It was snowing the night I first met him—big, lazy flakes drifting through the mountain air, the kind of snow that makes the whole world slow down and shimmer just a little more.

I almost canceled.

I’d just moved to Breckenridge two months earlier, chasing a dream of fresh starts and snow-covered peace after a breakup that had left me hollow. I wasn’t ready for anything serious, or even a date, really. But my friend Liv had insisted.

“He’s not a creep. I swear. He’s sweet. You’ll like him. Plus,” she added, with a grin, “he chose Castaways Cove for dinner. Anyone who brings a first date to a tropical-themed restaurant in the middle of the Rockies has to be at least interesting.”

That was enough to get me out the door.

I stepped into Castaways that night wrapped in a thick coat, cheeks rosy from the cold, a little unsure of myself. The moment I opened the door, warmth rushed over me—string lights glowing above surfboards and palm fronds, steel drums playing softly over the speakers, the smell of grilled pineapple and citrus and spiced rum in the air.

And there he was. Sitting at a corner table in a flannel shirt with snowflakes still melting in his hair, grinning like he’d been waiting for this moment forever.

“Hey,” he said, standing up and brushing snow off the chair he’d saved for me. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Me neither,” I admitted, laughing. “This place is… amazing.”

“Best Spam Musubi in town,” he said, matter-of-fact, like that was a hill he’d die on.

We ordered two “Mai Tais with Planteray OFTD floats” and shared a plate of coconut shrimp while we talked. About everything. About nothing. He told me he’d grown up in Denver and spent every winter skiing in Breck, and how he still cried when the Broncos lost big games. I told him I was a writer who hadn’t written anything in six months and that my idea of adventure, until recently, was ordering something other than pad Thai on a Friday night.

We talked until the POG Juice turned into daiquiris, and the daiquiris into a slice of homeamde key lime pie. We lingered long after the check was paid, long after our server had stopped pretending we weren’t the last ones there.

Finally, he stood, offered me his hand, and said, “Want to walk for a bit?”

The snow was still falling, soft and steady, and we wandered down Main Street under the glow of lamplight. The town looked like something from a snow globe, silent and perfect. I remember thinking how strange it was—feeling so calm, so light, with a man I’d just met.

And when we reached the bridge over the Blue River, he stopped, turned to me, and said, “Can I see you again?”

I nodded. “You have to take me back to Castaways. I didn’t even get to try the ramen.”

He smiled. “Deal.”

That was two years ago.

Last summer, we got engaged—right there at Castaways Cove. Same corner table. Same string lights above. He got down on one knee with a ring hidden inside a tiny plastic drink umbrella.

I said yes with krab rangoon in my mouth.

Because sometimes love doesn’t arrive when you expect it. Sometimes it shows up with snow in its hair and a table for two at a tropical restaurant in the Rockies. And somehow, impossibly, it feels like home.

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Some first dates fade. Others become the start of your favorite story. If you’re lucky, yours just might begin at Castaways Cove.