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On Christmas morning, Tasha was eating pancakes with maple syrup and drinking her second cup of coffee when there was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it.” Her father started to stand, but he wasn’t as spry as he’d once been.
“No, I will.” Tasha jumped up, hoping it was Greg.
But it wasn’t.
The man looked a bit like Greg, but he was a couple inches shorter and wasn’t wearing glasses. Plus, his smile was all wrong.
“Nick?” Tasha said. She hadn’t seen him in years.
“Hey, Tasha.”
Why was Nick on the doorstep?
“Is something wrong?” Her words came out in a rush.
“No, everything’s fine. I just have something to show you. Can you come with me now? Or if you want to spend Christmas morning with your family...” He peeked inside and waved at her parents.
“I’ll go.”
She gulped down the rest of her coffee, hugged her mom and dad, put on her winter clothes, and headed outside with Nick. It was a nice morning, like it had been yesterday. Partly sunny with some clouds in the sky. Not much wind coming off the lake.
Nick led her down Main Street, where the lampposts were decorated with wreaths, then down another street, toward Lake Huron.
Compared to Toronto, it was a tiny speck of a town. Neither of her parents were from Mosquito Bay, but it was in between her father’s old auto shop and the hospital where her mom had worked. It was also not far from where her father’s ex-wife had lived, so it was easy for him to see his sons.
Tasha hadn’t minded growing up here, though she hadn’t looked like most of the other kids. But she preferred her life in Toronto, only coming back to visit her family.
“Where are we going?” she asked Nick, hugging her arms around herself.
“Almost there,” he said.
She refused to hope too much, but she had a feeling...
They entered the park where she and Greg had made the snow fort yesterday. There were a bunch of kids sledding on the hill, a few kids making a snowman, and some people standing around, looking at—
What on earth?
Their little snow tower was now part of the most magnificent snow fort she’d ever seen. It was like a castle.
Her gloved hand came up to her face. “He did this for me? How long did it take?”
“Oh, he didn’t do it all himself. He had help. We spent most of yesterday outside. My whole family, aside from my grandparents. It’s Greg’s design, and we had to listen to him be a control freak all day.” Nick was smiling, though. They kept walking toward the snow fort, until they reached a little doorway, not tall enough to walk through. “Go inside and turn right.”
She gave Nick a hug, then did as he said. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the snow fort. The short entryway was covered, but other than that, there was no roof. The walls to the right were at least six feet tall, though. She continued crawling, her heart beating rapidly, and when she turned the corner, she saw Greg.
He was sitting on a sleeping bag, and there was a little picnic basket next to him. In the snow fort he’d built just for her.
“Come here,” he said.
When she knelt beside him, he pulled a thermos out of the basket and poured her some hot chocolate. The steam curled in the cold air.
“I have something to tell you,” he said, “if you’d like to listen, that is.”
She nodded.
He looked very serious, despite the fact that he was wearing a red down jacket and gray toque and sitting in a snow fort. He opened a tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies and handed one to her.
She took a bite. It was delicious.
“I...” He took off his glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Okay. Here it goes.” But he didn’t say anything more. He seemed to be quietly freaking out.
He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. Had he written a speech?
Something swelled in her chest, and she smiled at him encouragingly.
“I want to clarify what I said yesterday,” he said, tucking away the paper. “I asked if I could see you again while we were both here for the holidays, but you should know that I want a lot more than that. We only had twenty-three hours and six minutes together, after fifteen years of hardly seeing each other, but it was enough. Enough to remember all the things I love about you. Enough to learn how you’ve changed, and how you haven’t. I want to know every detail of the life you’ve created, Tasha, and I want to be a part of it. I want another chance at a relationship. I’m not just a kid anymore, and...” His voice turned hoarse. “I’m serious about you. I do want to get married and have children together and all that stuff we used to talk vaguely about when we were nineteen. It’s easy for me to picture us being together when we’re as old as Ethel and Herbie.”
She couldn’t help a small smile.
She could picture it, too.
“On one hand,” he said, “I’m angry we wasted so much time apart, but maybe it was necessary for me to be sure of who I am and what I want. We were quite young when we dated, after all.” He paused. “I hope you feel the same way, but if not, I understand.”
Two nights ago, she’d told Greg that she wanted to just know she had the right guy.
And now, she did.
He was the one for her.
That had been her Christmas wish: to figure out if she loved Greg in a way that would last. Her thoughts about second chances had been changing since her talk with her mother yesterday, but now...
Tasha was overwhelmed by her feelings. They had returned in full force, stronger than before, with a decade and a half of experience behind them. There was no way this could be wrong, not when it felt so perfect.
She set down her hot chocolate on a flat patch of snow, then reached into her jacket and held up the necklace she was wearing. For a moment, she simply looked at him and smiled. It felt like she was smiling from every inch of her body.
“I feel the same way,” she said. “You know, I once got back together with an ex, and it didn’t go well—we still had the same problems as before. I swore I’d never do it again. A couple of my friends got back together with their exes, too, and those relationships didn’t work out, either. That’s why I was reluctant to start anything with you. But it’s different for you and me—I don’t think it’s foolish to say that. Before, we weren’t quite in the right place in our lives for each other, but that’s changed, plus we know ourselves better than we did as teenagers. I’m positive we can deal with any challenges that come our way. When I...” Now it was her turn to have trouble getting the words out. It had been many years since she’d said these words to a man. To her family, sure, but this wasn’t the same.
So many years of wondering whether she’d ever meet the right guy, and it turned out she’d known him since kindergarten.
“When I was younger, I couldn’t appreciate how special and rare this is, but I do now. I love you, Greg.”
His arms came around her. “I love you, too.”
There was a frustrating amount of fabric between them. Unfortunately, it was necessary, given the freezing temperature, but she was still glad he’d done this here. In a snow castle.
If someone had told her last week that on Christmas morning, she’d be romanced by Greg Wong in a snow castle, she wouldn’t have believed them.
She pressed her lips to his. Unlike their very first kiss, in this very same park, she now knew what she was doing. She’d kissed many men in the intervening years, and that didn’t make this mean less; it made her more certain that he was the right man. She’d truly never felt like this with anyone else.
His mouth moved over hers, urgent and firm, and she kissed him back with equal fervor, trying to get as close to him as she could with all their winter clothes in the way.
She’d never expected her future to involve embracing the past.
But she couldn’t be happier.
“I’m glad I was twenty-seven minutes late on Monday,” she said. “If I’d been on time, it might have all happened differently. Maybe we wouldn’t have needed to spend the night in a cold motel room.” She paused. “No regrets.”
No regrets about the past couple days. No regrets about walking away from each other all those years before—she wouldn’t let herself think about the what-ifs, only look forward to their future together. Perhaps Greg was right: they’d needed that time apart.
She kissed him again. So simple—her lips and tongue moving over his, but it was exquisite. She would get to do this again...and again...and again, and that filled her with warmth.
“I’m planning to stay in Mosquito Bay until the twenty-eighth,” Greg said, “since I have more than a week off. Will you let me drive you back to Toronto? You can play all the Christmas music you like.”
“No, I won’t torture you like that. We can listen to CBC Radio for half the trip. Hopefully, we won’t get stuck in a snowstorm this time, and when we get to your condo—”
“Perhaps I could ask you to watch Netflix and chill?”
She couldn’t contain her laughter.
It was Christmas, and she was in love, and she was so full of joy.
“Or I could ask you to come upstairs and see my model train?” he suggested.
“I would like to see it. I’m curious.” She picked up her hot chocolate and had a sip. “I’ll come upstairs, see your model train, then head home on the subway.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“Or maybe I could stick around for half an hour and you could make me a cup of tea.”
“I suppose.”
“Or you could bend me over the table where you keep your model train—”
“I don’t like that idea at all,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want anything to happen to it, and surely you would mess it up. You have a tendency to, ah, move around quite a bit when you come. Better to bend you over the couch or the kitchen counter.”
“I can accept those alternatives.” She winked at him, then reached for another chocolate chip cookie. It was the best cookie she’d ever tasted.
“Greg!” someone shouted from outside the fort. “What is happening in there? Did you make up and kiss?”
Tasha assumed that was his grandma.
“Yeah, can we go home now?” That was probably Amber, Greg’s younger sister, who’d been in elementary school fifteen years ago, but she’d be grown up now, too.
“Have you guys been standing out there the whole time?” Greg asked, but probably not loud enough for his family to hear.
“We’re all good!” Tasha shouted. “You can leave now, thank you!”
There was round of applause, as though more people than just Greg’s family had been standing around the snow fort, and Greg ducked his head in embarrassment.
“Dear God,” he muttered.
“I just want everyone to know that I made this happen,” Greg’s mom said. “I’m taking full credit for this match.”
“I spent hours out here yesterday freezing my ass off and listening to Greg boss me around.” This must be Zach. “I want some credit, too.”
“Same here,” Nick said.
“Alright, we hear you,” Greg said, loudly this time. “Now you can leave us in peace. I’ll see you at dinner.”
There were sounds of boots crunching through the snow, and then it was quiet once more. A red cardinal chirped from a nearby tree. Tasha might not know as much about birds as Greg, but she could identify a few.
“I’m having Christmas dinner with my family,” he said, “and I’m sure you have plans with yours. But I still have a little time before then.”
“Hmm. What could we possibly do with all that time? I have no idea.”
“Don’t you?” he murmured as he set aside her hot chocolate and gestured her inside the sleeping bags. He’d zipped two together.
Ooh, this was cozy.
He slid a camping pillow under her head. He was prepared for everything. Then he shed his winter jacket and climbed into the sleeping bags with her. His leg brushed against hers, and that nearly made her breathless.
“Who knew that being thirty-four would means lots of sex in a snow fort?” she said.
“Oh, are we having sex? I thought we were going to snuggle.”
“We’ll snuggle afterward.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
* * *
At ten o’clock that night, Tasha was cuddled up with Greg on the couch in her parents’ living room. Greg had come over after dinner, figuring her parents’ house would be quieter than his, now that her brothers and their families had left. As fun as the snow fort had been, it was nice to have some time together indoors.
Tasha had texted Monique earlier, and Monique, though she grudgingly admitted the photos of the snow fort were impressive, was aghast that Tasha was getting back together with her ex. Tasha was confident she’d made the right choice, though, and she was also confident Greg would win her friend over soon enough.
Greg clasped Tasha’s hand, and their iron rings—which they both wore because they were engineers—rubbed against each other.
He lifted a gift box out of a bag he’d brought with him.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, one hand coming to her mouth.
He nodded. “You kept your necklace, and I kept these.”
She’d been such a romantic that for their first Valentine’s Day together, she’d given him an entire box of valentines.
He opened the box, and she picked up the first one, a heart that said, Will you be my valentine?
She smiled and set it down. “Will you be mine for Christmas, Greg?”
“There’s nothing I want more.”