Page 50 of Dancing with My Elf
Lucas led me to my car and opened the driver’s door. “After you, milady.” Once I climbed in, he shut the door and then walked around to the passenger side.
Once he climbed in beside me, I said, “You’re quite chivalrous today.”
“Not just today. Ladies should be treated well.”
A tiny bit of jealousy stirred when I pictured him doing the same for countless women. Shoving that aside, I asked, “Did you have something particular in mind this morning?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not yet. I had breakfast earlier.”
“Actually, I do have something in mind. It’s a good day to go sledding. I found a snow tube in the basement, and there’s a hill not too far from here. What do you think?”
My eyes widened. “I haven’t gone sledding since I was a kid.”
He cocked his head. “Then you’re overdue. I’ll be right back.” He walked down the driveway toward the back of the house and then returned with a filled snow tube.
Squeezing it into my small car was more of a challenge, but we managed to do so.
“And we’re off!” Lucas rubbed his hands together with glee.
Several minutes later, we pulled up to the parking lot at the bottom of a hill where others were sledding. We climbed out of the car, and Lucas retrieved the snow tube. The bright sun twinkled on the glistening snow-covered hills. Snow covered the branches of trees, as light and fluffy as a ballerina’s tutu. Kids squealed and laughed as they zoomed down toward the bottom.
As we walked over to the base of the hill, I said, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“It will be a blast,” Lucas promised. “And if you don’t think so, we’ll move on to something else. Trust me, this will be fun.”
“You seem to be the king of that,” I noted.
“What, fun?”
“Yes.”
“The King of Fun.” He rubbed his chin. “I can live with that. It’s better than being the King of Misery or Doom and Gloom.”
I wouldn’t describe my life as miserable or gloomy, but I definitely didn’t have Lucas’s enthusiastic outlook.
We trudged up the hill where others had used as a walkway, part of the unspoken rules of the hill. Don’t mess with the tracks that others have worked on, establishing a smooth chute where people would sled. Lucas followed me up the path, dragging the tube by a rope behind him.
“How are you doing?” Lucas asked.
My breath quickened and heart rate turned up a notch as he climbed the hill. “Okay. I’m glad the boots seem to be holding up since I didn’t anticipate using them for sledding adventures.”
“Me neither,” Lucas replied. His black boots appeared to be a cross between military-issued and motorcycle, a total badass style that suited him.
“When was the last time you went sledding?” I asked him.
“Never.”
“Really?” I glanced at him over my shoulder before returning to the uphill trek.
“I found the snow tube in the basement. Not sure who stashed it there. Sebastian gave me some tips basically summed up as ‘Stay away from the trees.’”
“Yes, that’s a good tip,” I replied between deep breaths as I continued the ascent. “This is the worst part, the climb uphill.”
Once we reached the top, we got in line behind a father and young son in one of the tracks. When they hit a bump two-thirds of the way down, they went airborne for a flash and then landed back in the track, zooming down fast. We waited for them to stop as the incline leveled out and walk away from the path.
“It doesn’t look too hard,” Lucas noted. “Just sit and slide, right?”
