My fears sit at the tip of my tongue—unable to form words, and I find myself saying, “You’re right.”
“We’re so close, sweetheart.”
Pressing his thumb into the muscle at the top of my shoulder, grounding but restrained, he asks what I mean exactly by the program picking up even more, and his knee bounces under the table.
“So…” Rebecca faces her son, changing the subject before I’m able to answer. “What else is new?”
“Tessa’s finally moving into town in a month. I’ve been helping her run errands before she gets back. You know, getting stuff for her, being at her apartment for furniture delivery, and all of that. I’m heading to her place later tonight. I need to build a media center for her.”
The wordslater tonightare an unexpected stimulus. Nate usually stays at his place or hangs with Andrzej when I have a night shift.
“Oh,” I say.
And I’m so thrown I almost miss how his mom clicks her tongue before checking the time. “I should get going,” she says.
Nate shoots up to get the bill at the hostess counter before his mom can argue. Once we’re out, I hug Rebecca, and Nate asks me to give them a minute. Her arm in his, they walk side by side to the car at the far corner down the street. He opens the door for her and kisses her cheek.
When he comes back, smiling, he asks, “Ready for this baking business?”
I smile back. Maybe I’m imagining things.
The fondant won’t hold.It keeps slipping under my fingers, softening no matter how carefully I try to press it into place. I’ve tried water, even the edible glue, but the seams keep splitting and the edges are peeling back. The curve of the three-tier cake sags again, one side giving out. It looks more like the Tower of Pisa than the tower we wanted.
“This is architectural blasphemy,” Nate mutters, stepping back to look at it.
The moment his hands leave the other side, a chunk slides free and drops onto the island with a thick, sticky thwack. I huff, but it turns into a laugh when I realize he’s given up on saving it. Instead, he’s moving behind me, hands still tacky, sliding past my waist to steady what’s left of my side. He presses his chest into my back, and I savor the warmth and steadiness of him. He dips his head, brushing his nose into my hair like he can’t help himself.
Our cake is doomed, and his touch does nothing to save it, but his hands settle something I didn’t realize was off balance.
I pull my hands away, and the rest of the fondant collapses in slow defeat. What’s left of the tower leans awkwardly, layers bulging, edges uneven, more suggestion than structure now.
“You’re the one who insisted on the Aqua Tower,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. “We could’ve done one of the pyramids.”
“We would’ve messed that up too.”
I scoff, but I’m smiling. “That’s not the point.”
His laugh hums low against me, muffled into my hair, and for a second, I just stay there, leaning back into him, letting the warmth of his body anchor me. His hands rest at my waist now, not fixing anything, just holding me.
“I’m also down to keep trying for the rest of our lives,” he says without any flourish, just pure certainty.
His posture speaks with the quiet confidence of someone who’s already seen that future, like it’s something he can build if he just keeps showing up the right way. And for me, it’s hard to swallow around the lump in my throat because I want that future.
I turn in his arms. Since last Christmas, when he got me that ridiculous baking kit, we’ve made it a point to have these disastrous baking sessions. It used to be every other week, then it was every month. Now, it takes a second or two for me to remember the last time we did this, and all I can picture is a lopsided pumpkin that barely held its shape. It’s late January. I guess we’re well past having them every month. It’s been a long time since Halloween.
I slide my hands up Nate’s arms, feeling the familiarity of his taut muscles, until I settle them behind his neck. I pull him down just enough to press a kiss to his lips. “It’s been a while since our last disaster,” I murmur. “I’m sorry things have been so hectic.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he says, easy, reassuring. “We’realmost at the end of the line. Then it’s you and me. Same, but better.”
I smile, but it lingers more on my lips than it settles in my chest.
He’s been dropping hints like that lately. “When we move in” or “when we’re married.” Or even “once we’ve retired.” But I’m noticing how he tenses when my schedule changes and how his brow furrows when I tell him I’m working yet another weekend. I wonder, not for the first time, if he says it as much for himself as he does for me.
His kitchen stretches around us, all clean lines and open space. The U-shaped counters wrap wide and generous, enough workspace that only people who actually know what they’re doing in the kitchen need—which Nate does unless it’s baking. The island in the center is dusted in powdered sugar and streaked with icing, tools scattered everywhere like we’ve been at this for hours. Beyond it, the windows run nearly floor to ceiling, late afternoon light spilling in and catching on the steel appliances, the glass bowls, the faint sheen of flour in the air.
I turn back to the disaster in front of me, trying to fix the edge again, smoothing the fondant over a curve that refuses to cooperate. It tears slightly under my thumb.
“Shit.”
