Page 78 of A Winter in Wonderland
Chapter 35
Backat the husky farm, while the activities’ lodge doctor looked over my arm and Davi and Lucas got an extra-long playtime with the puppies, I explained to Daan what had happened. Or, more accurately, I was trying to convince him I was to blame.
‘But you didn’t know about the rock,’ he said.
‘I should have been holding on properly,’ I insisted. We were going around in circles, and eventually he just laughed and, on doctor’s orders, sent me back to the chalet for the rest of the day to take some painkillers and rest my arm.
When I arrived back, I spent a long time in the boot room trying to manoeuvre my way out of my snow boots only using one arm. The chalet was pretty quiet save for a few other workers on funny shifts or with their days off, and I admit, I kind of hoped to find Josh there. But he was nowhere to be found so he must have been out elfing.
Up in my room, I wriggled out of my ten million layers and considered heading down for a sauna but decided first to have a bit of scroll about social media. Being only a few days into January, much of the content consisted of work Christmas parties and family gatherings, and, well, I managed to ‘like’ seven pictures before I’d had my fill and instead navigated to Love Adventuring Lapland’s page to see the latest posts and tags.
‘Oh it’s me!’ I cried out loud to see that the second most recent picture that had tagged Love Adventuring Lapland was a selfie of Davi, with me behind him on the sled, and Lucas driving at the back, the snow bright white and a second photo of scampering husky bottoms. The third and final photo was a portrait of both of them holding puppies and grinning so widely it looked like a toothpaste advert. The caption was written in Portuguese, but thanks to the translate option on Instagram, I could see it said,Amazing husky ride – thank you Adventure Guide Myla of Love Adventuring Lapland! You are full of smiles and made sure our holiday memory would be filled with smiles too.
Ahh, that was nice. And sweet of them not to have mentioned my little accident! Scrolling through the other tagged photos on the company’s Instagram, I paused at one showing three of the elves captured in the middle of what looked like a dance-off outside Santa’s cabin. Josh was one of them, and I zoomed in on his face, which was beaming away. He was such a goof.Soannoying, really. But, I realised, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, with a smile so infectious …
I navigated next to WhatsApp to send my sister a message about my latest misadventure.
This morning I took the huskies out on a trip and guess what?I typed.
What?She came back almost immediately.
Dum-dum here fell off the sled and sprained my arm, so now I can’t do my job. Typical!But something stopped me from pressing ‘send’. Because sure, that unfortunate thing had happened, but that didn’t mean it had to be the part I focused on.
I deleted the text, took a breath, and typed instead,It was such a gorgeous day with some lovely guests. And I had lots of husky puppy snuggles. And you know what? When the sun doesn’t come much above the horizon, it’s like the sky is a new painting every day.
Send.
Shay typed back,Is this Esteri?
No, it’s Myla!
No way, my sister doesn’t like to admit she’s having fun.
Up yours!I laughed.
She sent back a smiley face and wrote,I’m really happy to hear you’re enjoying yourself.
I am. Now Christmas is out of the way, anyway.
Yeah, yeah …
I was about to sign off when I asked,No baby yet, right?
Nothing yet. Just a big stomach and a need to pee 85 trillion times a day. Speaking of …
I sent her an emoji of a waving hand and a toilet, and then went off for that sauna.
*
That night, just as Esteri and I were about to head upstairs with some hot chocolate to have a gossip, I ran into Josh.
‘Oh, hi,’ I said to him, managing, just, to avoid both knocking my arm and spilling my scalding drink down him.
‘Hi, whoops, haha,’ he answered, and we did that awkward thing of shuffling from foot to foot to try and pass each other while making small talk.
‘Oh, um, how was work today, still lots of Santa love going down?’ I asked, like a total dork.
‘Some,’ he said. ‘And how was your day? You were with the huskies, right?’
