“You thought… I forgot you…?” I glance back across the separated balconies. She’s staring off into the distance, too, her profile highlighted in gold from the lights. “I didn’t forget you,” she says. “I just… panicked. You were standing in my dining room, and I didn’t know what to do.”

She admits this so easily, always handing over the truth like she has nothing in the world to hide. Except she does. Or she did back then. I just found out about it too late.

“I panicked, too,” I confess, knowing she can’t see the heat of my face.

“So, you didn’t know?” she asks. “You didn’t know you were engaged to my older brother?”

“What? No! Of course not!” I sputter. “You and I weren’t exactly on a last-name basis. And Andrew calls you Jacqueline, and there are no pictures of you on his Instagram”—I definitely would’ve noticed—“and he said your family spends every Christmas here, when I happen to know this is not where you spent last Christmas.”

All of this is true. On paper, there was nothing to connect Andrew and Jack before she showed up here. Of course, now that I’m confronted with the truth, the signs are more obvious. The shared casual lean. The shared eyebrow pinch. The shared pouty mouth, the shared staggering bone structure, the shared gorgeous brown eyes and soft black hair. They’re both built like Olympic swimmers. They both have the same tendency to flash a charming smile and completely upend my life.

She props her arms against the railing between us and leans forward. “What are the odds, huh? Of all the people in Portland…” She laughs her too-big belly laugh, like it’s the funniest thing she can imagine. I grab the railing on my balcony, too, so our bodies are mirror images of each other. But I’m distinctly not laughing.

“It’s… it’s good to see you again, Elle.” Jack exhales with that same easy honesty. “I didn’t think I ever would, but…” She reaches up to push aside the flop of hair falling into her eyes. “You look good. Are you good?”

“I—” No, I almost say. No, I’m not good. I’m a frozen burrito. My ten-year plan crumbled, and I crumbled along with it. I’m so lonely and desperate, I agreed to a marriage for money. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good.” Jack smiles fully, and I look away again. “What are we going to do?” she asks, and for a moment, it feels like we’re on the same team again. I almost reach out for her before I remember there’s a fifteen-foot drop into snow between us.

“I don’t know,” I say.

She pushes back from the railing. “I don’t think we should tell Andrew the truth. About us.”