“That doesn’t sound regressive,” I say without thinking, my fingers stroking the soft skin of Paul Hollywood’s ears. “That sounds… nice.”

In profile, I see the smallest tug of a smile in the corner of her mouth. “Claire didn’t lie to you that morning,” Jack says, sighing. “She’d been pushing me to have a one-night stand, because she thought I would feel better about her dating outside the marriage if I started seeing other people, too. But that’s not why I slept with you. The day we met—”

The engine releases a ghastly whine as we hit another patch of ice. Gillian fishtails, the truck bed swaying behind us. Jack holds the wheel steady with her left hand, completely calm despite the semi in the lane beside us as we pitch back and forth. She downshifts with her right hand, and the car straightens out. So confident and sure.

“That day I met you at Powell’s,” she repeats, “my marriage was already over. Claire had wanted to spend the holidays with her new girlfriend, and I’d stayed in Portland alone because I didn’t want to explain to my family why my wife wasn’t coming to the cabin with me. I didn’t want them to think I’d failed at my marriage like I’d failed at everything else.”

I’m shivering in the passenger seat, my teeth rattling against my jaw as I try to process what she’s saying, what it all means in the context of the story I’ve been telling myself for the past year. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married? We spent an entire day together playing the honesty game, and you never once mentioned Claire.”

Jack releases one hand from the wheel and pushes back her hair. “Because I didn’t want you to judge me for getting divorced at twenty-six. And because I really liked you.” Jack’s voice cracks again, and I crack right along with it. The scarf and the drawing and Fun Home. The way she smiled at me in the snow and the way she held my foot to her chest and the way she tried to reassure me. I’m not a pumpkin.

Why hadn’t I trusted her? Why had I been so quick to assume I’d misunderstood every touch, every word of affirmation, every moment we had together in the snow?

“Look, I know this doesn’t change anything between us.” She grabs a handful of her hair now, and I tell myself not to look at her in profile, not to watch the way the growing dusk outside the truck paints her in pale purple. “You’re with Andrew, but I just felt like we needed to clear the air. I mean, I’m really happy you and Andrew found each other, as weird as it is. You deserve… you deserve the best. Oh shit. You’re shivering.”