I hold up the spoon.
The sauce clings to it in one dark, tragic smear.
Ryan looks at it for a long second. “Fine.”
“Chinese?”
He exhales through his nose. “Chinese.”
I order dumplings, noodles, fried rice, enough food to feed two adults and one failed recovery pasta. Ryan takes the pot to the sink with the expression of a man escorting a body from a crime scene.
“You do not have to look so grim,” I say.
“I came here to make dinner.”
“You came here to make amends to pasta. Pasta rejected the apology.”
His mouth moves.
Almost a smile.
While we wait, I move the coffee table with my foot and sit on the floor with my laptop beside me, still open to the transcript I am pretending I can finish. Ryan drops onto the other side of the table with two beers from my fridge.
“You have beer,” he says.
“I contain multitudes.”
He hands me one.
I look at the bottle, then at him. “Question game.”
His eyebrows lift. “Now?”
“Food is not here. Pasta is dead. We need structure.”
“That sounds like a deposition with alcohol.”
“Exactly. You’ll be fine.”
He settles back against the couch. “You first.”
I twist the cap off my beer. “Why did you come here tonight?”
“To cook.”
I stare at him.
His mouth tightens like he knows that answer is technically true and functionally useless.
“Try again,” I say.
“You said no follow-ups.”
“That was not an answer. That was a parking cone.”
He looks down at the beer in his hand.
The room gets quieter.
