I blinked. “Come… where?”
He motioned at the eggs like they’d personally offended him. “Here. You try.”
“Me?” I pointed at the stove like it was a nuclear reactor. “In there? No. That’s your danger zone.”
“Yes,” he said, entirely too satisfied. “It’s omelets. Not war.”
I groaned. “I don’t want to ruin your fancy Russian eggs or whatever.”
“It’s eggs, Freckles.” He smirked. “Not Fabergé.”
Rude.
But also… okay, that was funny.
I took a breath like I was walking into battle and slid off the stool. My knees were maybe shaking a little. Maybe.
He handed me the bowl like it was a sacred object. “Just pour.”
“Okay,” I muttered. “No pressure.” I tilted the bowl—and splat—eggs everywhere. Not catastrophic, but definitely not art.
I squeaked. “Oops!”
“No.” He reached in to guide my hand with the wooden spoon. “Gentle movements.”
“Gentle is not in my vocabulary!” I whispered loudly.
“You surprise me,” he said, dry as ever.
He was close. Like close close. Shoulder-to-shoulder, quiet warmth radiating from him while I tried to stir eggs and not scream internally.
And honestly?
In the mess of sizzling onions, uneven whisking, and his dry corrections?
I laughed. Really laughed. For the first time in what felt like forever.
And standing there—barefoot, confused, cooking eggs with a man who terrified half the league—I felt something weird.
Safe.
Not logical. Not ideal. But real.
I cracked the egg with the confidence of someone who had absolutely no business cracking eggs.
It exploded.
Like, full-on egg massacre—splattered yolk across the counter, rogue shell bits everywhere. It looked like breakfast had been murdered and I was the prime suspect.
“Great,” I muttered, scrambling to keep the frying pan from toppling off the stove. I tried to swipe the counter clean with my hand, which only made things worse. Shell shards flew like shrapnel.
Beside me, Nikolai stood with his arms crossed and the smuggest smirk I’d ever seen.
“This is worse than I imagined,” he said, deadpan.
I glared. “Oh, bite me.”
He chuckled. Chuckled. A real, low, slightly-rumbly, honest-to-God laugh.
