Jack nods and stares at our feet. Our legs are stretched out in the snow, four parallel lines so deliberately not touching. “But really, that moment in front of the warehouse—that was the first time it felt like someone actually believed I could do it. I mean, Dylan supports me, but they also know my whole history of false starts and abandoned dreams. But you just… believed. So you being here right now, telling me to ignore my dad’s criticism—it’s all very full-circle for me.”

Jack tilts her left foot so it bumps my right. “I guess that’s me saying thanks, or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” I say, bumping her back. We leave our feet that way, tilted toward each other, touching. Boot to boot, leg to leg. “I’m sorry that it started out of spite, though. I’m… I’m sorry that I ghosted you. I should’ve said that last night.”

“I’m sorry that my wife showed up on Christmas morning.”

I stare at the place where our bodies overlap through the rubber of our shoes, and just like that, I’m ready to throw away two hundred thousand dollars, ready to tell my mom to fuck off, ready to do whatever it takes to be just a little bit closer to her.

“Do you think if—” Jack starts.

“Why the fuck were you blaring Britney at nine in the morning?”

We both whip around to see Dylan stomping through the snow. Jack folds her legs inward so she’s sitting cross-legged in the snow by the time Dylan reaches us. We’re not touching at all. They’re wearing Andrew’s herringbone peacoat over a pair of footie pajamas and scowling as they look at Jack and then me and then back again. “And why the fuck are the two of you sitting in the snow?”

I stare at Jack and imagine I can pull the rest of her sentence from her mouth. Do you think if… what?

Do I think if Claire had never shown up, things would have gone differently?

Do I think if I hadn’t ghosted, if I’d given Jack the chance to explain, we might have been able to figure out a way to extend the magic beyond a single snow day?

Do I think if I wasn’t engaged to her brother, then maybe…?

But I can’t make Jack finish her previous thought, and instead she smiles up at her best friend, and says, “Alan Prescott is why we’re sitting in the snow.”

“Of fucking course he is,” Dylan says, and then they flop down into the snow beside us.

Chapter Seventeen

Alan Prescott is a real piece of work.

Within the first ten minutes of meeting me, he insults my jeans, my job, and my parents, and while the last might deserve it, this still seems like a dick move.