"Lyss!" Nikko, my best friend, shouted across the snowy drift.

"Nikko! Hush!" I whispered from the rock I was behind.

"What are you doing?" he asked me, shaking snow from his black hair.

"Trying to ambush Maia," I replied, pointing to a stack of snowballs by my knees. Maia (pronounced may- UH)was my cousin three years my senior. She was constantly patronizing me because I hadn't hit double digits yet. (I was only nine.)But, I tended to tease back about how bad she was with her grammar, which drove her nuts.

"Alyssa, are you sure this is a good idea? You know how Maia gets," said Nikko nervously.

"Exactly," I said.

"You want to tick Maia off?" Nikko practically shouted. I whipped around, my blonde curls hitting him in the face, making him sneeze. I smacked a hand over his mouth. Despite the cold, his lips were warm. I could smell the sweat coming off of him from his run over here through his winter clothes. His brown eyes met mine, asking, "Is Robert coming?" Robert was Maia's boyfriend. He looked like Nikko, only with icy blue eyes. I nodded.

He removed his face from my hand and said, "You're going to snowball Maia in front of Robert? Now this I gotta see."

"How 'bout you help me?" I asked as innocently as I could. When he got this stony look on his face, I pleaded, "Please, Nikko!"

"Fine," he huffed,"but when your cousin kills me, I'm blaming you."

"Fine, fine," I agreed hastily. "But here she comes!"

Soon, Robert and Maia were in sight on the slope above us. I handed Nikko a snowball and palmed one of my own, neither of us taking their eyes off my cousin and her boyfriend. They began to lean toward each other, eyes closed.

"Ew," Nikko and I said in unison.

"Okay," I said,"ready,aim-"

"FIRE!" my best friend shouted and we both hurled our snowballs at top speed. As soon as we made contact, we stood up and bolted, running hand in hand back to my house, laughing the whole way, Maia hot on our heels.

"Alyssa Childbrook, Nikko Alexander, get your sorry butts over here so I can kill you!"