“No. I’m a man. Jeans are good enough,” he scoffs as he makes a shooing motion. “Go on, put them on. I can’t have you catching a cold out here.”
“You want me to change. Right here?” I look around at the horde of people surrounding us.
“You’re not undressing, Katie. You’re actually putting on more clothes, so it’s hardly a thing to be modest about.”
He has a point, so I don’t argue. Using his brawn body to keep balance, I slip off my snow boot and slide my leg into the snow pants. I nearly fall over as I try to put my boot back on, so Hunter kneels to the ground, allowing me to put my hand on his shoulder while he places the snow boot back on my foot. After he helps me with the next leg, I’m fully dressed in my winter garb.
Before I get a chance to ask what he plans on sledding in, he takes out two red shovel-shaped things, which are too big to be actual shovels but too small to be anything else.
“Are we digging our way down the hill?” I muse.
“Clever.” He winks. “No. These are butt sleds. Actually, the official name is Flexible Flyer Snow Seats, but the unofficial name is butt sled.”
I eye up the sled and wonder how to use it. “I don’t think my butt will fit on that thing.”
“Of course it will. And it has to because this was literally all that was left in the store.” He smiles brilliantly as he hands me mine and then throws the brown bag in a nearby trash bin. “Ready?”
I walk with him to the edge of the hill. The air is brisk in the early evening night. I toss my sled on the ground and take a seat on it. Turns out, it’s bigger than I thought, and there’s plenty of room on here. The shovel-like handle is in front of me, so I grab it and assume this is how I steer.
I’m kind of perplexed by the whole thing until I look over at Hunter. His large body covers the sled, and he looks rather uncomfortable and oaf-like as he tries to settle himself on it.
My laughter comes out loud, and I spit a little into the snow as I lose my cool at how funny he looks. I have to hold my mitten-covered hand over my mouth to further hide my reaction.
Hunter looks over at me and quirks a brow. “Is this amusing to you?”
I adamantly shake my head while I say the opposite, “Very.”
“Good. Now, get your ass down the hill.” With a push on my back, he sends me flying.
The air whips across my face as I careen quickly toward the bottom. I have to steer my way through kids, and I nearly collide with one. I haven’t been sledding in years and never thought I would in my adult life without having kids of my own. When I reach the bottom, I fall to the side and land haphazardly into a bushel of snow.
I’m giggling as I rise and wipe the snow off my pants. Hunter comes down the hill after me, making a perfect stop, like he’s done this a million times.
“So, what did you think, Katie McGee? You ready to go again?”
I look at his rosy cheeks and beaming smile and nod. “Absolutely.”
For the next hour, we walk up the hill and slide down more times than I can count. My legs burn from the uphill cardio, but my heart is happy from the fun. Hunter and I race among each other and then meet a group of kids who want in on the action. We let the littles in and do our best to beat them. Hunter, being the heaviest, has gravity as an advantage, but this one kid has a sleigh that drives like a car.
Hunter and I fall a few times on the way up, drunk with laughter. It makes it hard to get up again and walk straight, so sometimes, we just stop and lie in the snow and joke around.
It gets dark fast, and the hill starts to clear up pretty quickly. There are a few people still sledding when we grab our sleds and walk toward the park’s exit.
Fifth Avenue isn’t far, so I start to walk toward it and hail a taxi. Hunter pulls me back.