I pout. The expression deploying my lower lip with the defensive conviction of a woman whose decision-making process prioritized pasta over physics.
My stomach, seizing the theatrical opportunity with the timing of a performer who has been waiting in the wings for precisely this cue, produces a growl so deep and sustained that it sounds like a geological event occurring beneath my ribcage. The sound reverberates through the room with an acoustic presence that suggests my digestive system has been studying opera and is now delivering its debut performance to an audience of one.
We both stare at my abdomen.
The growl continues for an additional three seconds, which is approximately two seconds longer than any stomach noise should reasonably persist and one second longer than my dignity can survive.
"See?" I look up at him with the earnest defiance of a woman presenting evidence in her own defense. "I wasn't lying."
He smirks. The asymmetric curl at the corner of his mouth materializing through the exasperation like sunlight through a break in overcast skies. His hand tightens around my waist, stabilizing my vertical position, and then he does the thing I do not expect.
He scoops me up.
One fluid motion. His arm beneath my knees, the other supporting my back, lifting me off the floor with the same effortless economy he used to carry Mae across the rink earlier today. The world shifts from horizontal to elevated in a single heartbeat, and I am suddenly airborne, cradled against a chest whose lean musculature I can feel through the thin fabric of his undershirt, my face approximately six inches from the freckled column of his throat.
"Hey! I can walk! My legs are functional! They just needed a moment of recalibration!"
He ignores the protest with the practiced indifference of a man who has decided the most efficient solution to a problem and does not consider the problem's opinion relevant to the execution. Four strides carry us to the kitchen island, where he uses his foot to hook the leg of the high stool and drag it outward with a casualness that tells me he has performed furniture manipulation with occupied hands before.
He places me on the stool. Carefully. The descent controlled, his arms withdrawing only after my weight has been fully transferred to the seat and my balance confirmed through the specific, stabilizing pause of a man who does not release things before ensuring they will not fall.
Then his hand rises.
His fingers push through my hair. Not aggressively. Not with the tousling energy I deployed against his ginger chaos duringour bed-wrestling incident. This touch is different. Slow. His fingertips trailing through the navy-and-emerald strands from the crown of my skull to the tips that rest against my shoulders, the motion carrying the unhurried gentleness of a man whose hands are making contact with a texture they find worth exploring.
"You really are odd."
The words are soft. Warm. Delivered with a cadence that converts the adjective from an insult into something dangerously close to a term of endearment.
"I do NOT want to hear that from you of all people!" The volume compensates for the blush that his fingers left in their wake, heat trailing from the roots of my hair down my neck and across my collarbone like thermal evidence of contact that my body catalogued as significant. "The man who has selective hearing, hides behind broken glasses, cooks like a professional chef, and catches women mid-fall as a regular Tuesday activity does NOT get to call ME odd!"
"What? Your feelings going to be hurt?"
"Fuck no!"
He laughs. A short, quiet expulsion of genuine amusement that carries the specific warmth of a man whose emotional register has been restricted to a narrow band for years and is now, in the privacy of a kitchen with an audience of one, allowing the bandwidth to expand by a fraction.
He shakes his head, the ginger hair swaying with the motion, and turns to the stove.
The plate he sets before me three seconds later stops every thought in my head like a circuit breaker tripping under overload.
Spaghetti. But not the kind of spaghetti that college students produce from a box and a jar of premade sauce and the prayer that overcooking constitutes seasoning. This spaghetti is art.The pasta is al dente, each strand glistening with a sauce whose color alone, a deep, rich amber-red that catches the kitchen light and refracts it like stained glass, communicates a complexity of flavor that my brain cannot yet verify but my nose has already confirmed. Cherry tomatoes halved and blistered, their skins split to reveal seeds suspended in golden juice. Fresh basil torn rather than chopped, the leaves scattered across the surface like green confetti at a celebration I was not informed of. A dusting of parmesan so finely grated it looks like snow settled on a volcanic landscape.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" The exclamation achieves a volume that rattles the stemware in the cabinet above the sink. "ARE YOU ENTERING THE CHEF OLYMPICS FOR GORDON RAMSAY?!"
He smirks, sliding a fork across the island toward me.
"No. But thanks for the compliment."
"Fuck." I stare at the plate with the reverent horror of a woman whose primary culinary achievement is successfully operating a toaster without triggering the smoke alarm. "I can't cook for shit. Now I have to get my game together. I can't be living with someone who plates spaghetti like a Michelin-starred restaurant and contribute nothing to the household food economy except cereal poured incorrectly."
He arches an eyebrow, settling onto the stool beside me with the unhurried ease of a man who is about to deliver a perspective that challenges a fundamental assumption.
"If your Alpha knows how to cook, it's not a big deal."
I laugh. The sound carrying the genuine disbelief of a woman whose experience with Alpha domestic capabilities has been limited to men who consider ordering takeout a culinary skill.
"Uh, I think you're forgetting that Alphas don't cook for their Omegas except in books and movies. In the real world, we'rethe ones expected to feed the pack while they sit on the couch scratching their abs and watching replays of their own games."
