“I’m saying,” I reply evenly, “every place has rules. You just met the island’s version.”
She sets the lobster down on the counter. Hard.
She's trying not to smile. Failing beautifully.
This. Right here.
Not last night when she curled against me in the dark. Not this morning when I watched her hips move against me in the kitchen.
Watching her have a full meltdown over crustacean anatomy, looking at me like I'm both the problem and the only solution—
I love her.
And she has absolutely no idea how much I love watching her like this.
“I had a plan,” she mutters, pacing now, wooden spoon in hand like she’s about to lecture a room full of culinary interns. “I assumed it’d be Maine lobsters. Proper Maine lobsters. For Boston Lobster Pie.”
She gestures toward the cooler.
“Butter. Cream. A splash of sherry. Ritz crackers—”
“Ritz crackers?” I ask, carefully neutral.
She whips around. “Don’t judge me. Ritz is a New England institution. It’s structural. It matters.”
“Structural,” I repeat solemnly.
“Foundational.”
She’s already on her phone, scrolling with the focus of a trauma surgeon reviewing scans.
“The whole point is the claw meat,” she continues. “Claw is sweet. Tender. It folds into cream without tightening. That’s what makes the pie work. It’s delicate. It’s nostalgic. It tastes like holidays and someone arguing about the Red Sox in the background.”
I blink. “That’s… specific.”
“It’s accurate,” she snaps. Then gestures at the spiny lobster and her phone. “This here says the tail meat from these Caribbean lobsters is firmer. It fights back. If I bake that in cream it’ll go dense. Chewy. Wrong.”
She glares at the lobsters like they’ve personally insulted her lineage.
“This was supposed to be my flex,” she says. “My ‘let me show you what Boston actually tastes like’ moment. And instead I have… aerodynamic sea insects.”
I cross my arms, enjoying this far too much. “They do look… efficient.”
She points the spoon at me. “Do not side with the centipede.”
I hold up my hands.
She exhales sharply, then stops pacing.
Sets her phone down on the counter.
Takes a breath.
Not flustered.
Not defeated.
Just recalibrating.
