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I take the pretzel out of the mug, deeming it sufficiently intermingled, and hold the rod up to him. “You never did try it,” I say in my most angelic voice.

He turns back to me, nose crinkling up in the same way I remembered. His eyes stutter between my hand and my face, and for a second, I feel him lean into me. I’m so distracted by the thought that he might eat this pretzel out of my hand, the impending, and seemingly unprompted, flirtation of it all, that I jump when he grabs the dry end of the rod from me. His fingers brush lightly against mine for the briefest moment before he takes a bite, and somehow, that touch feels even more intimate.

He mulls it over, chewing slowly. “Not terrible,” he finally concedes, two decades too late.

I cannot hide my glee at this win, which is good because it masks how fast my heart is still racing from the proximity of his mouth to my hand.

“So what are you making me?” I ask, gesturing to the fridge he’s been exploring so thoroughly.

“Check the pantry for tortilla chips.”

I follow the order, emerging with an unopened bag of blue corn chips. “Got ’em,” I say to his shape behind the refrigerator door.

“Nachos it is,” he replies, turning on the oven.

“Who uses an oven for nachos?” I ask. “Isn’t that what microwaves were made for?”

“If you want soggy chips, go right ahead.” He gestures to a microwave built into the wall that’s definitely older than we are.

I must make a face.

“That’s what I thought,” he says confidently, and turns to the sink to rinse the bell pepper in his hand. A bell pepper!

“This is not what I was envisioning when you said nachos,” I admit, eyes falling to the counter where, in addition to the bell pepper, he’s pulled out an onion, cilantro, a jalapeño, a block of cheese, and a couple eggs.

“Don’t worry, I would never put beans in this. I know you.”

I know you.

The words burn in the air. Does he? Sure, he once knew me better than almost anyone else.

When we were little, he knew that the one surefire way to make me laugh when I was having a bad day was to let me knock him down from the swings, so he would stand in front of me as I pushed higher and higher, until my legs flew out, hitting his little body with my feet. He would fall to the ground with such a big smile as I howled with laughter.

I wonder if he remembers that too.

Henry dries off the bell pepper and begins to chop it.

I need to take a walk, but I don’t want him to know the way he’s affecting me, so I wander back into the pantry, looking for any excuse to put more distance between us.

Is Henry fucking with me? Trying to get under my skin? What is his game here?

Once I get my breathing back to a normal pace, my eyes fall on a rack of magnum-sized bottles of wine, surely a bulk buy from Costco for happy hour or the like.

But tonight, it’s for me. I need to calm my nerves, quell whatever is brewing inside me. I grab a giant bottle by the neck, and reemerge from the pantry.

I must have been hiding in there longer than I thought because somehow the tray is already in the oven, and I can smell scrambled eggs on the stovetop.

I watch him stir the eggs in a pan, a dish towel over his shoulder, looking so…domestic. A Henry Cole who cooks is so far from the image I had of that buttoned-up man in the city, ordering Postmates every night.

He glances up at me, then sees the wine I’ve also commandeered, and raises an eyebrow.

“What? Alice said to make ourselves feel at home.”

He looks at me like he wants to say something. I know that look. It’s the one he gave me at baggage claim, in the car, and a million other times. Before. Whenever I did something stupid.

“Stop looking at me,” I tell him.

“I’m not looking at you.”