She scoffs, “Who said we are making a snowman? I feel it would be only fitting that our snowman be a woman.”
“Fair enough. I can totally give her boobs!” I tell her as she approaches with the head in hand.
“Okay!” She smiles and gestures to the ball I made.
Bending down, I help her lift the midsection onto the bottom of the snowwoman. We plop the head on top of that, and all we have left is to give her some character, some pizzazz.
Noelle drops onto her knees in the snow, and I follow suit, not worrying for a second about the wetness that immediately begins soaking through my pants. She lifts mittens full of snow to the chest of our snowwoman and begins to mold a mound on the left side.
Ben shouts, “Three minutes left!”
Panic sets in. Hastily, I grab snow and begin to form the right boob on our snowwoman. Noelle finishes hers and takes off, rushing to find something.
A few moments later, I’ve created an almost-matching breast to the one Noelle made. Boobs are not symmetrical, so our creation shouldn’t be either.
“She needs a name,” I tell Noelle as she approaches with two sticks and two dark-colored rocks.
“You pick one out! Here.” She sticks her boot out to me. “Grab the carrot and wig!”
I can’t help but laugh as I ask, “What? A wig?”
She pushes the sticks into the side of the midsection and juts her foot closer to me. “Yes! Hurry! I am not losing again this year!”
Reaching inside of her boot, I instantly feel the hair tickle my hand. I yank it out, give it a gentle shake, run my fingers through it, then put the chocolate-brown wig on our snowwoman’s head.
The rocks are now eyes for our girl here. Grabbing the carrot out of Noelle’s boot, I jam it into the face of … let’s call her Carol. I do all of this while somehow not noticing that both of Noelle’s hands are in the back of her shirt, like she’s trying to take her—
Ben interrupts my thought. “Two minutes!”
Noelle gasps, “Kat! Help. I can’t get it. I think the clasp is caught on the lace.”
My guess was correct. I rise to my feet, and my heart is racing faster than it was just seconds ago. I know nothing about this is sexual. But I am still about to unhook her bra, and … I don’t know … that feels like more than nothing.
She turns, giving me her back, and I shake my hands, trying to get rid of my nerves.
“Kat, please hurry. We are running out of time,” she begs me.
Right.
I slip my mittens off and throw them in the snow. Then, I reach my hands under her shirt and jacket, searching for the clasp of her bra as fast as I possibly can. My hands go into autopilot, locating the lace and then the clasp a moment later.
But my thoughts are focusing on how incredibly smooth her skin is, how I can feel the goose bumps rise as my fingers dance up her back. In a different circumstance, I would enjoy this much more. But right now, I have a competition to win, and Noelle and I need to focus.
Once her bra is unhooked, she moves insanely fast, removing the bra underneath her clothes. It looks like a magic act. I have done this a time or two, but I swear I blinked, and she is already wrapping it around Carol and putting her stick arms through it.
“Thirty seconds!” Ben yells while clapping, clearly done making his.
Noelle studies Carol for a moment before declaring, “She is perfect!”
Her smile and pride make every inch of me feel such warmth and happiness. I’m amazed by her, inspired by her. She doesn’t just find the light in everything; sheisthe light.
“Time!” Ben shouts to all of us.
We step back away from Carol and walk toward Ben, where Scott and Nancy are also heading from their snowman. Ben’s snowman looks picture-perfect, and I can feel Noelle’s irritation before glancing at the slight scowl on her face.
Glancing down, I see her mittens have come off as well at some point. Slowly, I intertwine our fingers and give her hand a light squeeze.
As the distance between us and the group closes, I lean into her, lift my head, and whisper in her ear, “I would rather lose withCarolthan win with theirs, babe.”
