“No surprises can be good.”
“It can be. Or it can be like settling.” The admission slips out before I can stop it. “I think maybe we were both settling for familiar instead of fighting for something real.”
Clare goes very still across from me, her spoon suspended halfway to her mouth.
“Is that why she left? Because it wasn’t real enough?”
I consider the question, really consider it for maybe the first time. Why did Hannah leave me for Luke? Was it just about him, or was it about us—about the careful, polite relationship we’d built on the foundation of shared history instead of actual passion?
“Maybe,” I say finally. “Or maybe she just fell in love with someone else, and I was too comfortable to notice we were just going through the motions.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She did me a favor.” The words surprise me with their honesty. “It hurt like hell at the time, but she was right to leave. We were playing house instead of actually living.”
Clare takes a small sip of her soup, and I watch her process what I’ve told her. There’s something careful in her expression, like she’s weighing her words.
“What about now?” she asks quietly.
“What about now?”
“Do you still think comfortable means settling?”
The question hits like a blindside check. Because looking at her across this table—hair falling in soft waves around her face, cheeks still flushed from the cold, drowning in one of mysweaters in the most adorable way possible—nothing about what I’m feeling is comfortable.
It’s terrifying and exhilarating and completely outside my control.
“No. I think there’s a difference between being comfortable with someone and just settling.”
Something shifts in her expression, heat flickering behind her dark eyes.
“Good. There’s a difference between comfortable and settling.”
Outside the diner windows, snow has started falling again, turning Main Street into something soft and magical. But all I can focus on is the woman across from me and the way she makes everything else fade into background noise.
Chapter Twenty-One
Decked
Clare
The Drakes approach Christmas tree decorating with an intensity I wasn’t prepared for.
Karen has laid out ornaments with the precision of a museum curator—sorted by color, size, and what appears to be a complex emotional hierarchy that only she understands. There are boxes labeled “SENTIMENTAL - HANDLE WITH CARE,” “KIDS ONLY,” and one mysterious container marked “FRAGILE AF.”
The tree itself stands eight feet tall, a Fraser Fir perfection in the corner of the living room, already strung with enough lights to be visible from space. Tom is adjusting the angle for the fourth time while Karen directs him with the intensity of an air traffic controller.
“Left. No, your other left. Perfect. Now back just a smidge—”
“Karen, it’s a tree, not a NASA launch,” Tom says, but he’s smiling as he makes the adjustment.
I’m perched on the couch with a plate of what Karen calls her “decorating fuel”—an elaborate charcuterie board that could feed a small army. Apparently, serious ornament hanging requires salami, three different cheeses, and organic grapes.
Mitch settles beside me, close enough that his thigh brushes mine, and immediately starts stealing from my plate.
“Get your own,” I mumble around a bite of brie.
“This is more fun.” He pops a grape in his mouth and grins at me. “Besides, you’re not eating fast enough.”