She looks at me innocently over the rim of her mug.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
“Your hair looks nice, though.”
I give her a look.
“Clean.”
Shaking my head, I turn back to the window, but I catch the corner of my mouth moving before I can stop it.
The kitchen goes quiet again, the way it does in the mornings, and I stay in it a little longer than I need to with my coffee, just taking it in. I’m not a man who stands around taking things in. I’m a man who wakes up with a list, works through it, and doesn’t stop until it’s done.
This morning, the list hasn’t started yet, and I’m not entirely sure why.
She takes another sip of coffee and makes a small, involuntary sound of appreciation, and I find myself almost smiling again before I catch it.
Turning toward the stove, I grab the pan from the hook above the island.
“Eggs, bacon. I’ve got bread somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” The teasing is light and unhurried, like she’s still half asleep and the morning hasn’t required anything of her yet. “You don’t know your own kitchen?”
“I know it well enough.”
Cracking the eggs into the pan, I can feel her eyes on me as I move around the space. It’s a strange thing, not uncomfortable exactly, just new. I’m used to silence in the mornings. Used to moving through this kitchen without anyone watching or without anyone here at all. Just the coffee, me, and whatever the day needs.
Now that she’s here, I’m going to have to get used to having a woman in my house, who wears a pink dressing gown and is unaware of how beautiful she looks, even if her hair is all messed up from sleeping.
“You cook a lot?” she asks.
“Enough to keep myself alive.”
“Mm…” She considers this with exaggerated seriousness, tilting her head slightly. “Your steak last night was heaven. But should I be worried about breakfast? Is that a one-time thing, or can you actually cook?”
I glance over my shoulder at her. “You’ll see.”
She smiles into her coffee, and the morning settles around us, easy, warm, and completely without agenda.
The bacon goes in beside the eggs, filling the kitchen with that smell that makes everything feel more manageable than it actually is. Finding the bread, exactly where it always is for the record, I drop two slices into the toaster.
“You take your eggs any particular way?”
“However they come. I’m not fussy.”
“Good. Because I only do them one way.”
“Which is?”
“The right way.”
She laughs, that same small, unguarded sound from last night in the kitchen, the one that does something to the air in the room, and I keep my eyes firmly on the pan.
We eat outside.
