Chapter 34

“That was amazingly fun, Victor! We should do it again!”

I laughed with him, reaching back to my childhood and those lost evenings with my friends, both young boys and girls, neighboring classmates who flocked to Shantire Hill and played for hours in the snow: sledding, building snow people, and having tyrannical snowball fights.

“We should,” I told him. “I’d race you to the top, but I’m not twelve anymore. You’d probably kick my ass with your time.”

He continued to laugh.

I continued to laugh.

A nearby resident flicked on one of their outside rear lights to investigate the loud commotion, but they couldn’t view us in the shadows of night: two men and an inflated, rubber sled half concealed by compelling snow and chilled wind, garnished with the just a few slivers of March moonlight the color of sliver-blue mixed with hints of mischievous white. Having unfound results, the nosy neighbor turned off their outside light and vanished back inside their warm abode, there to stay.