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I chuckle and bring my lips to my spot again before I whisper in her ear, “Babe, it snowed. Come look.”
That gets her attention. Her eyes pop open, her blue eyes shining with excitement. She smiles widely at me before leaning up on her elbows and kissing me square on the lips, morning breath and all.
“Coffee’s on the nightstand. Let’s go work up an appetite,” I say with a smile.
She doesn’t miss a beat and waggles her eyebrows out me.
“Get your mind out of the gutter. I meant let’s play outside.”
She quickly jumps to her feet, her excitement over playing in the cold Michigan weather making me laugh. “Fine, but only if you promise me that we can work up an appetite for lunch after we’re done with breakfast.”
“You got it.” How could I deny her of that?
After we each chug down a cup of coffee, we work up a sweat just getting into our gear. She looks adorable in her maroon-and-grey Volcom snow-pants and winter coat. She can barely move but manages to wedge her feet into her new Sorel boots that she splurged on last year. She loves them so much I’ve even seen her wear them with leggings to the store.
As adorable as she looks, I probably look like a walking LL Bean ad — construction edition. But it’s all about warmth, so I could care less about what I look like wearing the camel-colored overalls because they’re warm as hell. Ten minutes later, we’re both dressed — although a little sweaty from how much exertion it takes to just bundle up — and ready to go outside and play, like kids. She’s so giddy that she bounds out the door before I even have both my gloves on.
Luckily, the cabin has a snow shovel, and I woke up earlier and shoveled a pathway out the door leading to the back yard. I’m just closing the door behind me when I hear Tess squeal at the top of her lungs and see her dive back first into a big pile of snow that I shoveled off the back deck. She disappears almost completely. I bust out laughing at the cloud of white that puffed up around her and trudge through the snow, seeing her foot prints much smaller than my own. When I get to her, a black glove-covered hand shoots up, and her beautiful, tinkling laughter fills the air.
“Little help?” she asks, still laughing.
I reach down a hand to her and grasp her hand in mine. “What’s wrong, my little snow bunny? Was it a little deeper than you expected?” I say, chuckling, but my laughter is cut short when the little brat pulls on my hand rather than allowing me to do the pulling. The combination of standing in the snow and laughing causes me to lose my balance quickly, and the next thing I know, I’m face first in the snow next to her.
The two of us struggle to sit up, both of us laughing hysterically — me spitting out snow — which makes it that much harder to move in the dense white powder. She eventually gets up and sits on her butt, and I am next to her on my knees, both of us covered in head-to-toe white, but I notice she has one distinct difference compared to me. She doesn’t have snow all over her face… yet. So I do what any loving husband in this situation would do. I discreetly make a soft snowball and then smash it in her face, much like some people do with wedding cake.
She sputters and laughs and thus starts one of our most epic snowball fights yet. This isn’t by far the first time we’ve ever had one together. In fact, we’ve had one every single year that we’ve been together. But it still doesn’t take away our enjoyment of the moment. We’re trying to run through the deep and heavy snow, both of us out of breath from our laughter and the exertion of the fun.
Finally, we call cease fire, after I get one more snowball thrown, which she, of course, returns, because she’s a brat. But I suppose that makes me the male equivalent.
“Wanna go for a walk before we go back inside?” I ask her.
She beams up at me and nods her head. “I really do.”
I grin widely at her joy and love for the winter snow, knowing most women — or people, rather — would rather give the middle finger to Mother Nature when she releases heavy snows onto the earth.
“Come on, then. Maybe we can go find that little creek that lady at the grocery store told you about.”
“Yes! I’ve been wanting to find it!” she says, almost shouting.
I shake my head as we decide to take a short walk through the woods. The densely populated trees prevented much of the snow to fall on the ground, so we’re able to walk much easier than we are through the yard. But still, the snow has blanketed the area, enveloping us in our personal haven where we’ve lived for the last few days. It makes me want to hole up here forever, not letting the outside disturbances in again. We’ve rekindled our love for each other, remembered why we fell in love with each other when we were just kids. Our love runs deep, so deeply that I know those outside disturbances won’t blacken our days again.
We come to the small bridge we were looking for beyond the thicket of trees. The creek below, partially snow and ice-filled, partially still flowing, looks like the scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We stand on the bridge and look down at the flowing stream and each take a deep breath of the early winter’s hold. The fresh air is wonderful, and the serenity of nature’s stage has me feeling lighter than I have in years.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the camera app. I take a few pictures of Tess leaning over the bridge and looking out at the landscape before she catches me. She smiles and shakes her head.
“Come here. Let’s get one of us.” She smiles.
I stand next to her and flip the camera around, and we take a couple different selfies before I lean down and kiss her cheek, taking a picture of that as well.
“Ready to head back?” I ask her, ready to return to our cabin and its warmth. Besides, the woods aren’t necessarily a safe place for us to be walking in the winter. Although not super common, we could encounter a grey wolf or moose. I know it will be more likely to see a squirrel or owl, but I still don’t want to take any chances.
“I am. I’m starving.”
“Me too.”
After walking for what feels like miles, our cheeks are rosy, our breaths are short, and we’re both exhausted and even hungrier than we were before. I promised her we’d work up an appetite, and I delivered.
We get back to the cabin and hang up our snow-soaked winter clothes. Tess moves to the kitchen, sexy as hell in her black leggings and light grey, wide-necked sweater, perfect for me to be able to still kiss her on my spot. While she starts breakfast, I build us a fire.
