The girls took all of ten seconds to finish their meal and run back upstairs to their tablets. He and Aelin took their time. She complimented him multiple times on the sauce, which he didn't feel was necessarily deserved, but appreciated, nonetheless. Cooking for only him and Amaya didn't exactly yield a high level of job satisfaction.
"Most guys don't cook, you know." Aelin took a bite of pasta.
"You know most guys?"
She shrugged. "You hear things."
"I don't think you've met enough hockey players. We take our food very seriously." Ryan took a drink of water.
"Hmm. Right. When I think of hockey players, I think of homemakers."
Ryan feigned offense. "So judgy."
They finished their meal, and Aelin insisted on doing the cleanup. She put the extra food in snap containers from the cupboard, then washed the pots and pans by hand and loaded the plates, cups, and silverware into the dishwasher.
Ryan kept the candle burning after wiping down the table, and both of them settled into the living room with the lights off, watching the lightning flash through the window.
"Do you want to sit out on the porch? I don't know what direction the rain is coming from."
He stood. "Worth checking."
They stepped out the front door and sat down on the wooden bench. "I think we got lucky." The raindrops whipped around the side of the house, but they were coming from the opposite direction. A few drops hit his ankles, but other than that, the angle kept them dry. Aelin gasped as a jagged arc of lightning ripped through the charcoal clouds.
"It's terrifying," she whispered. "I love it."
He frowned. "You like being terrified?"
"Not in real life."
He shifted, turning to face her. "We're not in real life?"
She shook her head. "Not up there. That's . . . I don't know. A theoretical. We're down here on earth. Little ants on a massive rock. Everything up there follows its own rules."
He studied her profile as she watched the sky, her eyes wide with wonder. Ryan cleared his throat. "Did we succeed?"
She let out a contented sigh. "Yeah. I think we did."
"There's nothing else you wanted to do?"
Aelin opened her mouth, then closed it, tucking her hands under her thighs. She shook her head.
"Liar," he whispered.
Even in the dim lighting filtering through the window, he caught the flush creeping onto her cheeks. He was flirting with the line, and he knew it, but he couldn't stop pushing just a little further if it meant he got a reaction like that.
Her tongue flicked over her lips. "It's stupid."
"Try me."
The words seemed to dance on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed them again. Ryan didn't press. He leaned back against the bench, catching another flash of lightning fracturing the sky and burning against his retinas.
"I've always wanted to dance in the rain," she murmured. Ryan stilled, keeping his eyes trained ahead. "I told Clark that once, and he said it would probably be disappointing."
Ryan grunted. "Why?"
She let out a long exhale. "Because there was nothing romantic about being cold and wet." She paused. "I saw that scene on the beach in Sweet Home Alabama. At sixteen, that was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen in my life."
Ryan laughed. "And now?"
