Chapter 1

“Well, the snow is really coming down, so the weather forecast seems to have been right,” Alex stated, turning away from the window and facing Freya. “Sadly, I think our Valentine’s Day plans are officially canceled.”

Always cheerful, Freya smiled brightly and answered, “Oh, that’s fine. Although I was looking forward to whatever surprise you had planned for today, there’s not much we can do. We can’t change the weather, right? But we can cuddle and watch a movie, then I’ll cook us an early dinner and we can put a fire in the fireplace and watch another movie.”

“Yeah. We can do your Valentine’s surprise thing next weekend, maybe,” Alex said, not very excited about the prospect of watching movies all day. But the unspoken promise of fooling around did hold his interest. It was Valentine’s Day, after all.

“Sure. We can do it next weekend,” Freya answered, taking his hand and leading him into the living room. “As long as I get to spend time with you, I’m happy.” Much to Alex’s dismay, Freya picked a romantic comedy that looked cute to her – and rather boring to him – and they both settled onto the couch with a warm comforter over themselves.

Hoping to move things along, Alex placed his hand gently on Freya’s thigh and gave her a light rub. Freya looked at him, smiled, placed her hand over his, and turned back to the movie that was just starting. Alex sighed internally. He hoped that Freya would be more interested in a little more physical action, but maybe she really did just want a quiet day spent with the two of them.

But Alex didn’t want to sit around all day and watch some boring romantic comedy – movies that were always much too light on the comedy aspect. He had other things on his mind. He just had to figure out how to gently guide the afternoon in that direction.

And then Alex’s luck changed.

With no warning whatsoever, the power went out.

There was that strange moment of crushing silence that always follows a power outage where your ears almost have to re-calibrate themselves to the lack of background noise that is usually constantly bombarding our eardrums. They heard the jingle of Rio’s dog tags and saw him tentatively making his way over to the couch in the murky darkness. He barked softly as if to ask what had happened and Alex reached down and picked him up. It was exactly a year ago today that Freya had gotten the tiny Yorkshire Terrier for him. And just as it had been when he first saw Freya, for Alex, the cute puppy was love at first sight.

“We’re striking out all over the place,” Freya stated.

‘You can say that again,’ Alex thought as he placed Rio on the couch next to him. “So, keeping with the baseball analogy,” Alex started as he leaned towards Freya for a kiss, “Do you think I can get to first base?”

Freya giggled. “Maybe,” she coyly said. “But why don’t you start a fire first? That would be romantic.” Alex stood up and Rio hopped off the couch to follow him. “It’s a good thing that we have a gas stove so I can still make us dinner,” Freya commented. “And then we can eat by candlelight! This could be the best Valentine’s Day ever!”