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Anna opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, she conceded the point, though it didn’t break the silence. He watched with some mild amusement at the consternated look of a woman who, perhaps for the first time in her life, needed to consider what she should tell her a guy she was interested in—fake or not—she wanted for Christmas.
Her face grew redder and redder throughout the process, until she looked like she could use her cheeks to melt through the snow they trudged through.
“Do… do you know what a Hugimal is?” she asked meekly, unable to look him in the eye.
“Yeah, I think so. Is that what you’d want?”
He received the barest tint of a nod. “Sleeping with something tends to help me fall asleep faster. I was planning to buy one to see if it helps me.”
An image of Anna cuddling with a stuffed animal in bed almost caused him to smile, but he hid it away before she thought he was teasing him.
“Then I’ll get you one. They come in different animals, right? Is there one you want more than the others?”
“The sloth,” Anna answered, voice still as soft as a single snowflake landing on the ground. “Sam.”
“Got it. I’ll make sure I try and get him for you.” Liam threw what he hoped was a disarming smile toward the beautiful woman next to him.
“Thank you, Liam.” She took a breath. “What should I get for you?”
He was halfway through opening his mouth to tell her she didn’t need to get him anything when he realized he’d be doing the same thing she’d just done.
“I have no idea. My parents already left me some presents at my house, but I knew I wouldn’t be celebrating it with them this year, so I didn’t put much thought into gifts until now. Maybe a charging station for my phone or something? Sorry, I guess I’ll have to think about it.”
“If you can come up with anything today, that would be helpful. It’s already the 22nd, after all.”
Her reminder knit his eyebrows together briefly. He’d completely lost track of the days. Had he already been back home for over a week?
After clearing his head and promising he would, they finally turned onto the connecting street that would guide them out of the neighborhood and to where Avril was meant to pick Anna up. Another few hundred footprints in the snow later, they’d reached the steep incline that led up to it—their final challenge.
As they stomped up the snowy hill, Liam let Anna walk a bit ahead of him. His thoughts drifted back to their conversation yesterday, and a memory of her tear-stained face twisted his heart. He hoped, even with that wretched memory polluting the time she’d spent with him and Tess, she still ended up having positive memories of the three days they’d all spent together. It shouldn’t just be him and Tess.
Maybe there’s something more I can do, he thought.
About halfway up it, a maverick idea, one summoned by a prior conversation between them about the very individual who should be waiting for them somewhere at the top of the hill, manifested in his mind as an answer.
There was no time for a devil and an angel to form on either shoulder, where they might then guide him toward their desired path. He’d already stuck his gloved hand into the snow with a ludic swiftness and scooped a handful out, as if the very spirit of Avril had taken hold of him.
“Hey, Anna,” he called.
When she looked back, curiosity knitted her eyebrows for only a moment. Once she saw his hands packing the snow into a sphere, she knew what was coming.
“Liam, don’t you dare!”
He’d heard her speak like that a few times before. Until now, they’d uniformly targeted a certain redhead.
“Hey, I’ve given you a chance to get ready. But the snowball’s already been made. By law, it has to be hurled at someone.”
“That is not a law!”
“I’m almost certain I learned about it in this past semester.”
They both stood frozen.
“Perrymont must have a much different curriculum than Bellmore does.”
He just grinned, and Anna huffed at him in the same way that she also had only done toward Avril. It caused a strange happiness to ferment inside of him.
“I guess it must.”
