Chapter 12 Brad
The almost-kiss haunted every interaction. I watched Serena pour her energy into Finn's care with aggressive cheerfulness, maintaining a professional distance that made my chest ache. She was still here, still present, but the ease between us had been replaced by careful choreography.
"Miss Serena, look!" Finn called from the living room where they'd built an elaborate city with blocks. "The hospital has a helicopter pad just like Wrightwood General!"
"Brilliant engineering, Finn," she replied, but when our eyes met over his head, she flinched away like I'd burned her.
I hunched over hockey footage, cursor frozen on the same play for twenty minutes while I watched her demonstrate load distribution using towers of blocks, her hands—those careful, competent hands—gesturing in my old Avalanche sweatshirt that swallowed her whole; seeing her in it created a cognitive dissonance I couldn't resolve.
"Dad's doing the thing," Finn announced to the room.
"What thing?" Serena's voice pitched higher.
"The thing where he stares at you and his face gets all weird and googly." Finn demonstrated by crossing his eyes. "Like when our neighbor's bulldog sees bacon."
I choked on air. Serena turned crimson.
“I’m seven, not blind,” Finn added. “Dad, can Miss Serena stay forever?” It was the third time he’d asked me that week. The kid had my stubbornness and his mother's refusal to let things go.
“Her cabin will be fixed soon,” I said automatically. “She has her own home.”
“But she likes it here.” He looked between us with seven-year-old certainty. “And we like her here, right, Dad?”
“It’s temporary, Finn.”
His whole body deflated. "Everything good is always temporary. Like Mom."
The words landed like a punch to the sternum. Serena dropped to her knees beside him, voice silk-soft.
"Hey, warrior. Even when I'm back next door, I'm not disappearing. We'll still have our adventures."
"It won't be the same." He turned away, seven years old and already learning how people leave. "Nothing stays the same."
The doorbell rescued us from drowning. I opened the door to a light, steady snowfall dusting the porch and the shoulders of the men outside. A repair crew supervisor stood there, clipboard in hand, a few flakes clinging to his cap.
"Ms. Voss? We've assessed your cabin damage."
Serena stepped forward. "How bad is it?"
"The tree went through load-bearing beams. We're looking at six to eight weeks minimum, assuming we can get materials. Every contractor in town is backed up with storm damage."
I felt simultaneous relief and panic. Six more weeks of this careful dance around each other.
"She'll stay here," I said before fully processing the decision. "Until it's habitable."
The supervisor nodded and left. Serena turned to me, expression unreadable.
"Brad, I can find somewhere else—"
"Where exactly? Every landlord in town is bleeding storm victims dry." My bad knee throbbed; I shifted my weight, trying not to show it. She noticed anyway—she always noticed. "Besides, you leave now and Finn will—"
"Just Finn?"
The question sliced through my defenses. She stood there in my sweatshirt, waiting for me to be brave enough to tell the truth.
Before I could find the words—or the courage—Finn rocketed into Serena, arms locking around her waist like he could anchor her there.
"You're staying! Dad said so! You're staying!"
She held him close, her eyes finding mine over his head—soft and sad and full of something I couldn't name but felt in my bones.
"Yeah, warrior," she whispered. "Looks like I'm staying."
That evening, we fell into new roles without explicitly discussing them.
Serena cooked dinner—she'd taken over when my knee made standing painful—while I helped Finn with homework.
We orbited each other like binary stars, gravitationally bound but never touching, the two feet between us might as well have been an ocean.
My knee screamed every time I shifted, but I'd chew glass before admitting it.
Theo burst through the door without knocking, snow in his hair and chaos in his wake. He stopped mid-stride, scanning our domestic tableau with the expression of a cat who'd discovered an unguarded fish tank.
"Jesus, the tension in here could power half of Colorado." He dumped grocery bags on the counter with theatrical flair. "I brought whiskey, frozen pizzas, and hot gossip. Patricia's been asking about you, Brad. Says you're looking 'deliciously brooding' these days."
Serena's knife came down hard enough to crack the cutting board.
"Pass," I said.
"She's gorgeous, owns three gyms, and actually understands offside rules—"
"I said pass."
"Fascinating." Theo's grin turned predatory. "Absolutely fascinating." He pivoted to Serena like a heat-seeking missile. "Maria sent wine. Said you'd need it 'living with those Wilder boys and their emotional constipation.'"
"Maria's never even met—"
"We've been texting. Lovely woman. We're doing tequila shots once the roads clear."
"You and Maria?" Serena looked horrified. "That's a terrible idea."
"Or brilliant. We'll see." He studied the careful distance between Serena and me. "Everything okay here? You both seem... tense."
"Everything's fine," we said in unison.
"Right. Fine. That's why you're standing exactly six feet apart like there's a force field between you."
"Theo," I warned.
"I'm just saying, if you need someone to watch Finn for a few hours so you can... talk through this tension..."
"We don't need—"
"Actually," Serena interrupted, "I need to get some things from my cabin. Check on the damage."
"I'll come with you," I said immediately.
"Your knee—"
"Is fine for walking short distances."
We stared at each other, another silent battle of wills.
"God, the tension is suffocating," Theo muttered. "Finn, want to build a snow fort while the adults pretend they're not desperately attracted to each other?"
"THEO!" Serena and I shouted together.
But Finn was already grabbing his coat, excited about snow fort construction. Within minutes, Theo had him outside, leaving Serena and me alone.
"We should—" I started.
"Don't." Serena set down the knife with deliberate control. "Just don't."
"You've been treating me like I'm radioactive since—"
"Since you pulled away from kissing me?" Her calm facade cracked. "Since you made it clear I'm a complication you don't need?"
"That's not what—"
"Isn't it?" She grabbed her coat. "I'm going to my cabin. Alone."
"Serena—"
She was already out the door.
I found her ten minutes later in what used to be her bedroom, standing beneath a skylight nobody had ordered.
Snow fell through the cavity where the oak had split her roof like a wishbone, dusting her shoulders, catching in her eyelashes.
She looked like something out of a snow globe—beautiful and trapped and shatterproof.
"Don't," she said without turning. "Whatever heroic platitude you're about to offer, just don't."
"Wasn't going to." I picked my way through the wreckage—splintered beams, books swollen with snowmelt, her life scattered like aftermath. "Your landlord's insurance is going to have a stroke."
She laughed, brittle as ice. "It's pathetic, right? Getting emotional over a rental. But it was supposed to be my fresh start. My proof that I could do this alone."
"You don't have to do everything alone."
"Says the man who's made isolation an art form."
I deserved that. "You're right. I'm a hypocrite."
She turned then, tears freezing on her cheeks. "Why did you pull away, Brad?"
"Because you scare the hell out of me." The words came out serrated. "Because you make me feel like I'm cheating on a ghost. Because Finn looks at you like you hung the moon and when you leave, he'll have another mother-shaped hole in his life."
"So you're what, preemptively destroying it? How very proactive."
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. "How to want someone without feeling like I'm erasing Sarah. How to let you in without waiting for you to leave."
"I'm not asking for promises," she said. "I'm not asking you to forget Sarah or change your whole life. I'm here, Brad. And you keep pushing me away while pulling me closer and I don't know what you want."
"You." The word escaped before I could stop it. "I want you. And it terrifies me."
We stood there in her ruined bedroom, snow falling between us like a metaphor for everything broken and beautiful about this moment.
"I should hate you a little," she said quietly. "For making me want something I'd sworn off. For making me care about you and Finn when I promised myself I wouldn't need anyone."
"Do you? Hate me?"
"No." She laughed, watery and defeated. "I hate how much I don't hate you."
I moved closer, navigating fallen beams and debris. "We're a mess."
"Two disasters trying to make a whole."
I reached out, caught a snowflake melting on her cheekbone. She leaned into my palm—just barely, just enough.
"All I know is Finn smiles more with you around. I know the house feels alive again instead of like a medical facility. I know I look for you first thing every morning and your laugh is the best part of my day. I know I'm scared of losing you already, and we're not even... whatever we are."
"What are we?"
A snowball exploded against the empty window frame. Finn's gleeful battle cry echoed through the ruins.
"Dad! Miss Serena! Uncle Theo's cheating!"
"How does one cheat at a snowball fight?" Serena asked.
"It's Theo. He'll find a way."
We walked back through the wreckage, not touching but somehow occupying the same space differently. The air between us had shifted—still charged but less hostile, like a storm deciding whether to break or pass.
Theo had constructed a snow fortress that belonged in a military tactics manual, complete with ammunition stockpiles and strategic turrets. He stood atop it like a conquering general, pelting Finn with surgical precision while Finn laughed so hard he couldn't breathe.
"Did you two kiss and make up?" Theo called. "Or just argue more articulately?"
"Option three," I said, scooping up snow. "We're taking you down."
"Finn, they're uniting against me! This is what blind attraction does—it creates dangerous alliances!"
"Theo!" Serena and I yelled, but we were both laughing.
What followed was beautiful chaos—Finn shrieking with glee, Serena's sneak attacks, Theo's dramatic death scenes.
At some point, she crashed into me, both of us shielding Finn from Theo's barrage.
My arms went around them both instinctively, her back pressed against my chest, Finn cocooned between us.
"Fort family wins!" Finn declared, throwing his arms up in victory.
Fort family. Like we were something real instead of broken people playing house in a snowstorm.
Serena went still against me. I felt her breath catch, felt the moment land on all of us—fragile and perfect and absolutely terrifying.
"Yeah," I said quietly, my voice rough. "Fort family wins."