"The water should taste like the sea." I glance back at him. "That's the answer."
"That makes no sense." he mutters, exasperated.
"It makes perfect sense. Have you literally never watched a cooking show in your entire life?"
He hums. Doesn't agree. Doesn't move back either, which is the important thing. Just keeps standing there, close enough that his breath hits the back of my neck every time he exhales, close enough that the proximity of him is a physical thing I have to actively stop myself from leaning back into.
I keep “accidentally” touching him.
Shoulder to shoulder when I reach past him. My thigh against his when I turn. Small things. Deniable things. He doesn't say a word. Doesn't pull back. Just absorbs every point of contact in that utterly controlled way he has, giving me absolutely nothing — which somehow makes it worse. Makes me want to push harder. Find the one thing that breaks through.
So I keep going, the way you do when someone keeps not stopping you — getting bolder in increments, testing the edges, because one thing I have learned about Jamie Nash is that he responds to pressure in a very specific way. He loves being pushed, but won’t ever admit it.
"What?" I ask, because I can feel him looking at the back of my head.
"Nothing."
"You keep doing that," I sing.
"Doing what?"
"Starting to say something and then deciding not to."
He glances at me — quick, involuntary. "I'm just thinking."
"About pasta?"
A beat.
"About a lot of things."
The way he says it. Low and careful and pointed directly at me without looking at me. Like there are a hundred things sitting between us and neither of us is going to say a single one of them out loud.
"Tell me one thing," I say.
"Like—"
He stops. I turn toward him and immediately realize how close we've drifted. Close enough that I have to lift my chin up to look at him. Close enough that his gaze drops to my mouth before finding my eyes again.
"Like what?" I breathe out.
"Nothing,” he whispers.
"Nash."
"It was nothing, Rhys."
My name in his mouth is going to kill me. Not soft. Controlled. Tight, like he's got it stuck between his teeth and is making a deliberate choice not to let it out all the way. The kitchen has gotten significantly smaller in the last thirty seconds and I wish it was even smaller.
"Stir this," I say, handing him the spoon. Because if I don't put something between us right now I'm going to do something that ends the evening before it starts and I actually want this. The whole thing. Not just the part where he comes apart.
He takes the spoon but our fingers don't touch. I feel that. Thedeliberate half-inch of space between his fingers and mine. Like we're both being so cautious. Like we've both been here before and know exactly how fast it goes from careful to gone.
He starts stirring. Slow, slightly off rhythm, definitely not thinking about the sauce at all.
I watch him for one more second. Then I step in right behind him. Not touching. Just — closer because I can’t stop myself. The call of him. The specific twitch in his shoulders when he feels me there. I can smell him and it does something to my mouth, makes me want to taste him, lick the salt off his skin.
"Not like that," I rasp, and reach around him for his hand. My fingers slide over his on the spoon. Like he needed help stirring. Like stirring sauce requires a hands-on demonstration, sure.
