Just A Soft Moment

Just A Soft Moment
I frowned at his statement as I added a pinch of salt to the boiling water. "I...never thought about that with architecture. I mean it has a lot of calculations and stuff. Not really a fan."

"Most people aren't." He stirred whatever was in his pan without looking up. "That's usually because they're thinking about the math instead of the intention behind it."

"And what's the intention behind it."

"Fear mostly." He set his spoon down and leaned back against the counter. "Every great building is just someone refusing to disappear."

I looked at him then. Actually looked. He was staring at his pan like he hadn't just said something that settled into my chest and stayed there.

"That's depressing," I said.

"Is it."

"A little."

"Or it's honest." He picked his spoon back up. "Your turn."

"I wasn't done with mine."

"You're deflecting."

"I'm cooking." I turned my salmon over and the butter hissed. "They're the same thing right now."

He was quiet for a beat. Then — "What do you do when you're not cooking."

"Sleep."

"Lilly."

"I'm serious. Sleep. Walk. Eat other people's food and judge it silently." I reached for the herbs and started stripping the thyme off the stems. "I go to the market on Saturdays. Early, before the crowds. I like it when it's still cold and no one is performing fake lives. Just people and produce."

"Performing," he repeated.

"People perform at markets. They perform everywhere." I dropped the thyme into the butter and the smell rose up immediately, warm and sharp. "You know what I mean. The version of themselves they pack into a bag before they leave the house."

He was quiet for a moment. "And at the market. You're not performing."

"At five in the morning I barely have a face on." I smiled a little at my pan. "Hard to perform without a face."

"I don't think that's true."

I glanced up. He was looking at me. Not at the food, not at the counter. At me.

"What."

"That you need anything to be—" he stopped. Looked back at his pan. "Never mind. You're going to burn that."

I looked down. I was not going to burn anything, the heat was perfectly fine, but I turned back to it anyway because my face had done something warm and involuntary and I needed a moment.

"Your turn," I said.

"I already told you. Reading."

"That's not enough." I reached past him for the wooden spoon on his side of the counter and he shifted back to give me room and our arms brushed and neither of us moved away immediately. I grabbed the spoon. "What else."

"I run in the mornings." He cleared his throat. "Early. Before anything starts."

"Before you have to perform."

He paused. "Yes," he said. "Before that."

I handed him back his spoon and our fingers met around the handle for just a second, his hand warm and still, and I let go first and went back to my side of the counter.

"What else," I said again, quieter.

"Music." He said it like he wasn't sure he meant to. "Piano. I played when I was younger. I don't anymore but I still—" He exhaled through his nose. "I still hear it. When I'm in a room that's too quiet."

I looked at him sideways. "You hear music when it's quiet."

"Yes."

"That sounds less like a hobby and more like a haunting."

Something crossed his face. Not quite a smile but close enough that I felt it. "Maybe," he said.

We cooked in silence after that, a different kind of silence than before. Fuller.

I turned from the stove at the same moment he reached across to cut the heat on the back burner and the kitchen was small and he was taller than I always remembered and suddenly he was right there, my back almost against the counter, his arm still extended behind me, his face close enough that I could see the slight crease between his brows and the way his jaw was set like he was already deciding something.

The smell of cedar and something warmer filled the space between us.

Clean.

His scent.

Neither of us moved.

His eyes dropped to mine and held, and I knew I should step aside, say something ridiculous, make a joke about personal space — something — but I just stood there reading his face and his face was reading mine back and the pan behind him was still ticking as it cooled and the herbs were still in the air and none of it moved.

"Your food is going to get cold," he said. His voice came out lower than usual.

"So is yours," I said.

He looked at me for another moment. Then he straightened up slowly and stepped back and the air rushed back in between us and I turned around and finished plating with very steady hands that were absolutely not shaking.

We ate at the counter instead of the table. Across from each other, close enough that our elbows were almost touching. He ate quietly. So did I. But twice I looked up and found him already looking and neither of us said anything about it.

I cut into his food first, because I was curious and he was watching me with that expression that said he was waiting for a verdict and trying very hard to look like he wasn't.

I put it in my mouth.

I chewed slowly.

I reached for my water.

"Lilly."

"I'm thinking."

"You don't need to think that hard."

I set my fork down. "Nathan."

"What."

"What did you put in this."

He was quiet for a moment. "Seasoning."

"Which seasoning."

"The ones that were there."

I turned and looked at the counter behind him. Four different spice jars were open and slightly out of order and one of them was absolutely, definitely paprika and another one was — I squinted — cinnamon. There was cinnamon in this food.

I turned back around.

He read my face. "It's not that bad."

"It is," I said. "It really, genuinely is."

"I followed the steps."

"What steps. You were just standing there cutting things."

"I had a method."

"Your method used cinnamon in a savory dish, Nathan."

He looked at his plate. Picked up his fork. Took a bite with the full composure of a man who ran a billion dollar company and was not going to let a spice jar humble him. Chewed once. Set his fork back down.

"It's fine," he said.

"It is not fine."

"It's edible."

"Those are not the same thing and you know it." I pulled his plate toward me and pushed mine across the counter to him. "Eat mine. I'll survive yours."

He looked at my plate. Then at me. "You don't have to—"

"I've eaten worse." A lie, possibly. "Eat the food."