Claire nodded. Their first kiss lasted only a few seconds. Warm, careful, real. When they separated, Claire kept her forehead near his and laughed once under her breath.
“Merry Christmas,” Jack said. “This is a very inconvenient Christmas.” “I’ve had worse.” At twelve-thirty, airport staff dimmed another section of lights and encouraged passengers to rest.
Claire and Jack tried. They failed. They sat beneath the blanket with their shoulders pressed together, talking in low voices because intimacy often arrives less from confession than from staying awake after everyone else has stopped performing. Claire told him about her father.
His name had been Richard Bennett. He repaired high-school heating systems, hated neckties, and believed Christmas trees should be cut locally even if doing so resulted in a crooked trunk and mild family hypothermia. He had died of a heart attack at fifty-six while shoveling snow from the driveway. Claire had been living in New York and had missed not only the funeral opening but the final hours at the hospital by an entire day because nobody understood how quickly things were moving.
“I thought being late meant I failed him,” she said. Jack squeezed her hand under the blanket. “Did he ever think that?” “No.”
“Then maybe you’ve been arguing with a man who isn’t arguing back.” Claire looked at him. “That’s annoyingly good.” “I have moments.”
Jack told her about his father too. Daniel Mercer had spent thirty-five years in construction and knew every practical thing Jack did not. He could estimate lumber by sight, rewire old fixtures, identify structural shortcuts from across a room, and make every mistake sound like a character issue. Jack had admired him until adolescence, resisted him through college, and spent his twenties measuring every decision against a man he claimed not to care about pleasing.
“What would happen if you stopped trying to win?” Claire asked. “I might have to figure out what I actually want.” “Terrifying.”