I don’t answer at first.
Because no one asks me questions like that.
Because I’m not used to thinking about myself as part of the holiday, just the person making sure things don’t fall apart.
She waits. Patient. Steady. The way only she can.
I let out a slow breath. “For me… I guess I want it to feel real again.”
“Real how?”
“Like when my dad was here,” I say, the words coming low. “Simple. Easy. Like we were all on the same team.”
She doesn’t speak immediately. When she does, her voice is soft and sure.
“We can build that. All of it. Together.”
The wordtogetherlands in my chest like a warm hand.
I look up.
She’s watching me with an expression that shouldn’t be allowed—open and earnest and full of something that feels dangerously like belief.
No one believes in me like that.
No one has in a long time.
My pulse changes—steady but stronger, like the mountain shifting beneath snow.
“Natalie,” I say quietly.
She looks at me, eyes bright, lips parted slightly.
The space between us contracts.
Not physically.
Something else.
I lean in—just enough to feel the warmth of her breath, not enough to cross the line I’m still telling myself exists.
Her eyelashes flutter.
Her fingers tighten around her mug.
Her voice is a whisper.
“Calder…”
The rest of the moment is fragile enough to shatter.
BOOM.
Snow slams off the roof again, landing with an avalanche thud that rattles every window.
Natalie yelps and nearly upends her cocoa. I catch the mug before it spills, our hands tangling briefly.
Her heartbeat races.
