Chapter 88: Kitchen Confessions

Lisa’s POV

The kitchen has never felt like this before. So for years it was all function—steel, marble, silence. A place where you got food because you needed it, not because you wanted to be there. I had come and gone from it so many times the floors were practically familiar with the sound of my feet.

But now the air has changed. The walls are as if they are listening now. The counters, the cupboards, even the windows seem to vibrate with a strange, more gentle energy.

It’s funny how the presence of people can alter the energy of a room. Leo rolls up the sleeves of his shirt like he’s about to get down to business and I can’t help but smile small smile tug on my lips.

“You look way too intense for someone who just googled how to cook pasta ten minutes ago,” I joke, leaning on the counter.

He scoffs lightly. “Everyone starts somewhere. And now I have the most fearsome critic in the world to impress.”

“Intimidating?” I snicker. “I’m an angel in culinary form.”

He looks down at the knife I’m holding. “That remains to be seen.” I flick a piece of bell pepper at him and to my quiet satisfaction, it lands on his shoulder. His eyes are sparkling with a mischief I have never before seen.

“Oh, it’s like that?” he says, grabbing it and throwing it back with nearly professional precision.

All of a sudden, my calm, serious kitchen has been transformed into an arraignment of flying vegetables and raucous laughter. It feels absurd. It feels wild. It feels… free.

For a second, I stop and just look at him — this man who once used to be all points and staunch distances, now laughing as if the walls have never before heard him laugh. His tousled hair and open, relaxed expression give an impression of ease before the storm. It does something wicked and wonderful to my heart.

“Shell out or shut up,” I whisper. “I may start thinking you like it here.”

He steps closer. “I already do.”

The space between us diminishes until I can feel his warmth again. This warmth is now so familiar, like a second heartbeat surrounding me. We just stand there silently — not awkwardly — for a few moments, until the reality of the pot on the stove calls me back.

“Shouldn’t we concentrate our efforts on not setting the whole building on fire?” I tell him.

Good idea. I feel like explaining to the insurance company why my wife and I were bonding emotionally over fettuccine.

My wife. Now the words don’t bounce hollowly. They give me a strange comfort, like they wrap around me. For the first time he’s not too big, too small – he’s just right. It feels earned. We dance around each other with caution as the meal begins to take form. He stirs when I say stir. He chops when I tell him to. And when he screws up — with ever so slightly uneven slicing or a little too much salt — he casts me a look of exaggerated remorse, as if he’s a child who took a cookie and should be punished.

You’re enjoying this way too much,” I say under my breath.

“I am. Sue me.”

“You’re the lawyer,” I say to him with a smile, “remember?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Then I’ll represent myself and plead insanity. Love-induced insanity. ”

The word glimmers between us, unseen yet the powers that be. Love. We don’t talk about it yet. We don’t have to. There is something sacred in allowing it to simply hover, unclaimed, just felt.

When the scent of food fills the air, we begin to find a flow. And in that flow, the laughter gradually mellows into something more considerate.

Lisa,” he says softly, and for the first time his voice turns serious.

“Hm?”

What were you scared of, back then? When we were newlyweds?”

The question cuts through me, unexpected but necessary. For a split second, the knife in my hand stops moving against the cutting board.

“Everything,” I confess softly. “I was afraid of you. Scared of myself. Scared of what it would mean to lose control.” I breathe out slowly. “Mostly, I was scared that if I let myself want more, I would be disappointed when it never got here."

His jaw tightens slightly, as if the confession is painful for him. “I thought distance was safer than vulnerability,” he says. “I thought if I just put my feelings in a lockbox, we’d both come through the deal without getting burned.”

“And now?” I say.

“Now I see that I was the one who was holding the match.”

There’s regret in his eyes, but also honesty. It’s raw. Inescapable. Inescapable. Inexorable, But Andromeda striped is beautiful in its own tragic way.

“And what’s terrifying you right now?” I whisper.

Once more he draws near, his fingers lightly caressing my arm. “Losing this. Losing you. We squandered so much time. I’m not going to waste another second pretending I don’t feel what I feel.”

My throat closes up.

“We can’t do the past over again,” I tell her softly, “but we can choose not to let it do us in.”

He nods once. “Then I choose to stop letting it.”

Those words cause something inside me to completely go soft. The fear that’s been at the back of my joy begins to relax its hold.

We finish cooking in silence together, as if we’re both waiting to process what was said. And when we finally sit down at the table, our legs touch under there. That simple contact kindles something soft inside me.

With a mischievous grin, he lifts his fork. “Moment of truth.”

He takes a bite. I hold my breath, as his expression changes . “This is… amazingly good,” he acknowledges.

“Surprising?” I repeat, insulted.

"I meant expectedly," he hastily amends.

“World-class. I have the best chef in the town.”

“You still had to do this,” I laugh. “they still insisted on helping.”

“Since there’s nothing to stop us from helping, I get to be here. With you.”

There it is again. That quiet, straightforward feeling that will no longer be hidden.

As we eat and talk, I reveal myself in ways I haven’t for anyone. I tell him about the loneliness that I used to carry around with me, about the nights I would cry but wouldn’t let anyone hear it. He listens, listens to me, really listens – without trying to fix me, without interrupting.

And then he tells me things too — the expectations we all feel crushing us under their weight, the burden that was placed on his shoulders way too young, the fact that he always thought love was a luxury he wasn’t able to afford.

Until now.

When the plates have been cleared and the kitchen is once again clean, we don’t rush off from each other. We stay. Laughter, tears and confessions had just been filling the air–ringing out from the same place in which we now stand.

“I never thought I’d end up in the kitchen when I began to see how everything made sense.”

“I think it’s just the place,” he says, as his thumb brushes across my cheek, “where we decided to finally tell the truth.”

I lean into his touch without hesitation. No more walls. No more pretending.

I place my forehead against his chest, and I hear the rhythm of his heart beat.

This room — with its scattered spices, its heat, its silent admissions — is now our safe haven. Not for the contents, but for the things we’ve decided to exchange inside it.

Honesty.

Vulnerability.

And something that seems to be about as close to forever as you can get.