“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be delicious,” Grace said, stepping into the foyer, her eyes tired but her smile bright and her auburn hair in her signature twist. She pressed her hands together, giving Kincaid a warm look. “Everything you make is amazing, sweetheart. You’ve surpassed Charlie in the kitchen, which isn’t an easy thing to do.” She shook her head. “To think when we met you, your idea of gourmet was a cream cheese and Froot Loop sandwich.”

Ash grimaced. “Ugh. She served me that once when we were kids. It was very…crunchy. And moist.”

Kincaid laughed. “Says the guy who thought mayo and mustard sandwiches were a valid life choice.”

“Hey, I stand by that sandwich,” Ash said. “Poor man’s egg-salad sandwich.”

Kincaid snorted. “Well, thankfully I’m past the Froot Loop phase, and you were never that poor, so that was no excuse.”

Ash winced. “I didn’t mean—”

She rolled her eyes. “It was a joke. Don’t be so sensitive, Ash.”

Still, he felt like a dick. His solidly middle-class upbringing looked lavish compared to how Kincaid had grown up.

“Plus,” she went on, oblivious to the sour feeling in Ash’s stomach, “once I had Charlie’s homemade mac and cheese, I knew I could never go back to living on boxed stuff. I had to learn how to cook.”

Enticing smells wafted up from the containers Ash was holding. It was hard to imagine Kincaid as some master cook. She’d grown up having to fend for herself with frozen and boxed meals because her mom worked nights, but he remembered her cookbook-obsession phase at the bookstore. She used to read recipe descriptions aloud to him in a sex-operator voice. She’d done it as a joke, but more than once, he’d had to take a strategic position behind the main desk to hide how she was affecting him. He’d learned quickly that seventeen-year-old penises could not be trusted.

But along the way, Kincaid had apparently started doing more than reading the recipes. He’d tasted some of her offerings at Christmases over the years. The woman cooked like she had a seasoned southern grandma who’d handed down her generations-old recipe box. Maybe that was what she told people who didn’t know her real story.

“I’ll just put these in the kitchen,” Ash said, wanting to escape the old familiarity that was trying to leach in.

“Thanks, hon,” Grace said as he passed by. “After you get all that put away, can you meet us in the living room? Charlie and I want to speak to both of you about something.”

Ash glanced over his shoulder and caught Kincaid’s confused look. It probably mirrored his own. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Grace nodded. “Yes, of course. Look at the two of you, both with the worried faces. It’s nothing bad.”

Ash let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Okay, good. Just give me a minute.”

“And bring some of those muffins with you,” Charlie called out from the living room.