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“You look like you’ve already done a full day,” she says.

“Maisy tried to turn in a September packet. Kayla stalked me on the internet. Jayden figured out Simon’s Theo’s dad out loud, in front of everyone. So. Yes.”

She snorts, pulling the lid off her lunch. “Middle school.”

“Three more days.”

“Three more days,” she agrees. “Then I am not thinking about a single one of them until January.”

“Liar. You’ll be in the group chat by the twenty-seventh.”

“Monitoring. That’s different.”

“Sure.”

I cap my pen and lean back in my chair. My neck hurts. My back hurts. I’m pretty sure I’ve developed an eye twitch from saying no, I am not accepting assignments from September twenty-seven times today.

“What are you doing for Christmas?” I ask. “With Hudson.”

“My mom’s on Christmas Day. Nothing exciting after that. Why?”

“I want to get together. Ice skating, or sledding, something outside so Theo isn't crawling up the walls at my house.”

Jamie starts opening her lunch. “Theo’s four. Skating might be a lot.”

“I know. He’d mostly hold the wall and demand hot chocolate after ten minutes. Sledding might be easier. There’s that hill behind the park. The little one. Not the big drop.”

“The one where Hudson almost died two years ago?”

I laugh. “He did not almost die.”

“He went airborne.”

“The small side of it,” I correct. “We'd use the small side.”

She considers it while chewing. “What day?”

“After Christmas. The twenty-seventh, if we're not too tired from our families.”

“Twenty-seventh is good for me. Gives him a few days to come down from the presents.” She points her fork at me. “And you have to tell your fiancé he’s coming. I’m not chasing his kid down a hill by myself while you stand there complaining about being cold.”

“He’ll come. He likes any excuse to be outside.”

“And he's large enough to carry both children back up the hill.” Jamie points her sandwich at me.

“Exactly. We'll use him like a ski lift.”

Jamie smiles. “How is it? Being engaged?”

I smile and hold my hand out.

She immediately abandons her lunch and grabs it.

The diamond catches the fluorescent classroom lights, which aren't nearly as pretty as the sunlight on top of the overlook had been, but it still makes something stupid and warm happen in my chest every time.

“It's so fucking pretty.” Jamie fawns.

“I know.”