My stomach growls. Loud. Traitorous.
His brow lifts, the faintest ghost of a smirk. “When’s the last time you ate?”
I shrug. “Lunch?”
I didn’t eat when we were out for dinner. I was too busy analyzing him, trying to figure out why he took me out to dinner.
His brow tightens as he exhales through his nose like he’s already done arguing. The sound is soft, but final. Then he steps away from the counter and opens the fridge. The door light hits his face in fragments: jaw, cheek, throat.
“Sit,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t ask.” The tone leaves no room for debate.
I hover for a second, stubborn on instinct, then drop onto one of the stools by the island. The marble’s cold against my forearms. He doesn’t look at me again, just starts pulling thingsout of the fridge with a kind of quiet efficiency. Eggs, milk, butter, strawberries. He moves like someone who’s done this a hundred times before, only slower now. More deliberate.
The fridge door shuts with a low thud. The hum of the light fixture fills the silence. I watch him crack the eggs into a bowl one-handed, the sound sharp in the quiet. His forearms flex under the soft light as he beats the mixture, wrist moving in tight, precise circles.
I didn’t know he could cook. I don’t know why that surprises me. Maybe because Nicolo never seems human enough to do something as ordinary as this.
He works without speaking—measured, focused, the same way he handles a gun or a deal. Control bleeding into everything he touches. He pours the batter into a pan, and the hiss fills the air, mingling with the faint smell of butter. The scent hits hard—warm, sweet, safe. The kind of smell that belongs to mornings that don’t end in arguments or blood.
It’s stupid, but it feels like watching a storm try to make peace with itself. The flicker of light from the stove dances across his face, sharp and soft all at once.
He slides a few strawberries across the cutting board, slicing them into thin pieces with the same knife he probably keeps in his jacket during the day. They stain the board red. His fingers move through them like he’s trying not to think about anything at all.
“You always cook for your insomniacs?” I ask just to cut through the quiet.
“Only the ones who look half-starved,” he says without looking up.
He sets the plate in front of me, then reaches for the fork before I can move. “Eat.”
But he doesn’t hand it over. He cuts into the pancake himself—slow, deliberate, like precision’s the only language he knows.The edge of the fork presses through the soft stack, syrup pooling where he drags the bite through it.
I just watch him. “You’re not even going to let me try?”
He doesn’t look up. “You’ll make a mess.”
“I can feed myself, Nicolo.”
His jaw flexes. “Not tonight.”
He lifts the fork, the bite balanced perfectly at the end. The movement’s too smooth, too practiced. I almost want to ask who he’s done this with before, but the thought makes my stomach twist.
“Open your mouth,” he says, tone quiet but absolute.
It shouldn’t sound like a command. It does.
I part my lips without meaning to. He feeds me the bite, eyes on mine the whole time. There’s no teasing in the way he does it, just intent. Control wrapped in silence.
The fork brushes my bottom lip when he pulls it back. I swallow, throat tight. The pancakes are still warm, sweet and soft, the strawberries sharp against the syrup. It’s good—too good—and I hate that I can’t look away from him long enough to taste it properly.
“Better?” His voice comes out rough, lower than before.
I nod once. “Yeah.”
He still doesn’t move. The air between us starts to shift, heavy in a way that makes it hard to breathe. He watches me for another heartbeat, then cuts another piece. The sound of the fork scraping the plate fills the space.
