After a long day of event planning with my Out of the Net team, I arrive home to see a new car parked in the driveway. It’s a flashy red two-seater sports car with a convertible top and Florida plates. Snatching up my bags off the passenger seat, I prepare myself to go inside.
I don’t want to fight with Ryan. I don’t want to exist in this awful bubble of unspoken worry and resentment. I want things to be fun again. I want us both to feel good. I want us to laugh and flirt.
Fuck, we need to have a grownup conversation. What am I always telling Rachel? Communicate, communicate, communicate. Look, I’m great at advice. I’m the queen of giving good, thoughtful relationship advice. I can dish it out all day.
Apparently, I just can’t take it.
I enter the house to find chaos waiting within. Ryan’s mix of rock music is pumping from the speakers, practically shaking the walls. The music isn’t the problem; it’s the smoke.
“Ohmygod,” I cry, dropping all the shit in my hands.
The moment I take a step forward, the smoke alarm starts going off, beeping in time with the music. Over the din, I hear Ryan shouting and cursing. Pots rattle and smash.
I dart around the corner to see smoke billowing out of the oven as Ryan uses mitts to drag something out. He’s coughing as he snatches for it, slamming it down on the stove top. Whatever was in that baking dish is burned all to hell, which accounts for the horrible smell.
It looks like a bomb went off. There’s cutting boards and cheese graters and mixing bowls, spilled flour dusting the counter, measuring cups in every size. The milk is out…and a Costco-sized supply of panko breadcrumbs…and a plastic tub of prepared lobster meat.
“Oh my god,” I say again, coughing into my hand, eyes burning.
Ryan slams the oven closed and snatches for a baking tray, waving it in the air to try and clear the smoke. He turns as he swipes and jumps a foot off the ground when he sees me standing there. “Fuck—Tess—Don’t just stand there, help me,” he bellows, panicked eyes wide.
I launch into motion, ducking under his pan, flailing arms to reach the stove. I turn off the broiler, no doubt the culprit in this fiasco, and glance down into the baking dish to see the remnants of what I can only assume was supposed to be homemade lobster mac and cheese.
Tears sting my eyes for a whole new reason as I slip behind him and hurry over to the sliding glass door. Flipping the latch, I drag the door all the way open, letting a burst of January air in to clear the smoke. I spin around, leaning against the glass as I watch him flail for another thirty seconds.
The smoke alarm finally shuts off, leaving us standing on opposite sides of the living room, chests heaving, eyes wide, as rock music pulses all around. Ryan blinks twice, then he drops the baking tray down with a clatter and snatches up his phone. In seconds, the music cuts, leaving a ringing silence in my ears.
“How long were you standing there?” he asks.
“About two seconds. I just got in when the alarm went off. What were you making?”
“I—nothing,” he says, a blush blooming in his cheeks. “Well, nothing now since I fucking ruined it.” He turns away, snatching up things off the counter and dropping them unceremoniously into the sink.
I inch closer. “Ryan, were you trying to make lobster mac and cheese?”
He goes still, not looking at me, his hands on the glass mixing bowl. Slowly he looks up. “Yeah, well, it was supposed to be a surprise…and it was supposed to be actually fucking edible.” He turns away, rattling the mixing bowl down into the sink.
I step up to the kitchen island and survey the mess. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” He glances over at the burned mess on the stove. “My mom gave me the recipe, and I swear I tried to follow the instructions, but I may have missed a step or…I don’t—I’m not good at cooking, okay? I can’t always follow the steps or, like, sometimes I skip them…”
“You turned the oven on broil instead of bake,” I say gently.
He spins around. “What?”
I point to the stove. “You had it on broil instead of bake.”
“What’s the difference?”
I hold back my smile. “Only about two hundred degrees. And all the heat comes from the top-down when you broil. That’s why it burned.”
“Fuck.” He peers down at the stove, looking at the dials. “Where does it say that?”
I inch around the island, coming to stand beside him. “See this one here?” I point at the oven dial. “You just turned it to broil instead of bake.”
He narrows his eyes. “So, one click to the left is broil and one to the right is bake?”
“Yep.” I brush my hand over his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s a mistake anyone could have made.”
“Yeah…anyone,” he says, wholly dejected by his failure.
I lean my hip against the counter, crossing my arms as I glance over at him. “Why were you trying a recipe as adventurous as lobster mac?”
He looks like such a sad puppy that I’m actually struggling to restrain myself from petting his hair. “For you,” he admits softly. “It was supposed to be my ‘I’m sorry’ peace offering.”
“Peace offering?”
“Yeah—Tess, listen.” He turns to face me, his hands bracing my shoulders. “I’m sorry, okay? I was totally out of line the other day.”
My heart skips as I hold his gaze. “Ryan—”
“No, let me get this out, okay? I’m sorry. I was a jerk. I was projecting what I would do and how I feel onto your situation, and I was pushing you, and I wasn’t being your friend. I was being…well, I was being like a macho boyfriend, and that’s not fair to you.”
“You were just trying to look out for me.”
“I think we both know you can look out for yourself.” He reaches up, flicking a curl back from my face. “You’re so fucking strong. And you’re smart. You’re seriously like Wonder Woman. You’ve got the brains and the beauty and you just…you fucking floor me. And I want to be your friend, and I want to earn that friendship, and this was me saying sorry, but I fucking ruined it,” he finishes in one breath, gesturing again to the burned casserole.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” I reply. “I love my peace offering. It’s perfect.”
We both glance down at it, and then we’re laughing. His deep laugh mixes with my higher notes and I smile, liking the sounds we make together. It makes my heart flutter all over again.
Letting out a deep breath, he shakes his head and opens his arms. “Come here.”
I eagerly step into him, my arms wrapping around his waist as his go around my shoulders, locking me against him. I turn my face, resting it against his chest. One hand curls up and he brushes his fingers over my hair, cradling my head to him. We fit together.
Tipping his head down, he kisses my brow, just a quick brush with his lips. “We promised that the rule of this game would be feeling good, yeah?”
I nod.
He leans away slightly, tucking a finger under my chin to tip my face up. “You make me feel so fucking good, Tess. And I don’t want to ruin it. Let’s just…can we maybe try and quiet all the other noise—when it’s just the two of us, at least? And not that I don’t want to hear your problems, or be there for you as a friend,” he adds quickly. “You can tell me anything and I’ll listen. But I think if our goal is feeling good, that should maybe be a part of the house rules.”
I nod again, my entire body flooding with relief. Of course, I don’t have to march in and sit Ryan down to have the grownup conversation about boundaries. We’re already on the same page. Our writing styles may be a little different, but we’re trying to tell the same story.
“That sounds perfect,” I say. “You make me feel good too. I’d like to keep feeling good with you.”
His gaze heats as he looks down at me, his hands holding me firmly against him. “What would feel good? Say it, and it’s yours.”
Standing in this mess of a kitchen, our clothes stinking of epically burned lobster mac, I flash him a teasing grin. “Oh, I know exactly what I want.”
