“I am listening,” she said, crumpling the piece of parchment her muffin came on.
“Well, I thought we could grab some groceries, maybe cook dinner together? You know, an actual meal instead of whatever random stuff we’ve been scrounging from the pantry. Maybe make the apartment feel less like a war zone.”
“Do you cook?”
“I have some hidden talents.” I winked.
“I bet you do,” she said, smiling. “What did you have in mind?”
“Pasta? I make a decent marinara, and there is something satisfying about making your own noodles.”
Bianca raised her eyebrows. “You make pasta from scratch?”
“Yep, my grandmother was Italian. She had many opinions on store-bought items,” I said, standing, offering my hand to help Bianca up, a gesture that had always felt natural to me until I felt her palm against mine and a jolt of awareness shot up my arm. The moment she was up, I released her hand and shoved mine deep into the pockets of my jeans. “So, what do you say?”
“I’m in. However, if we do that, we are making cookies too.” She smiled.
“You bake?”
“Since I was a kid. I too learned from my grandmother.”
I smiled. “What kind?”
“I’ve been craving chocolate chip cookies. That or peanut butter.”
“I think we can do that.”
As we walked back to the condo in silence, I felt good. We’d made progress. I’d taken my teammate’s advice and hoped that maybe this was the start of a friendship that might just make the next few months bearable and pleasant.
As we walked, I looked over at her, at the way she tilted her face toward the sun and smiled, and I ignored the voice in my head that kept telling me friendship wasn’t the right word for what it was I was feeling.
It wasa little after four when I dropped the grocery bags on the counter and emptied them. I went over the contents, making sure we had everything. Flour, eggs, tomatoes, garlic, basil, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and butter. Bianca had insisted on adding vanilla extract and sea salt to the cart, a little hidden smile on her lips as she dropped the vanilla in.
“Alright!” she said as she pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail. “You’re on pasta duty because you are apparently a noodle wizard, and I will handle the cookies.”
“Love it. Divide and conquer. Although, for the record, noodle wizard is going on my resume.”
“What, right under mediocre right defenseman.”
“Ouch!”
She looked over at me with a grin on her face as she checked her phone for a recipe.
“Excuse me,” Bianca said, reaching behind me for the measuring cups.
The more we moved around, the more I realized that my kitchen had been designed for a single occupant.
“Sorry, just…” I twisted sideways, trying to give her a little room, when my elbow caught the bag of flour. We both lunged for it. Bianca grabbed it first, but the bag tilted, sending a puff of white powder across the counter, along with my shirt and her hands.
“Shit.”
“It’s fine, it’s just…” Bianca stepped forward, trying to brush the flour off my shirt, which seemed to only make it worse.
“Are you making it worse on purpose?” I questioned.
“No, I’m helping.”
“Uh, Bianca, this is the opposite of helping,” I said as her hands brushed against my abs.
