“I have to go,” I say.
“Clare? Whatever happens, don’t run. You always run when things get real. Don’t run from this.”
The front door opens before I can respond, and Mitch appears with my coat in his hands.
“You’ll freeze out here,” he says, draping it around my shoulders.
His hands linger on my arms, and when I look up at him, there’s something in his gray eyes that makes my heart race. Like he was genuinely worried about me. Like my absence mattered.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Just checking in with my friend.”
But his thumb brushes against my cheek, and I realize there are tears I didn’t know I was crying. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head, embarrassed. “Just... your family is really wonderful.”
Understanding flickers across his face. “And yours isn’t.”
It’s not a question, and I don’t deny it.
“Come here,” he says, pulling me against his chest.
I let him hold me on his parents’ front porch while snow falls around us, letting myself pretend for just a moment that this kind of care isn’t temporary. That someone wanting to comfort me, to shield me from hurt, isn’t just holiday charity.
“Better?” he asks after a moment.
I nod against his chest, breathing in his warmth, his steadiness.
“Good,” he says. “Because Sophie’s demanding you come back and help her arrange the dollhouse furniture. Apparently, I don’t understand proper interior design.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “She’s very particular.”
“She gets it from her grandmother.” His arms tighten around me. “Ready to go back in?”
I am. For the first time in my adult life, I’m ready to go back into the warmth, into the chaos, into a family that’s decided I belong.
Even if it’s only temporary.
Even if it’s only pretend.
Chapter Thirty-One
Target Practice
Mitchell
The cold just hits different in Minnesota. But right now, I’m not thinking about the temperature or how my breath fogs in the air. I’m watching Clare, her cheeks flushed from the wind, her laugh cutting through the silence of the snow-covered trees that stretch across the back of our property.
I think she needed this. Needed to get away from the family chaos, from whatever that phone call stirred up earlier. I saw the way she tried to hide those tears, the careful way she rebuilt her walls after I found her on the porch.
But out here, just the two of us crunching through fresh powder, those walls are coming down again.
“Your family’s going to think we’re insane,” she says, stepping carefully over a fallen log. “Who goes for walks in December in Minnesota?”
“People who need to breathe.”
She glances at me, something soft flickering across her features. “Is that what we’re doing? Breathing?”