Page 81 of Honeyfires

The chicken piccata situation happened on a Thursday, three weeks after I moved in, when Vera came home late from the library to find me at the stove.

She stopped in the doorway. Stared, mouth agape.

"You're cooking," she finally managed.

"I appear to be, yes."

"You know how to cook."

"I've been cooking longer than you've known me."

"You let me make dinner for three weeks and you know how to cook." She set her purse down. "Petra Alves. Explain yourself."

"You like cooking. I didn't want to take it from you." I stirred the sauce. "Also, you never asked."

"I didn't ask because I assumed—" She stopped. Started again. "When did you learn?"

"Army. MREs are barely food. Once I made sergeant, I cooked for my unit whenever we had a real kitchen. Turns out I was pretty good at it." I glanced back at her. "Don't make a big thing of it."

She was staring at me with an expression that I could only describe as dangerously fond. "What else don't I know about you?"

"I can change a tire."

"That supposed to surprise me?" She moved into the kitchen, peering into the pan. "What is this?"

"Chicken piccata."

She dipped a finger into the sauce and tasted it. The sound she made was entirely inappropriate for a Thursday evening kitchen situation.

"Vera."

She opened her eyes. "What?"

"You're going to make me burn it."

"That was a compliment."

"That was a sound that should require a warning label." I pointed the wooden spoon at her. "Sit down. We're eating first."

"That's very commanding for a little lady—"

"Woman. Adult woman."

"—who has been hiding cooking skills from me for a month."

"Three weeks."

"Fine," she said, hopping up onto the counter and swinging her feet. "I'm watching you cook as payment for the deception."

"There was no deception."

"Passive concealment of relevant information." She tilted her head. "That's a technical term."

"That is so not a technical term."

"It could be. We're very thorough."

I turned back to the stove. Behind me, I could feel her watching, comfortable and warm and infuriatingly distracting, and I thought: I could do this forever. This perfectly mundane, ordinary thing. This kitchen, this woman on this counter, making up technical terms at seven in the evening.