Page 56 of The Reluctant Roommate

“So, what will we do?” Heidi asked. “We’ve done the extreme cooking, aced the Jenga challenge. What else do you do on snow days?”

“I’m usually by myself. So I clean the house, read, work out, shovel the path if it looks like it’s stopping.”

“Let’s go for a walk later.” Heidi’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve never seen this much snow in my life. I want to go to the park, fall into a drift, and see if the snow is wet enough for a snowball fight. I wonder if it’s deep enough to need snowshoes? I’ve always wanted to go snowshoeing. Not that I have any.”

“I have some. I think I still have an old pair you can use. But I’m guessing if we stick to the sidewalks, there’ll be enough of a path we can follow.”

“Let’s have breakfast first.” Heidi opened the cupboard and pulled out a fry pan. “How about homemade baked beans on toast? With a poached egg?”

“Breakfast burritos with a hash brown?”

“Omelet with leftover veggies and cheese?”

“I think there’s some bacon.”

Heidi laughed. “We’re not going to starve. No doubt there’s a turkey dinner in the fridge too.”

“There is. We’ll be sick of turkey before it runs out.”

~ ~ ~

Heidi set down her book and went to look out the window. “It’s stopped snowing.”

Morgan grunted and turned a page.

“The sun’s breaking through. And the neighbors over the road are having a snowball fight.” She whirled away and over to the door. “I’m so into that. Coming?”

Morgan looked up from her book. “I’ve got eighteen pages to go. I need to find out if the main character leaves her husband and goes off with her female yoga instructor.”

Heidi squinted at the title. “Hm. Not a sapphic author—more mainstream. So there’s maybe a fifty-fifty chance she will. Come and tell me when you’ve finished.”

She pulled on her jacket, beanie, gloves, and snow boots, then left in a waft of cold air from the front door.

The sunlight bouncing off the snow hurt her eyes, but she didn’t want sunnies in a snowball fight. Over the road, two teams of adults and kids were dodging around the front yards, hiding behind trees and the humped shapes of parked cars.

“Can I join?” she yelled.

“Sure. Join our team. We’re losing,” a burly Black man in a fluorescent jacket shouted back.

She recognized him as living a couple of doors up. She ran over to their position behind a fence. “Any rules?”

“No aiming at windows. No standing in front of windows to pelt the opposition. All attack methods must involve snow.” He grinned. “Go for it.”

Heidi ducked down to gather snow. It was wet enough to hold together. She popped up and took careful aim at a woman making a run across the front of the other side’s position on the porch. Her snowball missed and fell harmlessly to the grass, but she received a wallop to the shoulder from the opposing team’s barrage. She dropped back behind the fence.

“We’re going to storm their blockade.” Her new friend waved an arm. “United front. Concentrated attack. It will be brutal. It could be bloody. It will be dangerous.”

One of the kids giggled.

He fixed Heidi with a stern look, but his eyes twinkled. “You in?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a salute.

“Good woman. I’m Aaron, by the way, and these are my minions.”

“Heidi.”

They filled their hands with snowballs, and keeping low, they crept to the edge of the fence. Aaron stayed in the middle.