Once again, he has read my mind—seen right through me.
“Better?” Rowan asks against my lips.
Smiling like I’ve just had my very first, most epic kiss of my life, I nod. “Yes.”
“Hmm,” he hums, smug.
His smile is enough to change the world.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I breathe.
Rowan’s brows flinch and he sports a half smile now. “I’ve always looked at you like this.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I have,” he says. “You were just never looking at me.”
“I’ve always been looking at you, Rowan,” I admit quietly.
Rowan gifts me another kiss on my cheekbone and takes my hand in his, brushing his lips over my knuckles. “Come on, we’re making pasta.”
“Pasta?”
He leads us toward the kitchen where I find indigents laid out and waiting. “Fresh pasta—dough and everything.”
I smile. “Dough and everything?”
He nods. “Think you can handle it?”
I nod, maybe too fast, and my cheeks burn from my grin. “Yes. Yes. Let’s start.”
I skip over to the sink and wash my hands so quickly I splash water everywhere. Rowan laughs beside me as he washes his own.
Then we get started.
As we stretch and knead out the dough, his much bigger frame comes behind me and his arms stretch around me. He rests his chin in the crook of my neck, whispering his instructions and kisses my skin after each sentence.
“Are they ready?”
“Yes,” he says. “But now we let them dry for a bit before we cook them.”
“Okay, what’s next?”
His arms leave my sides and I’m cold. But then he’s promptly at my side again, holding cheese and a cheese grater. “Now we cheese it.”
I chuckle. “Corny as ever.”
“You love it.”
I shrug and sprinkle some more flour on the drying pasta to distract myself.
Beside me, he begins shaving the cheese and I can’t help but reach for a pinch to shove into my mouth.
“Natalia.” He laughs.
I reach for more. “I can’t help it! It’s parmesan—one of the best cheeses.”
Our laughter fills the room and I wonder if life would be like this with him—silence as love and comfort, noise as happiness and celebration. Two different types of songs but both as beautiful as the other.
