and let’s get this done.”
We left her office and bundled up against the sharp cold outside before heading to the car.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if she declared herself done with the little stores in town and wanted to head over to the next to go to the big-box store. Instead, she did surprise me with her answer.
“Mary and Brighton’s,” she said. “They’ll have everything we need.”
I gave a single nod. “Alright. Here we go.”
With the days before Christmas dwindling down, the crowd inside the general store had ticked up quite a bit since the last time we were there. People searching out the perfect gift for their neighbor or coworker, finding things to stuff into stockings, or even just joining in on the fun of the last-minute hustle made the aisles tight, and Holly pressed close against my back rather than standing at my side to make it easier to navigate.
We went to the hair care aisle first and grabbed several bottles of every white conditioner we could find that didn’t have a strong fruity smell. I even found one that had a mint scent, which seemed like the perfect match. Next, we scooped up most of the shelf of shaving cream and then headed for the baking aisle. The shelf that was supposed to be holding baking soda was empty, but I gestured over to Brighton and asked if they had any in the back room.
“I’ll go check. I think we just got a shipment,” he said.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
“I’ll be right back,” Holly said. “I need to look at something.”
I nodded, and she disappeared into the crowd. Several minutes later, she and Brighton came back toward me from opposite directions. She wasn’t holding anything, so I assumed she hadn’t found what she was looking for. Brighton, on the other hand, had a pallet of baking soda and a grin on his face. Holly and I thanked him and gathered up several pounds. We didn’t know exactly what we were doing, but we were prepared for whatever it was that happened.
“Is this what it’s supposed to look like?” Holly asked when our first batch was finished and she was poking at the somewhat gelatinous mass in the bowl.
I was glad we thought to pick up several new cheap mixing bowls for the experiment. I had a feeling some of this might not turn out great, and I didn’t want to ruin the mixing bowls she used on a regular basis with hardened faux snow.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m not exactly an authority on fake snow. But something isn’t feeling quite right.”
“I’ve definitely never played in snow like this,” she said.
“Ah,” I said. “Now we’re getting down to the truth. Holly the Humbug plays in snow.”
“Did you just call me Holly the Humbug?” she asked.
I gestured across my chest. “I’m thinking of getting it put on a shirt for you.”
She thought about it for a second, then gave a half shrug. “Can’t say no to branding.” She let out a sigh and looked down at the bowl again. “I think we did something wrong. Let’s try a different recipe.”
Over the next hour, we laughed our way through each of the recipes we’d picked out, and while we had some successes, things got progressively messier. We’d just filled the largest bowl with another good batch when I noticed Holly had streaks of fake snow in her hair and along her face, and her clothes were splotched and spattered in the various ingredients.
I couldn’t help myself. I pulled her toward me, and we kissed passionately. As she pulled her lips away from mine, I held her tight, and she giggled. I leaned down so I could whisper into her ear, and as my lips brushed the bottom lobe, the smell of her perfume filled my senses.
“I think we should get you all cleaned up. How does a hot shower sound?” I asked.
I pulled back to look into her eyes and saw the excitement build there. She nodded, biting down on her bottom lip, and then pulled away, holding one hand out for me to take as I followed her out and to the stairs. I looked back at the mess we made and shook my head.
We’d clean that up later.
We went to her room, and I closed the door behind us. Holly was already walking ahead, on her way to her bathroom, her shirt above her head. She tossed it away to the clothes bin and kept walking, not looking back. Next, her thumbs were in her pants and pushing them down. My stomach clenched as the sight of the red thong, representing the last thing she was wearing, disappeared as she closed the bathroom door.
I hurried to take off my clothes, leaving them piled by the basket, and turned the knob of the bathroom door. The shower was already on, and the lacy red thong was on the floor. My cock was hard and standing at attention as I grabbed the shower curtain and peeled it back.
Holly stood under the water, leaning back as she wet her hair. Thick, round droplets of water cascaded down her tight, curvy body. I stepped in, and she opened her eyes, a devious grin on her face. She pulled me toward her, and the water covered me, warming me up and relaxing the muscles on my neck.
Holly pressed a kiss to my chest as I wiped water away from my eyes. She knelt in front of me, kissing my chest, my stomach, my hips. I watched her as she let her tongue slide out and brush across the side of my cock, her eyes flickering up to mine. She wanted to see me react. I had no intention of disappointing her.
She took me into her lips, and I groaned softly. The warmth of her tongue as she rolled it around the head of my cock was nearly enough to make me come right then, but I held on. She plunged down, taking me deep in her throat, one hand sliding underneath to massage my balls. I let one hand fill with her wet hair and guided her in deep, slow strokes as she sucked me.
Her hand wrapped around the base of my member and stroked and a deep, needful moan bubbled up from her throat. There was no use in holding back. She didn’t want me to anyway. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back into the stream of water as I came, and she took me in her mouth. But I wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
