I ran after him while trying -and failing- to dodge his lightning-fast snowballs. I made an attempt at throwing back some of my own into Joey's direction but I do not think any of them hit. Man, I sucked at this. 

“Nice reflexes, Fisher!” Joey mocked me with a taunting smirk. His head poked out from behind the bushes, making it the perfect target. I snuck behind a tree and sneakily threw a freshly scooped snowball into the direction of his laughter. Once I heard a loud thunk and a few curses from Joey's end, I started to snicker. I guess my reflexes were not as bad as I had thought. 

I stuck my head out from my hiding spot to see if I could locate Joey; It would be priceless to wipe the smug look off his face! It would be easy to hit him again! This turned out to be a fatal mistake. A second after I had stuck my head out, a snowball hit me right in the face with pinpoint accuracy. 

"Joey! You asshole," I yelled as I swiped the snow from my eyes, "how are you this good?!" The laughter coming from behind the bushes only wound me up more and I abandoned my hiding place to give him a piece of my mind. 

“Lots and lots of practice," Joey answered cheerfully as he jumped up. "My friends love snowball fights and I do too, to be honest.” 

"Hey, that's not fair!” I pouted. "I'm very inexperienced when it comes to snowball fights; you should've told me I was going up against a pro!" Now that Joey had abandoned his hiding spot I could finally see that I had hit his left ear. The corners of my mouth curled into a cautious smile. Not bad for a rookie snowball thrower... I almost felt proud of myself. 

There were chunks of snow stuck in Joey's hair and he shook his head like a wet dog to get rid of them. “Okay, okay, I’ll make you a deal," he responded as he combed through his locks. "You can hit me at point-blank range to make the score even but only if you admit that I’m better at snowball fights than you are.”

I took a minute to weigh my options before making my decision. "Fine, I'll admit it, you're better than me," I then grumbled reluctantly.  

"What was that? I couldn't understand you," Joey taunted me. "Could you repeat that for me?" 

I was seething. My competitiveness had always been my greatest pride; I wanted to be the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and that desire pushed me to achieve what others believed to be far out of my reach. However, it was also my greatest folly. "Oh, you arrogant motherfucker..." I quickly made a snowball and promptly threw it against his chest. 

The sudden shock in Joey's eyes surprised me. “Betrayal!” He dramatically grabbed his chest with his right hand and let himself fall back into the snow. “Oh Simon, how could you hurt me so?" He gasped, heartbroken. "Out of all my friends, why did it have to be you? I trusted you, traitor!” 

I shook my head in disbelief at Joey's theatrics. His eyes glazed over and he reached towards the sky with the hand that was not clutching his chest. "Oh God, the light is coming closer! Forgive me for all of my sins! Like the one time I borrowed Hakim's pen and never returned it!" As soon as he closed his eyes, he dropped his arm and his head rolled over. It was almost impressive how much he was playing this up. 

I decided to go along with his skit and closed my eyes, putting my hand on my heart. “Thy death shall not be in vain. Now go in peace, my dearest comrade!” Joey tried to stay silent but after a moment he could not hold in his laughter anymore. I fell onto the snow next to him. “Seriously Joey, stealing a pen is the worst sin you could think of?”

“Well, not really," he snickered as he started to make a snow angel, "but it was the only sin I could think of that wouldn’t have hurt your virgin ears.” 

I was a little offended by Joey's assumptions and huffed: “Awh come on, I’m not that much of a snowflake! I can handle it!” Being a virgin did not automatically make me allergic to the topic of sex. 

Joey smirked smugly. "Are you sure? In that case, I can tell you about the time Sarah and I went to the pool. My tongue muscles got a pretty good workout that day."

“Ew Joey, no! Gross! I don’t need to hear what your disgusting tongue did!” I cringed and covered my ears. Okay, maybe I did not actually want to hear about Joey's sexual escapades. 

“Told you you wouldn’t want to hear it!” He laughed triumphantly in response. 

After a minute or so of laying in the snow, the cold started to penetrate my coat, so I got up and brushed myself off. “Shall we go back to the group?” 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea," Joey jumped up and nodded in agreement. "You should lead the way though, because again; I’m garbage at navigation.”

I walked back to the road with Joey on my heels, following the tracks we had left previously in the snow. We were going in the right direction -I was sure of it- but something felt off. “Joey…” I wondered hesitantly. “What time is it?”

He retrieved his phone from his pocket. “Um, around half past 4, I would say…”

“And when were we supposed to get back?”

“Four…”

“Well shit.”