Page 180 of Breathe Like Hell

“I thought you could add pictures to your journal,” I explained. Dakota’s big eyes found mine. I love you, I mouthed. She smiled softly, then looked back at her present.

“Thank you. I want to test it out,” she said, then laid her hand flat on the table before looking expectantly at both me and Micah. We followed suit, putting our hands down on the table, all of our fingertips pointed towards the same center. Dakota got her phone out and took a picture of our three hands, then tapped a few buttons on the screen. She took the printer out of the box, skimmed the instructions briefly, then did something else on her phone.

After a short minute, the little printer began whirring, a glossy photo coming out of it. She carefully took the photo and inspected it, then showed us.

“I need my journal.” She darted upstairs, then rushed right back down and flipped to a blank page. She peeled the backing off the photo sticker, then smoothed it onto the page and uncapped her blue pen.

22nd birthday

She wrote under the photo, printed in her handwriting that was almost cursive when she wrote fast, all the letters more loopy and connected.

“It looks perfect, baby,” I said.

“Thank you.” She smiled a little bigger. “Both of you.”

“You’re welcome. Also, Mason lied,” Micah said as he stood up from the table and disappeared through the door to the garage. Dakota and I exchanged a glance. Her eyebrows were furrowed.

“I didn’t lie,” I reassured her. I had no clue what Micah was even talking about, what lie he was accusing me of. Yeah, I lied all the time but not right now. It was Dakota’s birthday.

He reentered the house with some shopping bags.

“I got you more than one present,” he explained.

“Micah!”

“No,” he cut her off. “This is barely a gift. These are necessities.”

He set the bags on the table, letting Dakota peer inside.

“These are snow clothes,” she said cutely, sounding slightly confused but grateful.

“Yes. Outside the fence, there’s a hill at the back of my yard. You mentioned you’d want to go sledding, and this year it seems like it’ll be possible.”

“Oh, my God.” She covered her red face with her hands. “I just said that once!”

“I figured I’d give you the possibility of spending time in the snow without getting soaked and freezing to death.”

“Don’t tell me there’s also a sled in the garage.”

“There’s a sled in the garage.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

MICAH

Snowflakes drifted past the window, falling into the swath of white blanketing the ground outside. This part of Washington didn’t often get much snow, but I was grateful when it did. I turned when I heard footsteps behind me, my eyes immediately finding Dakota’s.

She was all bundled up in her new snow clothes, her hair hanging out from under her knit hat in two long blonde braids. She looked fucking adorable.

“How do you like them?” I asked, crossing my arms as she posed and spun around for me.

“They’re really nice. And I match you.” She pointed to my own outfit—which somewhat matched hers. Simply because we were both wearing black snow clothes. I didn’t really need to wear anything like this to stay warm, and it rarely snowed substantially here, but I’d bought this stuff years ago when I wanted to go skiing once in Colorado and kept it after that.

Mason appeared behind Dakota in regular black jeans and a coat.

“Let’s go,” he said, then started dragging her toward the back door.

I went in the opposite direction—to the garage door—hearing Dakota laugh as Mason shoved her out the door. After grabbing the new sled from my garage, I joined them in my backyard.