Page 25 of Snowflakes and Sparks

He turned and locked eyes with me. “I don’t want it to be a secret either.”

I nodded and he continued speaking. “Her name was Heather, but you already know that of course. Anyway, we were together for five years when I proposed to her. You see, I was madly in love with her and wanted to fully commit to spending our lives together. But she said no, packed her bags and left. Just like that. It’s been a year and I haven’t seen her since, nor do I know where she even lives now. Heck, I don’t even have a clue as to why she turned me down. I thought we were happy together, but I guess I have poor judgement.”

I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been rough for you.”

“It’s in the past,” he said. “No need to think about it anymore.”

I hesitated for a moment, but decided to speak after all. “When I was using your bathroom the other day, I was looking for a hairdryer and I… uhm…”

He sighed. “You found the ring.”

“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you sooner.”

He smiled at me. “That’s okay. I shouldn’t have left it there in the first place.”

“Why did you keep the ring if you say it’s all in the past?”

A sad look crossed his face. “Because sometimes we hold on to something we should’ve let go of a long time ago.”

His words hit home for me big time, with the difference that I had let go of things I didn’t want to let go of. Like my dream of publishing a book. I kept telling myself that I’d do it someday, although I knew deep down that someday would never arrive if I didn’t get up and do something. It didn’t feel good knowing I kept sabotaging myself like that.

And the fact that I hadn’t experienced a love like Alex had – where you are so in love that you want to spend the rest of your life with the other person and are comfortable enough to share a pizza in bed after getting home at one in the morning – didn’t feel good either. Sure, I had a great job and amazing friends, but something was missing from my life. Passion and excitement to name two. I fought back a tear wanting to break free, and told myself to keep it together. I was not going to cry while I was on the Ferris wheel with a cute guy.

“Look at us being all bummed out,” I said, meeting Alex’s eyes. It was as if the entire world had stopped spinning for a moment and it was just us two. The cabin hung so high in the sky that all I could hear was the wind and the sound of my own heartbeat.

I realized we were still holding hands, but didn’t want to let go.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Although I have to admit that I’ve been feeling a lot less heartbroken these past few days.”

He stroked my cheek with one hand. I felt my insides tremble from his warm touch. Was he going to kiss me?

I felt a craving in my soul, a longing to feel his lips on mine. But that was my heart talking. I had to be sensible. Giving in to these feelings deep down inside of me would rock my world so hard that my boat would tip over and crash.

I wasn’t ready to have my heart broken like that, and a kiss would inevitably lead to that happening. Because Alex was here, and I had a plane ticket that would take me back to LAX soon. Plus, he kept a ring in his house that he’d bought for another girl. It was not the kind of situation I wanted to get caught up in, thank you very much.

But the depth of his dark eyes touched my soul on a level I didn’t know existed. I bit my lower lip, my hands trembling as he inched closer.

A small, shocking motion took us both out of our trance and I had to grab one of the bars attached to the roof of the cabin in order to stay seated. The Ferris wheel started moving again and the moment passed, even though the air between us was still so loaded that we could single-handedly light up the sky if we wanted to.

“Do you want to take a picture together? Otherwise no one back home will believe I faced my fear of heights,” I said, trying to fill the silence between us.

Alex took his phone out of his coat pocket and turned the camera to selfie mode. He put his arm around my shoulder and our cheeks almost touched as we huddled together.

“I’ll send you a copy,” he said, checking out the result. “If you want to have one, of course.”

“Are you kidding me? I’d love to have a memory of this fine day.”

We descended in silence, each of us consumed by our thoughts.

“Let’s build that snowman now, shall we?” Alex asked as soon as we touched solid ground again.

“Let’s. But first I could use a warm cup of cocoa,” I answered and followed him through Santa’s Village like we hadn’t held hands and almost kissed up there.

Chapter Ten

“Please tell me you’ve kissed him. Those lips look heavenly.”

“I already told you that nothing happened between us, and that nothing’s going to happen, no matter how kissable his lips are.”

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