"Nothing. Just... you're not what I expected when I first saw you at the rink."
"What did you expect?"
"Typical hockey player. All ego and swagger." She smiled. "Instead, you're all careful preparation and dad jokes."
"My dad jokes are excellent."
"Your dad jokes are terrible," Finn called from where he was organizing emergency supplies with military precision. "Miss Serena's just being nice."
"Traitor," I muttered, but I was smiling.
As we worked, I found myself telling her things I hadn't told anyone. How I'd installed medical-grade air filtration after Finn's first major attack. How I'd learned to read weather patterns obsessively after Sarah's accident. How I'd turned fear into action because action felt like control.
"Control's an illusion though," I said, tightening the last screw on a storm shutter. "Things happen anyway."
"But preparation helps you feel ready for them," she said softly. "That's not nothing."
The first snowflakes started falling as we finished, fat and lazy, nothing like the violence the forecast promised.
"It's pretty," Serena said, standing on her porch watching the snow begin to dust the trees.
"It's starting," I corrected, weather anxiety already cycling through worst-case scenarios. "We should head back. Finn needs his preventive medications before the pressure really drops."
"Of course." She turned to Finn. "Thank you for helping today. I feel much safer now."
"You can come to our house if you get scared," Finn offered. "We have a guest room and Dad makes good hot chocolate—not as good as the café but still good."
"That's kind of you."
I wanted to echo the invitation, to insist she shouldn't weather her first mountain blizzard alone. But that felt too intimate, too much like admitting I wanted her in our space, in our life.
"The offer stands," I said instead, aiming for casual. "If you need anything."
"Sure." She smiled.
Walking home with Finn against the gathering wind, I let myself imagine for just a moment what it would be like if this was normal. If Serena was ours to protect, not just a neighbor we'd run into at the store. If the storm brought her to our door and gave me an excuse to keep her safe.
"Dad?" Finn's voice pulled me from dangerous thoughts. "Can we invite Miss Serena for dinner sometime?"
"I'm sure she's busy—"
"But she lives all alone next door," Finn reasoned, kicking at a chunk of ice. "And you always make too much spaghetti. And she's really nice and doesn't treat me like I'm weird because of my breathing."
I looked down at my son, his cheeks pink from cold, hope shining in his eyes. "You really like her, don't you?"
"Don't you?" He gave me that too-knowing look that reminded me so much of Sarah. "You smile different when she's around. Like how you smile when you look at Mom's pictures."
The observation hit me square in the chest. "Finn—"
"We should invite her for dinner tonight," he continued, undeterred. "Before the storm gets bad. That's what neighbors do, right? Help each other?"
As we walked up to our house, Finn still making his case about storm safety and neighborly duty, I thought about Serena's laugh as we worked to winterize her cabin, the way she'd ruffled Finn's hair after he'd shown her how to properly seal a window, how natural it had felt working side by side even though we'd only offered to help out of basic neighborly concern.
There was a storm coming—the weather forecast promised that. But there was another storm building, one made of brown eyes and easy laughter, of someone who understood Finn's needs without making them overwhelming, who made our fortress feel less like a prison and more like a home.
That storm scared me more than any blizzard ever could.
Chapter 7: Serena
