master bathroom, where I was finishing up the last of my makeup.
“It’s freezing outside, babe.”
“You came in here to tell me that?” I asked him with a smirk because we’d already been told how cold it was. Or at least how cold it could be. Multiple times before we arrived.
“Yes. And to see if you were almost ready.”
“I’ve been in here for, like, ten minutes.”
“I know, but”—he looked at me in the mirror and bit his bottom lip—“I just want to get out of this apartment and go see everything.”
I smiled big before turning around and wrapping my arms around his massive shoulders. “I love that you’re as excited as I am.”
“I totally am.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips before smacking me hard on the ass. “Now, hurry up, gorgeous. Let’s go see the city.”
*
I swore we walked by ten pizza places on our way to Central Park, each one claiming to be the best. I had no idea what the difference was between them; they all looked the same to me. Mac and I walked hand in glove-covered hand behind Danika and Chance, who led the way. The air was crisp and cold, but the wind made it bitter. Thank God Danika had had an extra beanie and scarf for me to wear. And the two pairs of socks? She had been absolutely right.
I was grateful when the wind finally died down. It made the cold bearable.
Central Park was absolutely enormous. I knew that people always said it was big and that they had concerts there and stuff, but I’d had no idea it was as large as it was. It was so much more than any park I’d ever been to back home. Whenever I thought of that word, I imagined a playground and basically an oversize lawn in my mind. This was like a hundred of those. Maybe more. And apparently, we hadn’t even walked half the length of it, and I’d already seen a zoo, a couple of lakes, multiple baseball fields, and an ice-skating rink! I thought I could spend the entire day walking around Central Park and still not see it all.
Mac grabbed and kissed my frozen lips constantly, spinning me around and dipping me like we were dancing. He made Central Park romantic. I thought we were both swept up in the magic of it all. The holiday, the snow, adventuring together.
“Come on, you two,” Chance yelled, and I realized that we’d fallen back pretty far from the two of them.
Mac pulled my hand as we ran to catch up, making sure not to slip on any ice or snow.
“If you two don’t stop kissing every five seconds, we’ll never see anything,” Danika scolded us like a pair of naughty teenagers.
I offered a nonchalant shrug. “Probably not gonna happen.”
“Definitely not gonna happen,” Mac agreed as he kissed me again.
A burst of snow exploded around our faces, and I realized that Chance had tossed a snowball at Mac’s head.
“Better run, Carter!” Mac shouted as he bent down to make a snowball the size of a freaking beach ball and threw it with both hands.
Chance easily maneuvered out of the way, and Mac saw the error of his ways.
He quickly made a new, much smaller ball of snow and threw it like a freaking Major League pitcher. It hit Chance right in the back as he tried to move to miss it but was struck anyway.
“Damn, that hurt,” Chance said, throwing a snowball back at Mac but aiming for his pants.
“Hey! No hitting the goods,” I demanded as Danika and I watched them and took pictures with our cell phones.
“Sorry, Sunny,” Chance apologized as the guys chased each other around like they’d done in the apartment the first night.
“Is this what it’s like to live with boys?” I asked.
Danika let out a stifled laugh as she looked around at the small crowd forming, watching them. “How would I know?”
“Can we please go now?” I yelled, hoping they’d stop running around long enough to realize that they were creating a scene.
Both of them stopped, snowballs in hand as they looked at one another with matching mischievous grins.
“Oh no,” Danika yelled and put her hands up. She realized what they were doing before I had a chance to put it together.
“Don’t you dare.” I started backing away from Mac, who was walking toward me way too quickly.
The two of them smashed their last remaining snowballs on top of my and Danika’s heads