Page 59 of Silent Shadows

There’s sauce simmering in a pan, pasta steaming in a pot, chicken cutlets crisping in another skillet like he’s running an Italian food truck.

His sleeves are pushed up, arms on full display. His hair is messy from the heat. There’s a dish towel slung over one shoulder and a smear of flour near his wrist.

My mouth waters, and not because of the food.

“Oh no,” I say before I can stop myself.

Miles glances over his shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes narrow. “That sounded like something.”

“It was private.”

“So you narrate your daily life, privately?”

Taylor laughs as she comes back into the kitchen to take food out to the table. “She just saw you cooking, man. Give her a second.”

I point at her, shaking my head. “Not what that was.”

Miles looks between us, confused.

I roll my eyes, hoping no one sees the heat blooming on my cheeks.

“Sunday dinner,” Maya explains, sliding past me with the salad. “Crew rule.”

“Rule feels too boring,” Jax says. “It’s more like a sacred ritual.”

“It was my mom’s thing,” Miles says, turning back to the stove.

He says it easily. No big emotional announcement. Just fact.

I feel the words settle in the space anyway.

Family. That’s what this is.

Not a bit. Not content. Not a quirky team tradition designed to humanize them.

Family. And suddenly I feel like an outsider again. Standing at the edge of something already built, not sure whether I’m allowed to step closer.

Jax and Maya keep their conversation going, discussing recent ghost activity in Colorado.

I move to stand next to Miles and grab the oregano off of an impeccably organized spice rack. The spices’ labels are so precisely printed they could win a government audit. Miles stirs the sauce and lifts the spoon to his lips for a taste, and my eyes linger on his mouth. He catches me staring and licks his lips. Then, he grabs the oregano from my hand, his fingers lingering on mine. He smiles and then sprinkles some of the spice into the pan. My shoulder brushes his side, and my breath catches, the tension simmering like the sauce he’s working on.

“Uh, you re-label your spice containers?” I ask, because being moved by chicken parm feels too dangerous.

He picks up a jar of ground black pepper that is already labeled by the manufacturer, but has “BLACK PEPPER” stamped across it by a label maker. He glances back at me, straight-faced. “Yes.”

“Of course you do.”

“It’s just redundancy for the sake of efficiency. I don’t understand why everyone thinks it’s unreasonable.”

“Because it is.”

“Do you want unlabeled oregano in your food?”

“It was labeled.”