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They built the snowman wrong on purpose.
Claire insisted on rolling the bottom ball too big, huffing dramatically as she shoved it across the yard. “You’re just jealous because he’s got better proportions than you.”
Leon snorted, breath fogging the air. “I don’t know, Red. That thing’s already got my shoulders.”
She stopped, hands on her hips, appraising her work. “Please. You wish.”
He stuck his tongue out at her like he was sixteen again, then crouched to pack snow onto the middle section. “What, you gonna give him the hair too?”
Claire’s eyes lit up with something dangerous. “Oh. Absolutely.”
She disappeared into the garage and came back with a fistful of pine needles, jammed them carefully into the snowman’s head at an angle. Messy. Uneven. Somehow perfect.
Leon stared. “…Okay, that’s rude.”
She stepped back, grinning. “Tell me that’s not your hair after a mission.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then laughed. “Low blow.”
She bent down again, shaping the face with careful hands. Stones for eyes. A crooked smile that looked like it was mid-wisecrack. Then she disappeared inside and returned with one of his old gloves, fingers stuffed with snow and stuck into the side like it was waving.
“For authenticity,” she said solemnly.
“And the gun?” Leon asked dryly.
Claire brightened and held up a short stick she’d snapped clean in half. She tucked it into the snowman’s glove, angled just so. “Budget cuts.”
Leon laughed so hard he had to bend forward, hands on his knees. “Jesus, Claire.”
She wasn’t done. She dragged his coat—his coat, the one with the fur-lined hood—out the door and wrapped it around the snowman’s shoulders, tugging it snug.
Leon froze. “Hey. That’s my—”
“I know,” she said softly. She stepped back again, breath catching just slightly. “He looks cold.”
The joke hung there, fragile.
Leon crossed the distance between them in two strides and brushed snow off her hair, his thumb lingering at her temple. “You made me handsome.”
She smiled, eyes bright. “I always do.”
They stood there together, admiring the ridiculous, loving caricature she’d made of him, snow crunching under their boots, the world hushed and white. He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her cold nose.
“You’re gonna miss me when I melt,” he teased.
Claire wrinkled her nose. “Shut up. You’re dramatic.”
They went inside with red fingers and aching cheeks, shedding layers by the door. The house felt warmer for having laughed. They moved slowly, deliberately, like neither of them wanted to rush anything.
When they made love, it was quiet and reverent. No urgency. No jokes. Just hands memorizing, mouths lingering, the kind of closeness that felt like a promise neither of them dared to say out loud. Leon kissed her like he was trying to leave something behind. Claire held him like she was trying to keep him.
Later, tangled in blankets, the world outside dim and blue with evening, Leon’s phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
He went still.
Claire didn’t need to look at his face to know.
“Leon,” she said softly.
He exhaled through his nose, already gone somewhere else. “I have to take this.”
She nodded, because of course she did.
He kissed her forehead. Then her mouth. Then her shoulder, like he was committing her to memory. “I’ll call,” he promised.
She smiled. “I know.”
He was gone before the snow stopped falling.
The call never came.
Days passed. The house stayed quiet.
From the window, she could see the snowman slumping, his shoulders sagging under the weight of the coat. The pine-needle hair drooped. One stone eye fell away, swallowed by the snow beneath him. The stick gun tilted, then dropped entirely.
By the fourth day, the coat lay half-buried, the snowman’s chest collapsed inward like something hollowed out.
Claire stood at the window with a mug gone cold in her hands.
She didn’t cry.
She just watched him disappear—piece by piece—until there was nothing left but a wet, uneven patch of ground and his coat, dark and empty against the white.
Still waiting.
Still hoping the cold might come back and make him whole again.