Even in the cold, I found myself sweating. It was far too quiet outside. The only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart inside of my chest as I slowly breathed deeply in and out, trying not to make noise. I crawled low on the ground to my destination. I had finally made it. I fell into what I was reaching for, a shallow hand-made trench of snow, and breathed a sigh of relief as I collected more of the cold white powder. I stopped breathing to maximize my hearing ability.

'Wait for it,' I thought to myself. 'Wait for it...' I then heard footsteps getting closer to me. 'Now!' I swiftly jumped to my feet and hurled my snowball as hard as I could. It broke apart on Jennifer's leg and she went down with an overexaggerated cry of pain.

"You...got...me," She said when I rushed up to her, pretending she could barely talk.

I joined her on the cold ground. "Well, it's about time I did. You nailed me, like, 20 times tonight," I reminded her. It felt wired, saying 'tonight'. Had I really spent the whole day out with her? I did. The past few days had gone by so fast. The moment my family found out that Jennifer would be staying over for the holidays to us lying on the snow-laden ground seemed like only seconds.

Jennifer laid on her side and used her arm and hand to prop up her head. She stretched out her other hand and used it to wipe a few flakes of snow out of my hair. We both new that it didn't really matter, considering that we were surrounded by it, but a little bit of flirting was nice. We had made sure to stay clear from each other, in terms of flirting, so that my family wouldn't know what was going on between us. But since we were finally alone...

"Dear Lord, you're hot!" Jennifer said to me. She smiled. "Do you know how long I've been waiting to tell you that?" She asked, scooting closer to me.

"I bet I have an idea," I said, playfully.

In unison, we brought our lips together and kissed slowly at first, but the wanting for each other eventually became too great and we could no longer go slow. I was kissing her furiously, never wanting to part. 'Please don't let this end,' I thought, right before I heard my name. Against my will, I broke away from her.

"Kelly! Jennifer! It's time to come in now. You're going to catch a cold," my mother called out.

"Aw, Mom, do we have to?" I asked in a whiny tone.

"Yes," She said. "Besides, I made cocoa!"

I looked at Jennifer, who was smiling. "Come on," she said. "Let' s have some cocoa." She could clearly see that I was disappointed and gave me a small peck on the cheek. "It's ok. We'll get another chance," she told me.

We both stood up and walked to the house. The second we stepped in, we were greeted by a burst of heat, making us instantly want to take off our snow gear. Jennifer got hers off pretty easily, but I was having some trouble. I got my scarf caught in my jacket zipper. I had a habit of doing that.

"Here, let me help you with that," Jennifer offered when she saw I couldn't do it. She came so close to me that our foreheads brushed a few times. I could see she wasn't trying very hard to unzip me. Her eyes met mine. For a moment, we didn't care about being careful, we both wanted it so badly. I could almost feel her soft lips on mine...

My mother then walked in. Jenny was so startled that she yanked my zipper right down.

"Oh, Honey did you zip your scarf again?" she asked.

"Um...yeah, mom. Jennifer was just helping me," I said to her.

My mom smiled and made her way to the living room with two mugs of hot chocolate.

Jennifer and I stayed back for a few seconds before following, thinking about how close that was.

"Where's Dad?" I asked.

"He's upstairs sleeping. We've had our hands full with your brother all day, so we're kind of beat. I'm so tired right now. I just want to sleep for days," my mom said with a yawn.

"Why don't you go to bed?"

"What about the fire..."

"I'll watch the fire place," I assured her.

"You're sure you'll be alright?" She asked. "Do you guys want me to get you anything before I leave?"

"It's ok, Mrs. Maxwell. You've done enough," Jennifer said.

"Well, ok, then. I'm off." She waved at us as she headed up the stairs.

Once she was gone, Jennifer was quick to get close to me, which I didn't mid at all.

"This is great," I said. "Christmas vacation, hot chocolate, a fire place and my girlfriend."

Jennifer smiled and reached for something on the coffee table. "Don't forget, we have marshmallows!" She opened up the bag and dropped a couple into my mug.

"Thank you," I said.

"Oh, no problem." She took a sip. "Mmm, you're mom makes some good hot chocolate. My mom would never "waste time" doing stuff like that for me," Jennifer said.

"I can't imagine being with out my family on the holidays. This must really suck for you." I said, putting a hand on her should for comfort.

"Really? I can't even remember what the holidays were like with my family. Every year is something different. Some last minute reason for us to be broken up," she said, looking down at the melting marshmallows in her mug.

"You've really always been alone on Christmas?" I asked in disbelief.

"Well, we had a few Christmas' together when I was little, but I was too young to remember. Because I'm an only child, I always just get the house to myself."

I set my mug down and held her hand. "We'll you're not alone this time, Jennifer," I told her. I sat on her lap and kissed her. "You have me."

A/N: Sorry for the extremely long wait and I'm really sorry that after such a long wait, this is all you get. I really wanted to blow past Christmas since so much time has past, but I wrote this chapter anyways. It wouldn't make too much sence with out the holiday chapters.