Page 32 of Cookie

I turned to meet Charlie’s eyes that twinkled with mischief and excitement. “Let me call Mom and see if they’re closing.

He hurried to his phone while I stood and stared a while longer. “Nothing like this ever happened in Sacramento,” I mumbled. I turned around just in time to see him toss his phone on the bed before picking me up and spinning me around.

“Snow day!” he said and laughed like a madman.

“Seriously?” I managed to say between my own bouts of laughter.

“Seriously. Get dressed in your snow gear. We need to walk over to the shop and make sure everything is okay. Then we’ll clear the front walk and maybe make a batch of soup or hot chocolate for whoever stops in.” He was so excited, and it was contagious. Since the day we’d had the last snow, Charlie had started keeping an extra set of winter gear here. Both of us hurried to the closet and dressed as fast as we could.

“I’ve never had a snow day.” I stood to pull up the snow pants Charlie had bought me just in case I needed them.

“Well, this is going to be a good one. We haven’t had this much snow in one day in a while. The last storm was a good amount of snow, but not like what this one will be. You’re going to be sick of snow by the time it melts.” He kissed me before pulling on his boots and his beanie. “Meet you downstairs,” he said before brushing his teeth and rushing downstairs.

After pulling on my own boots, I brushed my teeth and splashed some water on my face that was so fucking cold I didn’t think I’d need a cup of coffee to get going. Who am I kidding?“Babe, can you make me a cup of coffee?” I yelled down the stairs as I closed the door to the apartment and hurried down the stairs. A hot mug of coffee was placed in my hand as soon as I was at the bottom. “Wow.”

“Hey, I know what my man likes,” Charlie said as I took a sip.

It was then I glanced out front. From upstairs the snow looked deep but seeing it from the store was a different thing alltogether. “Oh my god, can we get out the door?” I set my mug down on the counter and unlocked the door.

“No, Ryan, wait—” was all Charlie got out before I flung the door open, and a pile of snow landed inside the store.

“Oh shit,” I said and looked up at Charlie, who stood there frozen, holding his mug mid-drink with wide eyes. He was so shocked he couldn’t react and when I looked again at the snow, all I could do was laugh.

“I can’t believe I did that.” I pushed at the snow with my boot just as a gust of wind pushed a little more inside.

“We need to clear that out and get the door shut before we’re building snowmen on the counter,” Charlie said, and between the two of us and lots of foot action, the door was securely shut once again.

“Sorry,” I said, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I finally took a sip of coffee. “Snow day, yay.”

Charlie’s eyes widened before he bent over laughing and pulled me in for a hug. “Oh, Ryan, there’s never a dull moment with you. Let me go get some towels to dry the floor.” He hurried to the backroom while I watched him go and tried not to think about how glad I was that he’d noticed me on the bench across the street.

“Give me some of those.” He tossed me a few towels, and we got busy cleaning up the rest of the snowy mess.

“Maybe we should stay inside. This might not end well,” Charlie said as he took the wet towels from me.

“No way, it’s an adventure. Go put those in the washer. We’ll start it when the power is back on.”

“We should probably hang them,” Charlie said after looking outside again. “It might be a while.”

“A while? How long is a while?” I asked and tried to push all thoughts of the Donner Party out of my head.

Twenty-Nine

Ryan

We made our way through the knee-deep snow across the street to Charlie’s shop. No vehicles had driven through the deep snow yet, so halfway across the street I stopped and stared at how different Grace looked covered in a heavy layer of snow. “It’s like a winter wonderland,” I said.

“Yeah, kinda like that movie where it starts snowing and doesn’t stop and they’re trapped in a museum,” Charlie said and kept walking, or at least trying.

“The Day After Tomorrow? Oh god why’d you have to remind me of that?” We watched it a few weeks ago and looking at how much snow we already had and knowing more was on its way, made it easy to imagine.

He laughed hard again, before gripping my hand and pulling me along. “Don’t worry so much. It’s an adventure,” he said, and I was pretty sure he’d said that before, but to me this felt more like an extended expedition rather than an adventure. We got to the front door of the shop and, after unlocking it, we could confirm everything was still safe. “Stay right there.” He hurried off to the back of the shop while I tried to ignore the sound of the wind and snow blowing against the metal building and thanked anyone I could think of, that I didn’t work here.

“What’s that for?” I asked when Charlie walked out carrying some snow saucers and pulling a sled.

“I thought we could play in the park later,” he said, and the grin he wore made me think this had to be how he looked when hewas a kid excited to not go to school and spend the day playing in the snow.

“And by ‘play’ you mean . . .”

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