“You look good in an apron,” Davis teased. “The flour all over your cheeks doesn’t hurt either.” He reached a hand up and swiped gently at the white dust.

“I’m, admittedly, out of practice,” she confessed with a smirk. “But I think you’re going to love this recipe. I ate it all the time when I was little.”

“I pictured you as a ten-year-old, heating up those sad little diet frozen meals. It’s good to know at one point in your life food was your friend.”

“Food was my friend until metabolism was my enemy,” she explained, stirring the batter with all her might.

“The meatloaf will be ready in a little while. Then the oven is all yours. Do you like baked or mashed potatoes?”

“Potatoes,” she sang, and he laughed at the euphoria filling her face. “I miss potatoes the most, really. Let’s do real buttery mashed potatoes. Maybe add a little cheese?”

“I’m creating a monster,” Davis joked as he rounded the small kitchen and grabbed what he needed from her left and her right. The smell of her skin filled his nose and made him linger close for a long moment.

“Are you inspecting my work?” she asked, turning the batter so he could see it. “I don’t remember hovering over your meatloaf.”

“You’re right.” He tossed his hands up and backed away slowly. “So this was your grandmother’s recipe?” he asked, never tiring of hearing her voice and learning what little fragments of history built her into the woman she was before they’d met.

“Yes. Estella Monroe Gladwell. The most ambitious women I’ve ever met. She was always lightyears before her time. She went to college. Got a job outside the house while raising a family.”

“What did she do?” Davis asked, peeling the potatoes and chopping them up for the pot.

“She was a numbers wiz. Some kind of a savant. I don’t know exactly what her title was, but she worked for an engineering company. I got the chance to go to work with her when I was very small, and I fell in love with the way people treated her. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She supported my father and his career. There was always clean laundry for him. Always a warm plate of food when he came home. She was a good wife and a great mom, but it never felt like something I could understand. But Grandma Gladwell, I understood her. She’s what made me work so hard.”

“Your parents are in Europe, right?” Davis asked, impressing her with his memory of the rambling details she’d given. “Do you see them much?”

“I’m embarrassed to say I judged my father very harshly. I went a long time before seeing them at all. It’s a little better now, but at the time I was young and sitting through classes learning about ethics and business practices. I couldn’t understand how someone could get themselves in that kind of trouble. Just do the right thing. It sounded so simple at the time. Now I see how quickly you can fall and how easy it can be to run.” Elaine stopped stirring the batter suddenly, and her gaze was fixed on an empty spot on the wall.

Davis rinsed his hands and patted them dry on a towel before walking over to her. “You aren’t your father, and you aren’t your grandmother. You are you, and one moment in time doesn’t define your life. Trust me, if it did, I’d never leave the house.”

“You hardly do,” she teased, beating back the sadness and returning to him. “Work doesn’t count. Look, even tonight we’re in here cooking.”

“I’m supposed to put the grocery money aside and take you on a proper date. That’ll show you I’m not some sad recluse who spends all my time hiding from the world.”

“What kind of dates do people go on in Indigo Bay?” Elaine asked, back at the project at hand, pouring the batter into the pan.

“You’ll have to wait and see. I’m guessing it’ll be different than any date you’ve been on in the city, that’s for sure.”

The oven beeped, indicating his meatloaf was done. He opened the oven and took the meatloaf out, bobbling it when the dish towel proved too thin for the heat stinging his fingers.

“Watch it,” Elaine said, as the slow motion juggling act came to an end with the meatloaf pan landing upside down on the floor by their feet. “Are you burned?” Elaine asked, taking his nicked up, callous-covered hands in hers and inspecting them closely.

“The only damage is to my pride,” he groaned, shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t have a backup plan for dinner besides an enormous bowl of mashed potatoes.”

“Followed by cream cheese pound cake. As long as you don’t juggle that I think we’ll be fine. It’s not really about the food anyway,” she assured him, gently rubbing his shoulder. “It’s just nice to be here. Talking. Forgetting everything else out there.” She gestured out the door as though that’s where the monsters and trouble lurked.

“One of these days you’ll tell me what you’re hiding from, won’t you?” Davis asked, tucking some loose hair behind her ears. He tilted her chin upward so her eyes couldn’t dart to the floor. “Not right now. But someday?”

“I will,” she acquiesced, sucking her bottom lip in and nibbling it nervously. The space between them was shrinking, though he wasn’t sure if it was him leaning in or her. He just knew their lips were getting closer, and the desire to kiss her was at a boiling point.

“I’m sorry about the meatloaf,” he whispered. “I’ll make it up to you.” They were just a breath apart, and she nodded a tiny, nearly imperceptible nod that he took as an agreement to how exactly he could make up for the meatloaf.

When their lips finally touched Davis felt as though they’d been welded together. Not just the way his fingers spun up in her hair or the way hers clutched at his shirt. It was deeper than the surface. The kiss was perfect; the connection was deep.

The oven chirped again, Davis having forgotten to cancel out the timer. The noise was enough to bring them back to the moment. He pulled away reluctantly, his hand sliding down to her cheek and lingering there. “Mashed potatoes?” he asked, a devilish grin sliding across his face.

“And cake.”