Love Letter

Lynne:

I was not expecting my second date with Ian on Christmas night, but I was pretty excited to see what he had in store. I also realized that he just went with the flow and did what he wanted. Most guys, I feel like I would have been trying to get out of picking a gift for a woman on Christmas. I even knew guys from college that would break up a few weeks before the girl's birthday and holidays just so they could get out of gift-giving. Ian once again had given me a gift that was perfectly tailored to me. He was starting to make me have pretty high standards. It was almost like I was living inside a Cannon River novel. I was glad to see Ian had brought his sister and her boyfriend back with him.

He led the group of my siblings and me through the back toward the hill. Even with the bulky gloves each of us had on, he held my hand while walking up the hill. When we got to the top, the twins turned on the lights that they had run drop cords all the way up the hill for. It was pretty impressive how bright they had made the hill.

"What is with you and your lights?" I say to Ian, walking over to my brothers.

"We are sledding?" Kelly next to me says, and I cannot tell if she is in a better mood or not. Ever since the engagement, she was in a sour mood. I wonder if I should ask her what it is all about.

Before I can respond, I feel a tug, and I fall back onto Ian lying in an inner tube. "No, you..." I start screaming when the twins push us down the hill. I am out of breath and feel like I have just been on a rollercoaster. It was bright, but that did not let me know how far the hill would feel like going down it. I roll over to face Ian and feel the surge going through my body even with all the padding between us. "That was..."

"Fun," Ian says, laughing. "And now I know something else about you," he says.

"Oh yeah – what is that?" I ask, squirming, knowing what I am doing to the both of us.

"You scream like a girl," he laughs. I try pushing off of him, acting like I am offended, but he grabs me before I can go anywhere.

"Just wait; this is the most comfortable I have been all day," he says, putting his arms around me and throwing his head back against the tube. I knew my family was having as much fun as we were from the noise around us.

What is not long enough laying there with Ian, I push off of him while he groans, "fine." We each grab a side of the tube and drag it up the hill together. "This is a workout," Ian puffs when we finally reach the top of it.

"There you are," Fred says. "We almost sent out a search party."

"No need for that," Ian says, handing the tube to Fred, who jumps on its knees first and slides down the hill.

Amanda is watching both of us at the top of the hill. "This is fun," she says to Ian and me "first time for everything," she says and grabs Kevin's arm and starts going down on a blue plastic slide. I had still never heard Kevin talk, but I heard his yell as they went flying down the hill.

I look at Ian, who is watching everyone, and ask him, "you have never gone sledding before?"

"First time," he says. I pull him down to the ground. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"I need to know something. What was your childhood like?" I ask, and he asks why. "Well, you have not gone ice skating before, which I can understand, I guess. You have never picked out a live Christmas tree which I understand the convenience of buying a fake tree. I mean, you can store it, and you do not have to worry about hauling it up to your house and getting rid of it. But what I cannot understand is how you have never been sledding before." I knew I was babbling, but I did not care.

"I had a normal childhood. My parents are still together, have been for thirty-some years, and retired in Florida. We had Christmas traditions which are more like New Yorkers than having your own winter wonderland out here like you guys do, and I was a nerd or a geek however you want to call it," he says.

"You were a nerd?" I ask, sounding surprised.

"Yes," he says, lurching at me, grabbing me again, and locking his body around me. We roll down while I am caged in around him. The whole ride down, I felt that he wanted to change the subject.

I slap him on the arm when we finally quit rolling "that was very dangerous," I say to him, still out of breath from laughing.

"I am sorry," he says, helping me up off the ground, "But I am not; that was a lot of fun. Let's do it again."