When I enter the house, I nearly drop dead on the floor because it’s clean. There are no alcohol bottles littering the yellow and brown countertops. He’s bought a new kitchen table, too, a new-used kitchen table anyway. It’s white and has a bench on one side and two chairs on the other. The floor is still stained, but it has recently been swept and mopped, the air smelling like Pine-Sol mixed with cinnamon. There aren’t any past-due envelopes on the counters or table. I remember the last time I was here how the house was going to get foreclosed but he managed to get it out of it, working overtime and paying the amount past due.

“Wow,” Micha says as he turns in a circle, rubbing his jawline as he examines the kitchen. “I feel like I’ve entered an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

I let go of his hand and cross the kitchen to the table, picking up a decorative ceramic rooster. The head pops off and it starts to make a loud rooster noise as I glance inside. “Oh my God, there’s homemade cookies in it.”

Micha laughs as he strolls up behind me. “You sound so adorable.” He sweeps my hair to the side and his lips caress the back of my neck. “Getting excited over cookies.”

I take a cookie out, put the rooster head back on, and then set it back down on the table. “So what? The only cookies I ever had when I was growing up were Oreo cookies.” I bite down on the homemade chocolate chip cookie and turn around to face him. “And you would always make us share those and then would take the half with all the filling. You always gave me whatever I wanted except when it came to those damn cookies.”

He steals a big bite of my cookie. “What can I say? I may love you but I love frosting just a little bit more.” He swallows the cookie and then opens his mouth to steal another bite but I stuff the entire cookie into my mouth, lifting my eyebrows, giving him an arrogant look.

Arrogance rises on his face too and then he covers my mouth with his, slipping his tongue between my lips, trying to steal bites of chewed-up cookie.

I jerk back, laughing, and making a repulsed face. “You are so gross,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

He licks his lips and then grins. “I win.”

I stick out my tongue, which has gooey chewed-up cookie on it. “That is what you just ate.”

His tongue slips out over his lips again. “And it was so, so good.”