“You can set the table, if it’ll make you feel useful,” she replied without looking back. “Dinner’s half done already. I was planning shrimp and rice, but I’ve got chicken, too, if he looks like the type that prefers land to sea.”
“He looks like the type who prefers control,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
Maude laughed, a soft sound that somehow managed to feel like wisdom. “Then he’ll eat what he’s served. You go on, dear. I’ll handle the rest.”
I lingered in the doorway while she busied herself with the stove. I could hear the rhythmic scrape of her spoon against the pan, the faint hiss of oil meeting heat. Normally, those sounds would soothe me. Today, I wasn’t sure what I felt.
I’d never really learned to cook. My mother had died when I was twelve—too soon to pass down recipes or rituals, too soon toshow me how food could be love, if you let it. After that, meals became something functional, not comforting. In Chicago, I lived on frozen dinners and takeout.
It was strangely nice, watching Maude move around the kitchen like it was a living thing—adding a pinch of salt here, tasting a sauce there. For a second, I had the oddest urge to learn. To stand beside her, sleeves rolled up, and let someone teach me something that wasn’t about efficiency or survival. The thought surprised me so much, I almost smiled.
Instead, I drifted to the window, drawn by movement outside. The late light hit the dunes in gold bands, the sea restless beyond them. And then, through the reflection on the glass, I saw him.
He’d stepped onto the porch, stripped of the usual armor people wore—no phone, no sunglasses, no pretense. Just a man standing still.
His head was tipped slightly, like he was listening. The wind caught the ends of his hair, the copper in it flashing in the sun. He had the kind of stillness that made you wonder what it would take to shake him.
And why you suddenly wanted to try.
I told myself to move, to stop staring. But the truth was, I couldn’t. There was something about the way he stood there—like he’d carried the quiet of someplace big all the way to my doorstep and left it sitting between us.
When he finally turned, our eyes met through the glass. My stomach dropped. He didn’t smile. Didn’t nod. Just looked—calm, assessing, deliberate. Then he went back inside, and I realized my pulse was hammering against the windowpane.
By the time I found my way back to the kitchen, Maude had two plates ready and candles lit on the small dining table near the bay window.
“Go on,” she said, handing me a towel to set down the pan. “It’s not a date, but it won’t kill you to act like you’re hosting.”
“It’s not a date,” I said quickly.
“Good,” she said with a smirk. “Then you won’t mind that I’m serving him the good silver.”
I tried to laugh, but the sound came out uneven. I was halfway through folding napkins when I heard the soft thud of boots behind me.
He’d come in quieter than any man his size had a right to.
“Smells incredible,” he said, voice deep and steady.
I turned too fast and nearly knocked the water pitcher off the table. He caught it midair, reflexes sharp as a striking match.
“Careful,” he murmured, handing it back. Our fingers brushed—just barely—and a live-wire current jumped between us.
“Thanks,” I said, too quickly. “Dinner’s ready.”
He nodded once. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not,” I lied.
He glanced around the dining room like he was cataloguing exits and shadows, and for some reason, that made me feel safer. Seen, even. He moved like someone used to scanning for danger—and disarming it.
As he took his seat, I caught the faint scent of soap and rain. He’d showered, or maybe just washed the road off his skin. Either way, the air around him shifted again, thick with something I couldn’t name.
I sat across from him, and Maude disappeared with her usual grace, leaving the two of us in the kind of silence that hums when it’s about to turn into something else.
He reached for his fork, then paused. “You live here alone?”
I blinked. “Yes. Well, Maude’s in the apartment out back. But otherwise … yeah. For now.”
He studied me for a beat longer than was polite. “That’s brave.”
