Page 77 of Falling Like Snow

“No, but we might have Cool Whip,” I say.

“Okay, I can work with this.” Jake stands. “First things first, yes to Taylor. Someone put on Reputation. Sloane, I need candles. And where are your board games? I know the mayor has board games.”

“I am not giving you candles,” I say. “I was only kidding when I told my mom we might accidentally burn this place down.”

“Can’t you just trust me?” Jake says. “I haven’t burned down any houses yet.”

I sigh and lead him upstairs to our hallway closet, where Mom has stored the old board games we used to play with Dad.

Jake scans them and pulls out two. “Perfect.”

Then, while he rummages through the cabinets in the kitchen, I grab the few candles we own—all cinnamon scented—from the top of the refrigerator.

“If this place turns to ashes, I will kill you,” I say, handing them to him with a box of matches.

“Noted,” Jake says as he turns and heads into the living room, where everyone has packed up the school stuff and thrown their bookbags in the corner.

Jake lights the candles, then places a bag of marshmallows on the table next to them.

“Grab some forks and you can roast marshmallows. They’re expired, but I think you’ll survive,” he tells me. Then, with a giant grin, he holds up Twister to the group. “Who’s in?”

Cooper, Slug, and Fern raise their hands.

Jake lifts his eyebrows, pleasantly surprised to see Fern volunteer. “Nice.”

We all watch Jake disappear into the kitchen for a second before he returns with dish soap and a sopping-wet dish towel.

“Just to keep things interesting.” He squirts the soap onto the mat and smears it with the towel, making it slick but not too wet and messy. “Socks off, everyone.”

“At least you didn’t promise your mom we wouldn’t break our necks,” Slug says to me.

The four seniors toss their socks into the corner, then stand to the sides of the mat, Jake and Fern blatantly eyeing each other. Ellis takes on the role of referee, and the game commences, with Hannah cheering from the sidelines.

Parker and Chloe set up the game of Guess Who? that Jake brought down, and Asher gets forks from the kitchen before sitting next to me on the couch.

Fifteen minutes later, Slug has fallen, Jake is doing a backbend over Fern, and Asher and I are wolfing down blackened marshmallows that may or may not be safe to eat, given the unnatural cinnamon flavor they’re absorbing from the candle.

Jake’s hand suddenly slips as he tries to maneuver following Ellis’s next call. Fern moves her left hand just before Jake collapses and lands flat on his back, with Fern hovering over him.

He casually locks his hands behind his head, shoots her a crooked grin, and starts singing along with Taylor Swift: “You’re so gorgeous… Can’t say anything to your face…”

“Ellis, make the next call, please,” Fern says, straining to hold in her laugh. Ellis announces that left hands need to move to blue, and Jake finally slides off the slippery mat.

Fern and Cooper battle it out for a few more minutes before Fern gets twisted into an impossible position and collapses. Ellis jumps up, celebrating Cooper’s win by leaping on him.

“In your face, Fern!” she yells at her best friend.

Cooper laughs and kisses her. “My god, you’re competitive even when you’re not the one competing.”

I grin at them, jealousy secretly tugging at my heart. I turn to Asher. “If I eat another marshmallow, I think I’ll die.”

“So dramatic,” he says. “But same.”

We sit back and kick up our feet as Chloe shouts that she beat Parker at Guess Who? and the others circle around the table.

Slug holds up the half-eaten bag of marshmallows. “Oh, come on! Where’d they all go?”

Asher points his thumb at me.