The deer was staring at him. Completely still. It hadn’t made a sound.

  Reagan crept to the side to get a closer look. It looked like the deer had managed to snag its foot between two crossbars and a small tree that was growing right next to the fence.

  Mason was still inching toward it, with his hands out.

  “What are you doing?” Reagan asked again.

  “I’m going to help it get free.”

  “It’ll get itself free.”

  “I don’t think it will. It’s wedged pretty good.”

  The deer broke into frantic movement, struggling against the fence.

  “It’s going to injure itself,” Mason said.

  “It’s going to injure you.”

  This wasn’t a fawn or a hungry little doe; the deer was as long as Reagan was tall—it must have weighed two hundred pounds.

  “Shhhh,” Mason was saying. Maybe to the deer, maybe to Reagan. He was crouching behind it, which seemed like the dumbest decision in the world.

  “Mason,” Reagan whispered.

  “It’s all right,” he said, reaching for the trapped hoof. “Her other legs are on the other side of the fence.”

  “I think that’s a buck.”

  “She’s not a buck, look at her head.”

  The deer struggled again. Mason froze. Reagan took another anxious step toward them.

  When the deer stilled, Mason shot forward. He bent the tree back and grabbed the trapped hoof, lifting it free.

  The deer pulled the leg forward—and in the same motion, kicked its other hind leg through the fence, catching Mason in the chest.

  “Oof,” he said, falling backward.

  The deer ran away, and Reagan ran to Mason. “Jesus Christ!” she shouted. “I told you!”

  Mason was lying on his back in the snow. Reagan went down on her knees beside him. Her right knee hurt like a motherfucker. “Are you okay?” she asked, touching his arm.

  His eyes were wide. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just surprised. Is she okay?”

  “The deer?”

  He nodded.

  “She’s fine,” Reagan said. “She’ll live to spread ticks and disease, and destroy crops. Where’d she get you?”

  He pointed to his shoulder.

  “Can you move it?”

  He rotated his shoulder. He was broader than he looked from a distance. Broad even under his coat. His neck was thick, and one of his ears was partly inverted, probably from an old injury. He had snow in his ears and his hair. His hair was much darker than Reagan’s, almost black.

  “Did you hit your head?” she asked.

  “No. I think I’m okay.”

  “That was so stupid, Mason—that could have been your face.” “I think I’m okay,” he repeated. He lifted his head up out of the snow and pushed up onto his elbows.

  Reagan moved away from him.

  He stood up, so she stood up, too. The pain in her knee flared. She hissed, shifting her weight off it.

  Mason caught her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Reagan looked up at him. He was an inch or two taller than her. Not very tall. “That could have been your neck,” she said. “That was so stupid.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “God damn it,” Reagan said. Her heart was still pounding.

  Mason looked worried. There was snow on his glasses, and his mask had fallen below his nose. He was holding her arm. “I’m sorry, okay? Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Reagan said. “I’m just . . .”

  Mason was holding her arm. He was standing right next to her. She’d put herself this close to him, and she wasn’t even wearing a mask—where was her mask? He was so close, she could see his chest moving.

  He reached up, slowly, with his free hand, and tugged his mask back into place over his nose.

  Reagan watched him through the fog of her own breath.

  Then she reached up, with her own free hand, to touch his cloth-covered cheek.

  He didn’t move away.

  She pulled his mask down. Slowly. Deliberately. Under his soft chin.

  Mason watched her face. He wasn’t smiling, but she could still see his two front teeth.

  Reagan made a fist in the suede collar of his coat and pulled herself closer to him.

  His head dipped forward, more fiercely than she was expecting, to kiss her.

  She closed her eyes and just let it happen for a few seconds—he was kissing her. He was in her space. Past her perimeter. This was the second person to touch her today. The second person in ten months. (If Reagan had known in February what was coming, she would have thrown her body into more arms.) (She didn’t need people the way other people needed people, but she still needed . . . something.) Mason squeezed her arm. She felt herself waking up. She pulled hard on his collar and kissed him hungrily—he tasted green. God. God damn it. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her even closer. They were both wearing thick coats. Reagan was still wearing her ankle boots. Her feet were drenched. That deer was probably long gone. God damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

  Mason pulled his mouth away. “Hey,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”

  Reagan was fine.

  “Reagan . . .”

  She was fine. She was alive. She was lucky.

  “You’re crying,” he said, loosening his arm, letting go of her elbow. “I’m sorry . . .”

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s not . . .” She didn’t have the rest of that sentence. She was at a loss for everything. Mason was just standing there, with Reagan’s hand holding his collar. She pushed her face into his shoulder.

  “All right,” he said, touching her back again gently. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t. It maybe never would be. Reagan was crying like . . . like she was someone else. Someone she’d judge too harshly to pity.

  “All right,” Mason was whispering.

  Reagan let go of his collar. She lifted her head. She looked up at his face. She didn’t remember him from high school. She shook her head but couldn’t find anything useful in it.

  She took a step away from him and thought about apologizing, but she wasn’t sure how. She ran back toward the house, past the deck and around the front.

  When she rang the doorbell, her grandpa answered it.

  Christmas 2021

  The house was full of Reagan’s relatives.

  It still felt surreal to Reagan, to be this close to people. It still felt unsafe.

  But her grandfather had decided it was probably as safe as it was going to get. Half the family was vaccinated, he argued, and the other half had already had Covid—a few of them had had both. “I’m tired of waiting for it to get better, honey. It feels like we should all get together before it gets worse.”

  Grandpa had just gotten his booster shot, and he was feeling invincible.

  Reagan couldn’t imagine that feeling.

  She’d spent too much of the last two years feeling paranoid and vulnerable. She’d gotten through Thanksgiving at her mom’s house by sitting next to an open window. And she got through most other social situations by avoiding them. She was still working remotely, by choice. And she still used the drive-up lane for groceries.

  She’d tried going out with her friends a few times, this summer, when the future had felt brighter—but even then, it was hard not to look around a crowded bar and wonder how everyone there had spent the last year. Had they been the ones making it all worse?

  Her friends said she was bitter. Levi said she had PTSD.

  “I’m not so sure about that P,” Reagan told him. (Easy for Levi to shrug it all off. He was surrounded by fresh air and bison.)

  Her family wouldn’t even talk to her about Covid anymore. Reagan’s sister Caitlin had been down for about two months this spring, and she was still having trouble climbing stairs—but she’d told Reagan to stop checking in with her. “I can feel you judging me.”

  Reagan didn’t know how to tell her sister that she only sort of judged her. That she wished Caitlin had been more careful, but that she also didn’t believe that being careful was enough. And more than all that, she was just worried about her. She was constantly worried about all of them.

  Reagan’s mother had called the week before Christmas to make sure Reagan was coming home. “You worry too much,” her mom said. “The CDC says the risk for vaccinated people—”

  Reagan had cut her off. “Oh, the CDC . . .”

  “Sometimes I think you don’t want to get back to normal, Reagan. Sometimes I think you like it better this way.”

  Sometimes Reagan agreed with her.

  But Reagan had made the drive out to Arnold, anyway. She’d even come a day early to carry the folding chairs up from Grandpa’s basement and to wash all the not-quite-china. And here she was, sitting at a table crowded with family—and even more crowded with food. (She’d claimed a chair at the grown-ups’ table without consulting anyone. Her thirty-eight-year-old brother was at one of the kids’ tables, and Reagan didn’t feel a tiny bit bad about it.)

  She was sitting between her mom and her aunt, facing the window that looked out on the house next door. Reagan had spent the last twenty-four hours not looking in that direction, but now she was stuck.

  The neighbors had a full house today, too; the street outside was bumper-to-bumper trucks and SUVs. The two houses were set so close that Reagan could see right into the neighbors’ dining room. She could see people sitting at the table . . .

  She could see Mason staring right at her.

  Reagan froze.

  He was smiling at her. His gentle little chipmunk smile. He slowly raised a hand and moved his fingers to wave. Reagan nodded, but she wasn’t sure he’d see it, so she raised her hand, too, then quickly put it back under the table.

  “Who are you waving at?” her mom asked.

  “One of the kids next door.”

  “We should close those curtains.” Her mom flagged down one of the great-grandkids who was walking by the window. “Grace, close those curtains.”

  “Leave them open,” Reagan’s grandpa said. “This isn’t a funeral.”

  “Dad, the McCrackens are watching us eat.”

  “They aren’t watching us eat. They’ve got satellite TV over there. They’ve got better things to do.”

  Reagan avoided the window for the rest of the meal. The few times she glanced up, Mason was sitting there, probably talking to someone; it was hard to tell. Then she glanced up again, and someone else was sitting there. She relaxed a little after that.

  After dinner, she helped her mom and her aunts clear the table. Reagan picked up the glass lasagna pan of Jell-O salad that she’d brought. It was still half-full. She grabbed two wet spoons out of the dish drainer and headed out the back door. “Be right back.”

  He was standing on his deck, leaning on the railing, looking out into the field. She’d known she’d find him out here . . .

  No, that wasn’t quite true. She’d just hoped that she would.

  Mason turned when he heard her door open. He smiled a little. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Reagan said. “Who’re you hiding from this time?”

  “I’m not hiding,” he said.

  It was still full daylight. Winter daylight—bright yellow shot with gray. Mason was wearing a red sweater with Rudolph on the front. His face was flushed. It wasn’t cold enough for a heavy coat—there wasn’t any snow on the ground—but he had on a faded denim jacket with a flannel collar. His hair was cut short over his neck and ears. That must have been Covid hair, last year. This was what he really looked like.

  Reagan held out the pan of Jell-O salad.

  He lowered an eyebrow.

  “I’ve got spoons,” she said.

  Mason laughed and sat down on the edge of his deck, hopping off.

  He came around the side of her grandpa’s deck, taking the steps. Reagan prepared herself for it. She still wasn’t good in these moments, when someone was approaching her.

  She saw the top of Mason’s head on the stairs. And then the rest of him. She could see his body more clearly than she had last year. He had broad shoulders and a barrel chest. Thick arms. A belly. He looked young. The way country boys look young. Even this side of thirty.

  When he got to the deck, Reagan took a step back. He stepped back, too, to the edge of the stairs.

  She kind of shrugged the pan at him. Like she wasn’t sure what to do next. There weren’t any chairs out here, and she was already losing her nerve.

  “I have a mask,” Mason said, reaching into his pocket.

  “It’s okay,” Reagan said. “We’re outdoors. And . . . it’s okay.”

  “Here . . .” Mason backed down a few steps and sat, leaving room for Reagan at the top. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she said, sitting. She stuck a spoon in the pan and passed it down to him.

  He took it. “Is that what I think it is?”

  It absolutely was. Raspberry pretzel Jell-O salad. Reagan didn’t say anything. Just watched him take a bite.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “Why don’t people still make this?”

  Reagan laughed. He held the pan out to her, and she took a bite, too.

  Mason was clean-shaven. His eyes were blue. He was square-faced and handsome.

  He motioned at the front of his sweater with his spoon. “We do this ugly-Christmas-sweater thing now.”

  Reagan nodded. “My family does that, too.”

  He looked down at her chest, confused. She was wearing a snug black V-neck.

  “Not me,” she said. “Fuck that.”

  Mason laughed and offered her the pan again.

  Reagan took another bite of Jell-O salad. There were three layers—raspberry Jell-O, whipped cream cheese with sugar, and crushed pretzels. “So are you back in D.C. now?”

  “I was,” he said, “for a month or two. Then I bought a house in Omaha.”

  Her head jerked up. “You moved back to Nebraska?”

  Mason nodded. He was more earnest-looking this close. In the daylight. (And he’d already seemed pretty earnest in the dark.) “Yeah, D.C. just felt too far, after everything. And my apartment seemed so small . . . So I bought a house in Omaha. My brother says I got ripped off, but it’s palatial compared to what I could afford back east. I feel like a Major League Baseball player.”

  Reagan laughed. This was a lot of laughing. “Did you quit your job?”

  “No. I’m still remote.”

  “Me, too.”

  “That’s good.” He frowned. “I mean, is that good?”

  “It’s what I wanted,” she said.

  “Well then, good.” He took another bite of Jell-O salad. He had the pan in his lap. “I’m eating a lot of this, is that okay?”

  “God, yeah,” she said, “my nieces and nephews won’t touch it. They say dessert shouldn’t be salty.”

  “Okay,” he said with his mouth full, “well, one, this isn’t a dessert; it’s a salad. And, two, the saltiness is the best part.”

  “You can have as much as you want,” she said.

  “I will.”

  Reagan smiled—then bit both her lips for a second. “Was, um . . . was everything okay last year?”

  Mason looked up into her eyes. “Last year? You mean . . .”

  “With your family,” she said. “Your brother coming into the house.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He shook his head. “It was fine. I mean, of course it was, right? What were the chances?”

  She nodded. “Did you get vaccinated?”

  “Fuck yeah,” he said. “I don’t care if it makes me grow another leg. I was first in line.”

  Reagan nodded some more. “Yeah, same.”

  “Give me some of that hot, fresh gene therapy,” Mason went on, chewing. “I mean . . . hopefully we don’t all grow extra legs . . .”

  “Yeah,” Reagan agreed. “Hopefully. If we all die, the only people left will be these shitheads.” She waved her spoon around. Indicating half the county and both her brothers.

  “That’s a little harsh,” he said.

  I’m a little harsh, she thought.

  Mason was smiling up at her. “I always thought you had red hair. In high school.”

  “I did,” she said. “I stopped dyeing it last year. I didn’t want to do it myself, and then I just got used to this color.”

  “That’s your natural hair color?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s great,” he said, still smiling that chipmunky smile. “It’s exactly the color of wildflower honey.”

  “Dirty blond?”

  He shook his head, but he looked more amused than anything. “Harsh . . .”

  “Mason,” Reagan said, more serious. Her eyebrows were low, and she’d squared her shoulders. “Last year. I’m sorry that I—”

  “Hey. It’s okay. You don’t have to—”

  “No, I want to—”

  “Reagan.” His voice was gentle. His whole posture was gentle. “It was just a moment in the woods, right?”

  “What?”

  “You know, the Sondheim musical?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Mason huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know. Just—you don’t have to—”

  “I’m sorry I ran away,” she said. “I’m sorry I cried.” She licked her lips. “I’m sorry I reacted like kissing you was a bad thing. It wasn’t.”

  Mason had stopped arguing with her. He’d stopped smiling.

  “It was not a bad thing,” Reagan said as clearly as she could. “Kissing you.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said.

  She shook her head no.

  “No,” he said, “I’m agreeing. It very much wasn’t. Also. From my perspective.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, good.”

  “All right,” Mason said, nodding.

  Reagan nodded.

  He scratched his head with the hand that wasn’t holding a spoon and grinned at her. “This Jell-O salad has served its purpose, don’t you think?” He held up the pan.

  Reagan looked down at it. She took it from him and set it behind her.

  As soon as the Jell-O was out of the way, Mason was pushing up, over her lap, to kiss her. He’d turned so that he was kneeling on one stair, with his other leg stretched behind him.