“Most people don’t operate that way,” Bennett observed.
“Most people are exhausting,” Jasper replied.
Bennett huffed a quiet laugh. “Fair.”
They stayed there for a while longer, the comfortable silence between them feeling more significant than Bennett wanted to acknowledge.
At noon, Bennett closed his laptop. “I need air.”
“Same,” Jasper said. “Before you start alphabetizing the furniture.”
Outside, the snow had thinned to a soft drift. The air was cold and clean, the kind that cleared your head whether you wanted it to or not.
They walked side by side along the cleared path near the hotel, shoulders brushing once before neither of them corrected it.
“You’re different out here,” Jasper said.
Bennett glanced at him. “How.”
“Quieter,” Jasper replied. “Less braced.”
Bennett looked ahead. “Temporary.”
“Everything is,” Jasper said.
They stopped near the edge of the path, the world stretching white and still around them. Bennett turned to face him.
“You’re very good at this,” Bennett said.
“At what?”
“At making people talk.”
Jasper smiled. “I’m better at listening.”
Bennett hesitated. “That is not what scares me.”
Jasper’s expression softened. “I know.”
They stood there, close enough that the cold did nothing to dull the warmth between them.
Bennett inhaled, steadying himself. “Jasper.”
“Yes.”
Bennett opened his mouth. Closed it again.
Jasper waited. He did not rush him. He did not fill the silence.
Finally, Bennett shook his head.
Jasper nodded, relief and want tangling in his chest.
They headed back inside without touching again, but the space between them felt different now. Charged. Promising.
Later that afternoon,they’d settled back into their separate corners of the room. Working. Not working. The comfortable rhythm they’d developed over days.
Bennett’s phone buzzed with an alert. He glanced at it, then looked up at Jasper.
