He nods. “We are.”
“Alex. No. People die of hypothermia.”
He leans forward, eyes bright. “It shocks the body. Makes you feel alive. And it’s Swedish tradition.”
“I am very alive, thank you, and I’d like to stay that way.”
He stands, grabs my hand, and grins. “Come on, favorite. Trust me. You’ll love it.”
Outside, the cold is immediate and brutal, and the wind slices across my skin. My bare feet hit the snow and every nerve in my body screams. I shriek—a high-pitched, guttural sound I can’t even pretend is attractive—and lurch backward.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Alex is already laughing, his breath fogging the air, body bare except for the towel slung low around his hips.
“Magnolia, you’ve got to commit,” he says.
“I am not a snow person.”
“You’re about to be.”
And before I can stop him, he scoops me into his arms—just lifts me right off the snowy porch and walks straight into the drift beside it. The snow hits my legs, my back, my shoulders. I scream. Loud. Obnoxious. Possibly traumatic.
Definitely dramatic.
He sets me down and wraps his body around mine.
“See? You’re surviving.”
“Barely,” I say, clinging to him like he’s a human furnace. “And this isn’t fair. You do hot-to-cold therapy after rugby. You’re used to this.”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
“No,” I deadpan. “I am not.”
“Okay, fine.”
He takes me back inside, and warmth returns in slow waves. The fireplace crackles. The wool blanket is thick and scratchy but in the best way. I curl into it, my skin still tingling from the snow, while Alex pours us each a mug of something that smells of cinnamon, cloves, and red wine.
“This is glögg,” he says, handing it to me.
I take a sip. It’s hot, sweet, and spiced. “This tastes like Christmas.”
He nods and settles beside me on the thick rug in front of the fire, legs stretched out, a leather-bound book in hand. “This is a journal my grandfather kept during the war. He wrote it in Swedish. I’ve never read it out loud before.” His eyes don’t meet mine when he says it. Just stares at the paper as if it might burn him.
I touch his arm. “You don’t have to.”
He nods. “It might not be pretty, but I want to. For you.”
He clears his throat and reads. Slowly, of course. His Swedish threads into the cadence of the English, softening it somehow, reminding me of poetry.
“I chose to fight for a land that isn’t my own, but it’s in my blood. My mother’s stories of Karelia and songs sung in a language I never mastered made it seem like home long before I ever stepped across the border into Finland.
* * *
We had no promises. No glory. Only fire and cold and a hope we held like a thread between our hands. We lost so much. But when the world gave us no peace, we built it anyway between us. With our hands. With our stubborn hearts.
* * *
