I wake up with a start, the dream of missing my flight fresh in my thoughts as I sit up too fast and hit my elbow on one of the chairs. My phone reads that it’s just after seven.

“Carter,” I say quietly, shoving his shoulder. He rolls to face me, his eyes lacking the bleariness from sleep they should reflect. “We should take stuff down and get ready.”

He merely nods in response and then climbs out.

“Did you sleep at all?” I ask, following him out as he starts walking. “Where are you going?”

“To see if the flight is still on schedule, and no, I didn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

Carter pauses and faces me, making me stop. “Because I needed to think about how to fix things.”

It’s too late.

Prove it.

It can’t happen.

Please try.

You had four years to try.

Don’t give up.

I don’t say any of my conflicting thoughts aloud, but I swear he can hear them all.

“I’m going to fix us.” He turns and strides in the direction of the customer service booth now surrounded by people.

I move back to our fort and peel the duct tape from the chairs and blankets, destructing the small cave of truths.

By the time Carter returns, we need to move to our gate for boarding. While the silence between us isn’t as awkward and uncomfortable as it was when we first ran into each other, it isn’t as easy as it was heading back from dominos either.

The flight is bustling with noise, everyone anxious to be home and relieved that the weather has given us the opportunity to finally escape the airport. I sit impatiently, waiting for Carter to say something while convincing myself to listen with an open mind and an even more open heart.

He doesn’t. Not a single word is spoken between us for the entire trip, making it seem longer as I question what he meant when he said he was going to fix things—and if he’s changed his mind.

Since neither of us checked luggage, we head out to where cars are lined up to pick up passengers and spot my parents’ gold Yukon nearly instantly with my mom avidly waving from the front passenger seat. To ensure us that it’s them, my dad honks a few times, though we’re both waving back.

Carter chuckles.

I roll my eyes.

“I was so worried!” Mom cries as she swings her front door open. “I’m so glad you guys are home!” Her arms are around both of us, holding us tightly.

“Hey, kids!” Dad presses a kiss to my cheek, his silver beard rough and ticklish at the same time. He then hugs Carter unabashedly before helping to get my bag in the trunk.

“You guys must be starving!” Mom says, flipping down her visor and adjusting it so she can see us both. “Was it awful? I’m so glad you guys were there together. It made me feel so much better knowing you had each other.”

“It wasn’t awful,” I admit. “Most people were just trying to make the best of the situation.”

Mom smiles. “It’s the Christmas spirit!” With that she reaches forward and turns up the radio for Bing Crosby to serenade us a bit louder.

Though it’s only noon, the C7/C9 light bulbs lining the roof are already turned on when we pull into the driveway.

Emily is out the front door before I have my seatbelt off, her belly larger than I was expecting and shocking me though I was expecting it. We hug for several long moments, and while she’s told me she feels like I’m becoming an adult from moving and living on my own, working two jobs, and working toward acting, I feel much younger than her as I peer at her diamond solitaire sitting proudly on her pregnant belly.

“Pipe!” Brad calls, wrapping an arm around me before gently pushing me. “I can’t believe you brought New York garbage with you!” he says, moving past me and slugging Carter in the bicep.

Carter laughs, hugging Brad before moving to hug Emily.

“Tomato basil soup is in the Crock-Pot, and I have grilled cheese sandwiches in the oven,” Emily says, moving toward the house as she brushes her arms.

“Pipe and I are going to hit the mining hill first.” Carter lifts my bag out of Dad’s truck, placing it next to his.

Brad looks from me to Carter and nods. “Yeah. Sure. I’ve got these.” He reaches for the bags.

“I oiled the sleds last week,” Dad says proudly. “Got them all cleaned up and ready for you guys. A few spiders had made homes on them.”

“We aren’t going to fly off the hill, right?” I ask, knowing how wrong good intentions can sometimes go with my father, who always loves to make things go faster.

He smiles and shakes his head, moving back toward the house. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that question and go eat.”

“I need to change first,” I say, looking down at my clothes.

“I’ll grab the sleds.”

My hair’s a mess, my makeup’s completely worn off, and I smell like I could use a shower, but I pull on my thermal pants and shirt, a pair of sweats, and then my snow pants. Wool-sock-covered feet slide into my boots, and then I zip my coat, grab a hat and gloves, and lumber out to find Carter with a pair of gloves and hat, a thicker coat on that he must have had in his bag.

“Ready?” Carter asks as I step outside.

Not even the slightest. But I nod.

“You should probably get some snow pants. You could borrow Brad’s.”

He shakes his head. “Let’s go,” he says, and taking both sleds, he leads me to the long mining hill that we have sledded down countless times and spent numerous summer afternoons hiking to see how far we could get.

“Is this a walk down memory lane?”

“You mean am I trying to deliver all of your favorite things about Christmas?” he asks.

“Except for the tinsel,” I say, my voice straining slightly with the higher altitude. “That’s my mom’s thing.”

“The tinsel is a Peterson family staple!”

I laugh, continuing up the hill beside him. “You betcha.”

“Don’t go Fargo on me now!” he cries.

The cold air burns my lungs as I gasp more of it, bringing the best pain possible to me because the only place I know that is cold enough to cause this kind of sting is home.

“All right, these are the rules: if you go farther than me,”—he purses his lips and glances over my shoulder for a second—“you get to decide if we become friends again, and with time, I’m hoping that will lead to us going back to the way things were that summer before I screwed up and things got all messed up.”

“And if you go farther than me?”

“If I win, you have to meet me in New York once a week for two months.”

Snowflakes slowly drift from the sky, settling on the piles of fallen snow, distracting me until I look back at Carter and see one melt on his cheek.

“Do you want go first?” he asks.

“Is the sky blue?”

His smile returns as he shakes his head. “Nothing has changed, Pipe. We’re still us. We’ll always be us. We’re supposed to be together, in each other’s lives.”

“You’re willing to allow fate … a sled … to decide on that?”

“I’m confident.”

We stand frozen in place, his hazel eyes moving over mine. There are subtle differences from four years ago. His shoulders are a bit wider, his hair shorter, and his natural leadership tendencies have been honed and are now nearly perfect.

I release a deep breath, knowing the decision before I lie on my stomach, grasping the wooden handles of the old wooden Flyer sled, and feel the wind blast across my face so sharply I have to close my eyes once I make it past the first turn.

I don’t make it nearly as far as I have in years past, likely from my wide turns. I’m out of practice. It makes my heart pound with relief and excitement.

“Ready?” Carter yells.

“Ready!” I move to the far side of the path to clear room.

He takes the last turn with a precision that follows him. I can tell by his speed that he’s going to sail past me without a problem.

When he’s just a couple of feet from me, he releases the handles and rolls off the sled into a bank of hard packed snow.

“Carter!” I yell, dropping my sled as his flies past me. “What are you doing?” I drop to my knees beside where he’s rolling to his back.

“That went a lot smoother in my head,” he admits.

I shake my head in confusion. “What are you doing? You were going to win!”

“I want to win your heart, Pipe, not a sledding race. You used to fly down this hill. I was expecting you to go farther.”

I laugh, though my heart beats erratically.

Carter rolls to his knees, then stands up and pulls me to my feet. “You need to make the decision on what happens. I care for you so much, and each day I think it will eventually get easier … but it doesn’t. It hasn’t. I’ve loved you since I was fifteen, and fate did her part. She gave me this opportunity to show you that I love you and will always love you, but fate can only take you so far. Now it’s your turn to decide.”

“I’ve changed,” I tell him. “It’s been four years. You may not feel the same once you spend time with me. I keep really terrible hours. And I talk to myself a lot, practicing lines and rehearsing. I may fail miserably at this acting gig, and I can’t even keep a window plant alive.”

“You haven’t changed at all,” he repeats.

“There’s only one thing I’ve ever loved more than the stage,” I admit, taking a step closer to him. “You.” I wrap my arms around his neck as his lock around my hips, pulling me against his chest and moving his lips over mine. My arms constrict, pulling him closer so I can tilt my head and deepen the kiss that I’ve been waiting four years to receive. His chin, slightly scratchy from not shaving the past couple of days, rubs against mine in a tantalizing fashion, and his lips warm as they gently coax mine to part. A thrill runs through me, and I press up on the balls of my feet to bring me even closer to him.

“Merry Christmas, Piper.”

“Merry Christmas, Carter.”

We kiss again, a kiss that begins slower, more languid and progressively growing more heated and heavy until I have to pull my hat off to allow the Minnesota chill to cool me down.

We spend Christmas Day at my parents’, Carter’s family coming over to join as they have for the past ten years. A Christmas Story plays on repeat in the living room, which is illuminated by the tree covered in large C7/C9 light bulbs and more tinsel than three trees should have. Em and I help Mom make chicken-fried chicken with country gravy and mashed potatoes while singing to an Elvis Christmas album we all have memorized. It may not sound like much, but it’s worth more than gold to me. Like the world is on pause, allowing us to forget about work, auditions, impending bills, and responsibilities and to focus on what matters the most in life: love.

“Come here, Pipe,” Carter says, holding a glass of my dad’s eggnog out to me. I dust the flour from rolling out biscuits off my hands and smile before pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

He smiles in response and then holds out a small gift bag. Presents aren’t my favorite thing about the holidays—they never have been. For me, the traditions and the time I get to spend outside have always been my favorite. Even while growing up, I knew how lucky I was to be able to spend my vacation playing in the snow and coming in to fresh, warm cookies and hot chocolate. Still, receiving something from Carter when he hasn’t left our house since arriving home with me yesterday leaves me curious. I pull the tissue paper free and pause. “You got me an ornament?”

Carter began giving me ornaments further back than I can remember. They progressed from homemade ones to tacky store-bought ones to unique and thoughtful ones that were based upon a special memory from the year, like a snowman on water skis from the year he joined my family and I on an extended vacation to the Great Lakes. For the past four years, I’ve missed this tradition most.

Inside the small bag is a small ceramic Christmas tree covered in lights and surrounded by gifts, the words “New York” painted across the tree stand, and a giant red heart is in place of the traditional star.

“It’s nothing big, but I think the memory of the New York airport will always deserve a permanent place on our tree.”

“You can sweet talk me all you want, but you know I’m still going to kick your ass at dominos, right?”

“You wish. I’ve already told you nothing has changed.” Carter winks, his hazel eyes warm and filled with something my heart translates.

“I think we should travel more often,” I whisper. “I think it’s growing on me.”

“Shit,” Carter whispers softly, his lips brushing my skin. “If that can change, anything’s possible.”

“You make anything possible.”

Carter O’Brien always has.