When fate plays its hand

Chapter 0809

While Paul was huffing and puffing, trying to master rolling a snowball, Miranda was in the lab, deeply engrossed in logging data. Madison and Sebastian had already gone home, leaving her alone.

Initially, Miranda felt a little off without Madison’s constant chatter filling the space. But as soon as she stepped onto the workbench and immersed herself in her tasks, the feeling melted away.

Miranda had long since learned to embrace solitude. During those years Hansel confined her to the mansion, she’d grown accustomed to being alone–reading alone, studying alone, cooking alone, eating alone, and waiting alone.

In academia, one could work in collaboration or solitude. Miranda had understood this truth early on.

At noon, she finally stretched her neck; it was sore from hours bent over her work. She then went to the break room for lunch. The meal, prepared earlier that morning, only needed a quick reheat in the microwave.

As she ate, she scrolled through her phone and stumbled upon a social media post that Silas had shared an hour ago. The caption read, ‘‘I’m all snowballed out.”

The attached image showed three rows of snowballs, all perfectly uniform in size and neatly aligned in the snow. Three whole rows!

Miranda found it… rather impressive. She gave it a like and commented, “So cool, Dr. Quinton.”

Silas instantly replied, “I’m not the cool one here.” And he added a smiling emoji at the end.

A few minutes later, as if unsatisfied with his earlier comment, he added, “I’m not being cool. It’s for an iPhone.”

Confused, Miranda replied, “What?”

Silas didn’t respond again. What did he mean by that comment? She simply shrugged it off, finishing her lunch and taking a brief break before returning to her experiments.

With the days getting shorter in winter, Miranda skipped her usual nap, thinking it would be easier to finish early and head home. Everything went smoothly, and by 4:00 pm, she was already in a cab on her way back.

When she reached her street, she noticed two kids outside the building next door. They were hard at work building a snowman.

The snowman was surprisingly detailed–complete with a nose, eyes, a red scarf, and a

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Chapter 0809

shiny stainless–steel colander for a hat. It looked so charming and lifelike that Miranda couldn’t help but pause and watch as the children carefully patted snow onto the snowman’s belly, rounding it out.

Paul entered the alley shortly after. He caught sight of Miranda standing there, her attention entirely absorbed by the scene.

She looked so focused, even more so than when she was conducting experiments in the lab. She didn’t even notice him walking up behind her.

“Do you like snow that much?” Paul’s voice broke her trance.

Startled, Miranda turned, her face lighting up instantly. “Dr. Jefferson, you’re back too?”

“Yeah, I had a productive day.” He wasn’t just referring to completing two sets of data but also to finally learning how to roll snowballs. That was productive, right?

Miranda pointed at the nearly finished snowman. “It’s so well done. These kids are amazing.”

Hearing her compliment, the two children turned and enthusiastically invited her to join. ” Miss, come play with us!”

Miranda quickly waved them off while laughing. “No, no, you guys keep playing. I’m no good at it. I’ll just watch.”

When the snowman was finally complete, the kids‘ parents called them in for dinner.

“Bye, miss!” one said, waving at her.

Then, the other one politely turned to Paul and added, “Bye, sir!” Afterward, they skipped

away.

“Miranda,” Paul suddenly said.

She hummed, turning toward him.

“Let’s roll some snowballs! I wasn’t at my best earlier, but I’m confident I’ll nail it this time. We Northerners grow up with snow–rolling snowballs is second nature.”

Paul didn’t know why, but this was the first time he’d ever bragged in his life—and it wasn’t about academics or publishing papers but about playing in the snow.

Miranda’s eyes lit up. “Really?”