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“Bought back her parents’ bed-and-breakfast so we can run it together.”
“From small gesture to ginormous. Holy shit. Seriously?”
“Yeah. Now I have to prove to her I love her.”
“You don’t think that’ll do it?”
Despite the fact he couldn’t see me, I waved it off before I turned on my wipers. Already the heavy wet flakes were coming down hard enough to cover my windshield. “That’s just money. I want to give her the romantic gesture to go with it. Something like you did for Ally.”
“Fireworks are kinda outta season, brother.”
“No kidding. But there is snow— Fuck yes, that’s it!” In my exuberance, I slammed on the brakes and nearly drove off the road. I corrected with a screech of tires and a string of curses that made Seth flip out in my ear.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“All good. I’m almost there. Where can we do a snow message to Sage that she can read without much trouble? The loft doesn’t have a backyard.”
“Considering her building backs up to a lake, uh, no. Snow message like what? A proposal?”
“No. Too soon.”
“Too soon? She’s pregnant.”
“Yeah, I know that. Still too soon. Work with me here.”
“Trying to. Then what are you going to say in the snow? ‘Sorry, I’m Oliver, but I’m trying?’”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I don’t recall giving you shit when you were fucked up over Ally. I recall going to her and fixing the entire situation for you.”
“A bit of an overstatement, but you did help. Do you want me to write the snow message to Sage? Perhaps a sonnet that she’ll be certain never came from you?”
“You’re a jackass. Next time I consider asking you for help, I’ll saw off my tongue first.” I was about to press the end button when Seth’s voice came through the line.
“Wait.”
I waited. A bit broodingly too.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I’m just enjoying this moment too much. The mighty Oliver, brought to his knees by love. Wait until you have a daughter, and then you’ll really know what it’s like to be a mess twenty-four-seven.”
“Especially when she gets her first boyfriend in kindergarten.”
Seth grunted and I laughed. “All right, you’re forgiven. We don’t have much time. I’m assuming the women folk won’t be out shopping all that long?”
“Depends. Guessing you’ve never gone shopping with a woman with a newly paid-off charge card. When there’s two of them, multiply the hours by three.” He paused. “I have an idea where we can do it. Actually, it’s the only place we can do it because I’m not dragging my four-year-old and an infant out in a snowstorm even for the lovelorn.”
An hour later, I was shoveling snow to make the letter L while the wind whipped even more of the white stuff into my eyes and against my already stinging cheeks. Beside me, my brother was working on the letter O while my niece danced around making snowballs. At the same time, we all kept an eye on Alexander, who was bundled up in his infant-sized snowsuit in his plastic swing-slash-carrier.
Which was parked on the top of the picnic table, the only spot we could clear off enough to set him down.
“You know, this idea sucks,” Seth shouted. “More snow keeps coming down. It’s filling up our letters as fast as we make them.”
“So move it. Stop being so damn slow.”
“Swear jar, Unca Ollie!” Laurie sang out cheerfully, punctuating her words with a snowball heaved right against my ass.
“Do you take credit cards?”
She laughed and answered me by flinging snow against my front. I was tempted
