“Ah.” I bend down and rub Paul Hollywood’s ears, because it stops me from saying or doing something stupid after this whole passionate declaration. Like trying to kiss her again.

Her cheeks are even pinker now, her ears bright red beneath the rim of her beanie. Jack might see the Airstream as a symbol of her independence, but it’s also a shiny cage. It’s a sardine box that keeps her safe and separate from the rest of her family, maybe even the rest of the world. Her whole life, her dad has made her feel like a screwup; everyone has made her feel like she’s not enough, or too much, but none of that can touch her inside her glossy home on wheels. Nothing can hurt her if she’s always moving.

Yet what she craves most is to plant herself. And for one day last year, I felt like she let me see behind the mask of indifference, the cool aluminum exterior.

Absolutely no good can come from imagining that life of roots and routines with her.

“Look, your dad sounds like a real piece of work,” I say, refocusing, “but don’t let that diminish what you’ve accomplished, Jack. You’re about to open a fucking bakery!”

“I just—” Jack winds herself up like she’s going to launch into another rant, but she collapses instead, literally, her knees buckling beneath her as she topples into the snow. Her legs stick out in front of her an awkward angle, making her look much younger than twenty-seven. “I wouldn’t have done it without you.” She releases a resigned exhale and sends up another puff of breath.

I drop back into the snow beside her, my pajama bottoms immediately soaked through. “What?”

Jack kicks a deep groove into the snow with the toe of her boot. “The Butch Oven. I—I wouldn’t have decided to do it if you hadn’t believed in me that day. I thought it was spite, actually.” Jack smiles a little, but my entire body is coated in permafrost, unable to move, even though all I want to do is get closer to this woman who is an arm’s length away. “I was so hurt when you bailed while I was in the shower, and for some reason, I turned that into, I’ll open my bakery all by myself, and that will show her.”

“God, you’re stubborn,” I say. Even as the permafrost spreads to my heart, my brain still struggles to adjust to this new version of our shared history. The version where I ghosted. The version where she kept my scarf.