Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"
Robert Frost
January 1996
"How did you beat me home?" Stacy brushed fat snowflakes from her shoulders and stepped from the foyer, eyes wide with surprise. Greg lounged in one corner of the couch, a blanket drawn across his lap and a mug of steaming coffee balanced on his thigh. "You hadn't signed out of the Clinic when I left."
"I passed you about four miles up the road. Surprised you didn't hear the beep."
She shrugged out of her coat and draped it across the back of a chair. "I was concentrating on the road."
"I was already home for a half-hour before I saw your car crawling through the intersection." He offered her the mug, a smirk tugging at his lips. "You do remember where the gas pedal is, don't you?"
She hitched up one leg to sit on the arm of the couch and reached for the mug, curving both hands around it to warm her fingers. "I was nervous."
"Afraid your dragster speeds would make you fishtail out of control?"
The taunt would have roused a reaction if it hadn't been overshadowed by the wispy threads of steam rising from her mug. The vapor, laced with aromas of a dark French roast, curled around her face, warmth spreading across her skin.
When she lowered her hand to stroke the back of his head, he seemed disappointed with the unreturned volley. His eyebrows drew together. "What, did a few flurries take all the fight out of you?" he asked, sitting up to reach for the mug.
Grinning, she swatted his hand away and scooted behind the couch toward the bookshelf. His loud huff failed to draw her attention, and she lazily traced the book spines with her finger as she sipped her coffee.
When she had moved in, Greg had cleared a few shelves for her, stacking old chemistry textbooks and outdated medical journals in boxes. She had filled the space with souvenirs of her undergraduate years—novels and anthologies that bore dog-ear creases and her handwritten notes. Occasionally, she plucked a volume from the shelf and perused the tiny scribbles in the margin, careful not to smudge the traces of her effort and interest, before replacing it with its fellows between a pair of heavy bookends.
She tucked a thin paperback under her arm and carried it to the window. Propping the book on the windowsill, she watched the snow fall. Shimmering silver snowflakes streamed through the beams of streetlamps. On the sidewalk, yellow-orange light spilled from neighboring living rooms, casting fuzzy pools of color onto a fresh layer of downy snow. It left her with an empty sense of nostalgia for experiences that years in the South had denied her.
A cold draft seeped through the window's seal, and she shivered. Her breath left a patch of fog on the glass.
"There's room over here." Greg patted the couch cushion. "Blankets, body heat, all the cozy warmth you need."
She glanced over her shoulder, but didn't move from the window. A short sigh escaped her. "I never saw snow until I was twenty-one. Real snow, like this."
Greg stayed silent, but his brows furrowed.
"But I never had time to enjoy it." She paused to sip her coffee. "Full time student, full time lawyer."
Stacy stared into her coffee. She knew that such a somber admission was an invitation for a teasing remark, a light joke to crack the tension. But after a still, quiet moment, she heard a rustle—the blanket, she assumed—and the quiet slip-shuffle of Greg's socks against the floor. Turning slowly from the window, she watched him disappear into the hallway and reappear several minutes later, his arms balancing a mountain of winter attire—a couple of hooded parkas, knitted hats, an assortment of mittens and gloves, two colorful scarves, and a matching set of boots.
He dropped the bundle at her feet. "The boots won't fit you," he said, bending to retrieve a pair. "They're an older pair of mine. But they're better than your sneakers."
She set her mug on the windowsill, a grin on her lips, and dressed herself with the clothes that Greg tossed at her. As she laced the boots, she wiggled her toes. The tips of the boots stretched several inches past her toes, and she sighed as she stood.
"Nice clown feet." He snickered, zipping his own parka.
"At least one of us can brag about the length of their feet." She lifted a foot and waved it.
He smirked, took hold of her hand, and dragged her out the door.
Their cheeks were pink when they reached the park near the end of the street. She followed him to a bench at the top of a hill, stomp-walking through the snow, and dusted snow from the seat. Greg gathered her against his side, and she let her head fall to his shoulder, covering her ear with her hat as the flakes settled on their bodies.
The silence lasted for less than a minute before Greg pointed, his arm crossing her body and guiding her attention to a drift near a tree. "See that?"
Stacy squinted. A piece of blue plastic lay half-buried in the drift. "It's a piece of garbage, Greg."
He huffed, a flash of disbelief crossing his face, and hauled her off the bench. "That's not garbage."
Within minutes, Greg was displaying his find, dramatically gesturing to the large disc like Vanna White.
Stacy cocked her head. "What is it?"
"It's a sled." He sat and pushed himself over the snow to illustrate. "Hop on."
Eyeing him with suspicion, she sat in the circle of his folded legs. She felt his arm wrap around her—a wordless offer of security—before the sled moved forward and teetered on the crest of a hill. Snow crunched beneath them, and her heart sped up in her chest.
"Greg," she whispered. Her hands gripped his forearm as if it were a safety harness. "I'm not sure this is a good—"
Her words remained at the top of the hill, left behind as the sled lurched forward with a wobbly push.
The instant rush drew a shriek from her throat—a girlish shriek that made her recall a time when she wore denim overalls instead of pleated power suits, when she pedaled down the hill on her white banana-seat bike in her backyard, training wheels defiantly abandoned in the grass.
Her hair had danced around her face, caught in a happy vortex of wind as she'd glanced over her shoulder. She'd heard her own laugh whipping past her ears, imagining it vanishing between the tear-blurred masses of tree trunks, until—
The sled slid from under them. She toppled into a mound of powdery snow, and, in lieu of the aluminum frame of her Huffy, Greg tumbled on top of her, coming to rest with a grunt near her ear.
"Well," she said, "I suppose I shouldn't expect to see your Olympic debut in Nagano. You'll need more than two years to rectify that apparent inability to turn."
Braced on his elbows, he lowered his head until the chilled tips of their noses met. His breath warmed the skin of her face when he spoke. "The rider in the front seat usually steers the sled, so don't blame this crash on me. I'm only responsible for the brake."
"Oh, well, in that case, you're clearly blameless." Her tongue snuck between her lips to ease her dry, wind-burned skin. The tip of her tongue inadvertently grazed his bottom lip, forcing a quiet hitch in his breathing.
"Fine," he whispered with a low tone. "Next time I'll abandon ship, let you wrap yourself around a tree."
"You wouldn't." She supplemented her verbal challenge with another, purposeful swipe of her tongue across his lip.
Stacy smirked with smug satisfaction as his eyelids fluttered closed. Occasionally, Greg's inclination to argue succumbed to his libido. Sarcastic retorts or playfully obnoxious remarks would yield to fast, heavy breaths or resonating moans, and sometimes she preferred him that way—lost to his baser drives, overcome with fervid passion, temporarily robbed of his rationality.
"No," he mumbled, sliding his open mouth against hers. "I wouldn't."
The warmth of his mouth contrasted the cold, and she welcomed the hot, slip-push of his tongue. Her hips rolled upward, away from the cool, melting crystals beneath her, and met with Greg's burgeoning erection, warm through the denim of his jeans. She felt the rumble of his groan inside her mouth. Hot, wet warmth pooled between her thighs, displacing the discomfort of the cool dampness on the seat of her pants.
Her hands curled under his arms to rest on the small of his back, driven by an insatiable desire to touch him. The material of her mittens was worn, thinned at the edges, and afforded little protection, but she was grateful for it. Warmth radiated from under his coat, and she tugged up the hem to press her hands to his skin.
Stacy's eyes opened wide in surprise when Greg's body tensed, and he pulled away from her, hissing through clenched teeth. She watched as a short exhale left him—a visible plume of fog rising from his mouth.
"Damn, stop it," he said shortly. "That's cold."
"What, the Northern boy can't take it?" A playful grin pulled at the corner of her mouth as she shoved a handful of snow under his clothes, pressing it into his back before he gasped and wiggled away from her.
She stood, watching him shake the snow from his coat, and caught the scowl on his face. She hadn't considered his attempts at retribution, and the thought made her squirm. She stepped close to him and stretched out her hand. "Truce?" she asked, perhaps a little too hopefully.
He eyed her, head tilted and eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her in an attempt to read past her outstretched hand. Over the last few months, she had become familiar with that stare—acutely observant and unwavering in its focus and intensity. It was paralyzing, made her breath catch in her throat almost painfully. She loved it.
His eyes never left her as he straightened his hat and scarf. She felt the impulse to lower her hand, to stuff it deep into her pocket and force him to tail after her to their townhouse, but she squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and waited. When he extended his hand and grasped hers, she slumped her shoulders and closed her eyes.
He pulled her against his body and lowered his mouth to her ear. His hissed whisper made her eyes fly open and her arm jerk—a reflexive attempt to flee.
"Never."
He wedged his fist beneath her clothes, dropped a handful of dusty snow down her front, and released her to dash toward the park's entrance.
She chased him, tracking him by his loud battle cry—"The North will prevail!"—and the pattern of his footprints.