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I made myself wait a total of twelve minutes so as not to look pathetic before I responded.

Absolutely.

Now it’s six hours to dinner.

Five hours until I need to find an outfit and begin curling my hair.

Four and a half hours ’til it’s time to shower.

But who’s counting?

To my admittedly small but still very real credit, I at least had the self-control this afternoon to force myself away from my phone. And the only way to do it was to actually get outside. More than a hundred feet away from the thing.

I grabbed one of Dad’s oversized coats from the peg, shrugged it on, and tucked Rejection Therapy: Reprogram Your Day to Reprogram Your Mind under my arm on the way out the back door after lunch. That’s when I found Dad out by the logs splitting wood with his hydraulic splitter, and I—just as I used to all the way back when I was a little girl—helped him place the logs on the belt before settling into the rusted camp chair with my book. It’s peaceful out here.

Quiet.

Frigid, of course. But there’s a comfort in sitting beside Dad in his coat, the world smelling like the old Carhartt fabric and the clean, cutting scent of pine forest. A few birds watch us from their spindly branches against a cloudy sky. Every now and again I hear Mom in the kitchen talking on the phone with my aunt about food details for the farmhouse gathering starting tomorrow (complete with a growing list of duties I am getting nailed down for), the sound of her voice alternating with the noise from a squirrel picking its way over snow.

Dad is the best person in the world to help you put your life into perspective. He isn’t a talker—that’s Mom’s department for sure—but he’s in tune with the needs of others and provides accordingly. He’s always been the person I could go to when I needed somebody to remain calm. He invites conversation when it comes, and when it doesn’t, he never complains.

That’s the best thing about Dad, actually: He really doesn’t ever complain.

Which is why he welcomed me with a quiet shake-off of snow from the old, rusted chair when he saw me trooping outdoors toward him, listened as I told him a few tidbits about my plans for the day, and ultimately allowed us to fall into silent stride—him working on the growing pile of wood beside him, me alternating between rereading my book (for the fourth time now in so many days) and helping load logs.

He kind of reminds me of James in this way.

Quiet yet strong.

Quiet yet welcoming.

Quiet yet the kind of person you find yourself drawn to.

I wonder what Dad would think about him? Maybe they should meet.

I shake the thought from my head (because I need not to obsess here—this is time away from thinking about James) and flip the book over at my page on the chair to help him with another log.

“What’re ya readin’?” Dad says eventually, glancing over at the book, his hand on the handle.

I feel my cheeks warm. “Nothing much. Just a little self-help book I’ve seen go around lately. I finished the book Mom put out on my bedside table. That one was cute.”

And then I tell him a little synopsis of the sweet Christmas romance.

It’s an obvious redirection. But that’s the good thing about Dad. He knows it is and doesn’t push.

He goes through a few more logs, the sound of the hydraulic splitter ringing through the air and sending birds scattering.

During a quiet moment, after stacking a few more logs on the machine, I settle back into my chair. “Hey, Dad,” I say, because oh, what the heck, “when did you know Mom was the one, exactly?”

I am not overthinking anything here.

I am not being overly optimistic.

I’m just . . . curious.

And if I promised myself not to think about James—which I am firmly doing—I at least can cheat my own made-up system a little by thinking about somebody else’s romantic relationship and then, you know, take all my gathered-up information to analyze against my own life situation at a later time. Perfectly safe.

“Well,” he says, chucking a freshly splintered log onto the pile, “I guess I had it pretty easy in that regard. When she told me.”