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“What?”

I reached over. My hand closed over his, fingers sinking into the spaces between his fingers. They fit perfectly. “The pieces of shell will run away from your skin,” I said. Skin that was warm and firm beneath mine. “But like attracts like. If you use the bigger pieces of shell that aren’t in the bowl to scoop out the smaller pieces you’re trying to get, they’ll stick like magnets.”

With my hand guiding his, he clumsily managed to get the first cracked bit of shell out. “Like attracts like, huh?” he said. “I guess that explains why we’re in a fake relationship and not a real one.”

My cheeks warmed. “It’s not personal. I’m not looking for a relationship anyway.” Again, locked diary. I had no plans on giving anyone the key.

“I see,” said Seth. “So it wasn’t that you found me annoying.”

I could’ve cooked one of these eggs on my cheeks right now, shell and all. “You heard that?”

“I have excellent hearing. And memory. You called me annoying both at the comedy club and to my mom when you met her.”

“Well, can you blame me?” I asked. It wasn’t worth denying the truth; he’d see right through me. “I’m not a morning person, and you were bright and cheerful as hell every morning. Of course I’d find you annoying at first.”

“Not a morning person? You run a café,” Seth said. “And that’s leaving aside that metaphor. Simile? Hell is supposed to be the opposite of bright and cheerful.”

“I mean, isn’t hell mostly fire and screaming? Fire is bright. Some people scream with cheer.”

“That wasn’t the point.”

“Maybe I run a café because I’m the opposite of a morning person and couldn’t find decent coffee to wake me up anywhere else in town.”

“Okay, that’s the point,” Seth said. “But you didn’t answer about finding me annoying.”

I surveyed the ingredients again, less because I needed time to figure out what to do with them and more because I needed time to figure out what to say back to Seth. “I need the milk. And sugar.”

It only took Seth maybe thirty seconds to dig them out. I resented Bev for her well-organized and well-stocked kitchen. He said, “You know, you said ‘annoying at first.’ Which suggests that if you did find me annoying, you don’t find me annoying anymore.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a very good look for me to call my fake boyfriend annoying where someone might hear me.” I poured milk into the now shell-less whipped eggs, then dumped in some sugar and a pinch of salt. “Stir this.”

He grabbed the fork and went to stir. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Say what?”

The eggs were whipping further, becoming perfectly pale and creamy. “That you don’t find me annoying anymore.”

“I don’t find you annoying anymore,” I said, annoyed. “Though keep trying and I bet you can get back there. Go find me the biggest nonstick pan you can.”

Bev apparently kept her pans under the sink. Seth knelt on the floor and stuck his head in the cabinet. His voice muffled, he said, “The thing is, I haven’t changed at all. I still do my absolute best to look for the silver lining in every situation and see the best in every person. So if the way you feel about those things has changed…maybe it’s not me, it’s you?” He stood up and presented me with the pan, grinning cheesily.

I briefly debated taking it by the handle and whacking him over the head with it, but Bev and Benjamin didn’t deserve to return to a murder scene in their kitchen. “I have not changed,” I said huffily. “Go on. Preheat the pan.”

“What does that mean?”

“Are you kidding? Do you not know how to heat up a pan?”

“Maybe you should’ve just said, ‘Heat up the pan.’ ”

I grabbed the handle from him. “I have not changed.” Slammed the pan on the stove. Put the electric burner on medium. “It’s just the holidays. Everybody gets more cheerful around the holidays.”

“I didn’t say you seemed any more cheerful than you did before,” he said. “Don’t worry, I think it’s safe to say that you are not cheerful. Aren’t we supposed to soak the bread in the eggs before cooking it?”

“Yes,” I huffed. I turned the burner off. This was Seth’s fault. He was getting me all frazzled by accusing me of things that weren’t true, and it was making me mess up. “Find me a big casserole dish or something else to do the soaking in.”

That was harder for Seth to find. Good. I stood there watching him, hands on my hips, every bit of me tense and sensitive, like even a feather brushing against my skin might make me break out into hives. Maybe it was partly due to how he looked kneeling on the ground, his head in the cabinet but his broad shoulders unable to fit through, his back flexing every time he moved.

Maybe it was because I liked the idea of him kneeling before me, looking up at me from between my legs.