"You're not real," she said finally. "You're some kind of organizational robot sent to judge me."
"I'm just... particular."
"Tarmek, you have a diagram for your dishwasher."
"It maximizes capacity."
"You have tape marks on your counter."
"Consistency is?—"
"Important. Yes. I gathered." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline of the rescue was wearing off, leaving behind the bone-deep cold that hadn't quite dissipated and the emotional whiplash of going from almost-hypothermia to... whatever this was. "Fine. Rules. Got it. Put things back, don't touch the thermostat, follow the dishwasher diagram. Anything else?"
He considered this. "The Wi-Fi password is on a card in the desk drawer. The router is in the office—please don't unplug anything. And there's a landline phone in the kitchen if cell service goes out, but it's only for emergencies."
"What constitutes an emergency?"
"Fire. Medical crisis. Structural damage."
"What about emotional damage? Because I feel like I'm experiencing some of that right now."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Just barely. A ghost of something that might have been amusement if it hadn't been immediately suppressed. "You should warm up. I'll make food."
He turned and walked back towards the kitchen, leaving her standing in the doorway of her magazine-spread guest room, surrounded by his suffocating perfection.
Well,she thought, looking down at her damp socks,this is going to be interesting.
She broke the first rule within twenty minutes.
It wasn't intentional. Not really. She'd just gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water and she'd opened the refrigerator to find it organized like a grocery store shelf. Beverages on the door, dairy products on the top shelf, vegetables in the crisper drawers which were labeled "root vegetables" and "leafy greens", and everything facing forward with the labels out.
She'd grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, poured herself a glass, and put the bottle back. In the wrong spot. She didn't notice until Tarmek opened the refrigerator five minutes later. He stopped dead, his entire body going rigid as his gaze locked onto the door.
"You..."
"What?"
"The sparkling water."
She looked at the bottle. It was on the door, technically in the beverage section. Just... not in the exact spot it had come from. She'd put it on the left side instead of the right, next to the orange juice instead of the tonic water.
"It's still in the refrigerator," she pointed out.
"It's in the wrong place."
"It's cold. Isn't that the point?"
His hand twitched towards the door. He visibly restrained himself from fixing it. The restraint looked physically painful.
"The sparkling water goes on the right," he said tightly. "Carbonated beverages are grouped together."
"I'll remember that for next time."
"Will you?"
"Probably not."
He made that strangled sound again and turned back to whatever he was cooking on the stove—some kind of soup, from the smell of it, rich and savory and exactly what her frozen insides needed. She watched him stir the pot, his shoulders a rigid line of tension, and a bubble of something warm and possibly terrible expanded in her chest.
