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“I know you did.” He came off the door and followed me into the kitchen. “I’ve never heard you talk that much.”

“Neither have I.”

I got the chocolate from the cupboard and started chopping. Since that first time I’d made cocoa for him, we’d done it a few more times together. It was on its way to becoming a routine. Jake had already taken over part of the operation, getting the pan onto the stove and getting the milk and cream into it.

“Watch it so it doesn’t scorch.” I reached over and adjusted the burner to a slightly lower temperature.

“I would’ve done it.”

“Would you?” I fixed him with a questioning look that came with a smirk.

“Once. It scorched one time. The very first time.” He leaned over and kissed me as he gently stirred.

We worked around each other at the stove, touching each other often—a shoulder bump, a hand brushing. He stirred the chocolate into the warm milk. The kitchen filled with the smell of it. We’d had company for hours celebrating Christmas while I got to know his parents and they got to know me. Now it was two of us, a pan, and chocolate-scented steam coming up.

“Whipped cream?” Jake said.

“Yeah.”

I took over watching the pot and he got the bowl and the whisk.

Once he’d come home from a game with a can of whipped topping. I’d taken it out of his hand and hid it behind the water pitcher in the refrigerator.

“Nothing from a can,” I’d told him.

He’d acted like I’d crushed his dreams. But I showed him how easy it was to make real whipped cream. Tonight he poured the cream into a bowl and whipped it by hand until it stood up in soft peaks.

Once I poured the cocoa into mugs, he spooned the cream onto the cocoa and dragged the back of the spoon through the top. That small curl of a flourish always made him smile.

We took the mugs to the couch by the tree. Its lights were the only ones illuminating the room, giving it a cozy and colorful vibe.

“I think it’s safe to say they liked you.” Jake took one of my hands in his.

“Of all the questions that were asked and things they said, I didn’t expect them not to ask how we ended up together. Your mom wasn’t here five minutes and said that I was with you.”

“Right. I hadn’t expected that.” He started to drink, but stopped. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting a problem or anything. They’ve met boyfriends before, but for Mom to say it so matter of fact. I guess it was Mom sense.”

“It meant a lot,” I said softly and squeezed his hand.

You learn to take up less room when you’re eight in a country that isn’t yours, and you speak with an accent. You talk as little as possible. You get small. You stay useful. You never once say the thing you want, because saying it out loud is how you lose it. And two people I’d met today made me feel welcome, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

“They didn’t make a thing of it,” I said. “Even your dad. I wasn’t sure how he was going to feel about joining the marks like that. But he looked at it, and at me, and nodded.”

“That’s how he says everything that counts.” Jake knocked his knee against mine. “You got claimed. Quiet. It’s the only way he’s got.”

“Everything was hidden today,” I said after a while. “Your mother had to crawl under the table to find Deda, and she had to open a box to find Nana Mary. Your father had to go out to the shop to see both.”

“On purpose.”

“On purpose. That’s where a mark goes. Where nobody looks.” I held the mug against my chest. “The door’s going to be different.”

Jake turned to face me. “Yes. Out in the open.”

“When we do that, what if we trade? I burn in your grandmother’s mark.”

“I like that. It’d be an honor to set your grandfather’s.”

“Trade it is.”