“If you say sorry, I’m going to . . . well, I don’t know what I’ll do exactly, but don’t apologize for your brother,” he told me in a voice so patient that I couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

His face was freshly shaven, and his thick eyebrows were perfectly wild above his bright eyes. He was still grinning. Something about him felt different, lighter. I was confused, but so happy to be this close to him.

“Did you have a lot of meetings today?” I asked, shuffling my soft socks against the tile floor.

“I did.”

“And played taxi?”

He nodded. “A lot of driving. How was work?” he asked, turning the conversation back to me.

“It was okay. Same as always,” I told him, feeling the floodgates open in my mind. I tried to hold them up, but knew it was a lost cause.

“I was bored, honestly. I’m starting to feel a little . . . distracted at work.”

Kael’s brow lifted. “Distracted? How so?”

I felt my cheeks flush and my heart began to pick up speed. You! You distract me!

“Just life.” I told half the truth.

Kael was good at reading me, so I looked away from him and stared at the boiling water on the stove. I had wasted my time cooking for my brother. Typical.

“What were you cooking?” Kael changed the subject. He was looking at the skillet of food on the stovetop.

“Kitchen-sink pasta, my specialty when food in the fridge is about to go bad.” I waved my arm in the air. “For Austin, but he left, so I might as well not even finish it.”

Kael took a step toward the hot skillet. “I’m starving. I didn’t eat anything today because I was too busy.”

“Oh, you don’t want to eat my cooking, trust me. Didn’t you want to get dinner somewhere?”

He shrugged. “I’m easy. I’m good with staying in, if you are. And this smells really fucking good, honestly.”

A tiny compliment and my confidence was soaring. I pointed to the simmering pasta sauce. “Why don’t you try it first?”

“It can’t be that bad,” he teased, grabbing the ladle from the counter. He dipped it into the sauce and managed to make such a simple act insanely attractive.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I confessed.

“I’ve eaten MREs.”

I remembered my dad bringing home a spaghetti-flavored MRE for my brother and me to try after his first deployment. It was such a novelty to see food made out of powder, and Austin and I got so excited. For years I tried to hold that fond memory with my father as close as I could. I almost told Kael about it instantly, but I didn’t want to bring down the mood by talking about my dad.

I smirked as he brought the spoon to his lips for a second time.