"Tempting." She moves to the stove, lifting the lid to check the stew. Steam billows up, carrying the rich smell of meat and herbs. "But I'm starving, and this smells too good to waste."
I grab the bowls and bring them over. She ladles out generous portions, and we carry everything to the table. It's a simple meal—rustic and filling, the kind of food meant to warm you from the inside out—but sitting across from her, watching firelight dance across her face, it feels like the best thing I've ever eaten.
"This is really good," she says around a mouthful of bread.
"Told you. You're a natural."
She rolls her eyes but she's smiling. "I followed your recipe exactly. That's not being a natural, that's being able to read."
"Take the compliment, Nicola."
"Fine." She dips her bread in the stew, takes another bite. "I'm amazing. A culinary genius. Gordon Ramsay has nothing on me."
I snort. "There's the confidence I was looking for."
She grins at me across the table, and something warm and permanent settles in my chest. This. This is what I've been missing. Not just another body in the house, buther.
Her laughter and her warmth and the way she's already making this place feel less like a refuge and more like a home.
After dinner, I clear the bowls while she wipes down the counter. We move around each other easily, naturally, like we've been doing this for years instead of hours. She bumps her hip against mine when I'm rinsing dishes, and I catch her around the waist, pulling her against my side.
"Troublemaker," I murmur.
"You started it."
"Did I?"
"You're always touching me." She tips her head back to look at me. "Not that I'm complaining."
"Good." I press a kiss to her temple. "'Cause I'm not stopping."
She turns in my arms, sliding her hands up my chest. "Jason?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you." Her voice is soft, serious. "For giving me somewhere safe to land. For not asking too many questions. For just... for keeping me."
"You don't need to thank me," I tell her. "You're not a burden. You're not something I'm tolerating or putting up with. You're—"
I stop, searching for the right words. She waits, patient, trusting.
"You're mine," I finally say. "And I'm yours. That's how this works. We keep each other."
Her eyes shine with emotion. "We keep each other," she repeats softly.
"Yeah." I cup her face, memorizing the sight of her in my kitchen, in my clothes, in my life. "Exactly that."
She rises on her toes and kisses me, slow and deep, and I taste forever in it. Taste the promise of more mornings waking up together, more meals cooked side by side, more nights tangled in my bed.
A future I didn't think I wanted and now can't imagine living without.
Epilogue – Nicola
Four Years Later
The flatbread dough is sticky under my palms, clinging to my fingers as I press it flat against the floured counter. I fold it over itself, push down with the heel of my hand, turn it a quarter rotation.
The rhythm is meditative, grounding—something I never knew I needed until Jason taught me how to do this last winter when the roads were snowed in for two weeks straight and we ran out of store-bought bread.
