He scraped the burnt omelette onto a plate and stared at it like it had personally offended him. The edges were crisp where they shouldn't be, the center still running clear, and the whole thing smelled more of scorched butter than egg.

"I'm never going to get this right," he muttered.

Inde looked up from where she sat at the small kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a mug she'd refilled with coffee she didn't seem to be drinking. The gray Henley hung loose on her frame, the collar slipping off one shoulder, and she had her hair down—long black waves falling past her collarbone. He'd never seen her with her hair down before. It did something to his chest he couldn't name.

"You're trying to flip it too early," she said. "Let it set. Then you flip."

He looked at the plate again. "This one set, alright. Set on fire."

She laughed. A real one, low and surprised, like she hadn't expected to find anything funny this morning. The sound hit him somewhere behind his ribs and stayed there.

"Give it here," she said, setting down her mug and standing. She crossed the small kitchen in three steps—the space wasn't built for two people, let alone two people her height—and stood beside him at the stove. Her shoulder brushed his arm. She didn't move away.

"Watch." She picked up the spatula, tilted the pan, and showed him how the egg released from the surface when it was ready. "See how it moves? If it sticks, it's not done."

He wasn't watching the egg. He was watching her fingers, long and capable, curled around the spatula's handle. The calluses on her palm. The way her dark eyes tracked the egg's edge with a patience he didn't have.

"You're not watching," she said.

He felt his face warm. "I'm watching."

"You're watching me."

There was no accusation in it. Just a statement of fact, delivered in that quiet voice she used when she was observing something and deciding what to do with it.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I am."

She looked at him then, her head tilting in that way she had, and something passed between them—a current he couldn't name but didn't want to break. Her hand lowered the spatula. The egg sizzled in the pan, forgotten.

"You want to try again?" she asked. "With a fresh one?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

She stepped back, giving him room, but didn't go back to her seat. She leaned against the counter instead, arms crossed, watching. The morning light—weak and yellow through the small window above the sink—caught the curve of her jaw, the softness at the corner of her mouth.

He cracked a new egg into the bowl. Then another. Whisked them with a fork, the tines scraping against ceramic, the rhythm familiar but his hands still clumsy from her proximity.

"You're overthinking it," she said.

"I always overthink things."

"I know." There was warmth in her voice. "It's one of the things I like about you."

He poured the egg into the pan and let it sit. Didn't touch it. Let the heat do the work while he stood there, spatula in hand, hyperaware of her presence behind him.

The butter sizzled. The egg began to set at the edges, the center still liquid and trembling. He waited. Counted to ten in his head. Watched the opacity creep inward like a slow tide.

"Now," she said softly.

He slid the spatula under the edge, lifted, and flipped. The omelette landed clean, folded over on itself in a neat half-moon, the top still glistening but the bottom golden brown.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"There you go," Inde said. "That's the guy I saw at the shelter. The one who actually knows what he's doing."

He looked at her over his shoulder. She was smiling. Small, genuine, her dark eyes soft in a way he was still learning to recognize.

"You saw me at the shelter," he said. "That doesn't mean I knew what I was doing."

"You knew how to hold a ladle. That's more than most people bring."

He slid the omelette onto a clean plate and held it out to her. "Here. You earned it."

She raised an eyebrow. "I watched you cook one egg."

"You coached me through it. That counts."

She took the plate, their fingers brushing in the transfer. Her skin was warm. The contact lasted less than a second, but he felt it in his fingertips for a long moment after.

"Sit," he said. "Eat. I'll make myself another one."

She sat. Picked up her fork. Cut a piece of the omelette and put it in her mouth, and he watched her chew, watched her swallow, watched her eyes flicker with something like surprise.

"It's good," she said.

"Don't sound so shocked."

"I'm not shocked. I'm impressed." She cut another piece. "There's a difference."

He turned back to the stove, feeling lighter than he had all morning. The second egg went easier. He didn't rush. He let the heat do its work, watched the edges set, waited for the moment she'd taught him to recognize. The omelette flipped clean, the butter not quite burning, the smell rising warm and golden instead of acrid.

He slid it onto his own plate and sat across from her at the small table. The table was round, barely big enough for two, and their knees almost touched underneath. He tucked his feet back, old habit, making himself smaller in a space that didn't ask him to.

Inde noticed. He saw it in the way her eyes dropped to his knees, then lifted to his face. She didn't say anything. But the silence itself felt like a question.

They ate in quiet for a minute. The fork against the plate. The tick of the wall clock. The distant hum of a car passing on the street below. It should have felt awkward—two people sharing breakfast the morning after she'd stayed over, the shape of what they were still undefined—but it didn't. It felt like something he could get used to.

"What time is your date?" she asked. Her voice was casual. Almost too casual.

He looked up. "Seven."

"That's still a while." She speared a piece of egg. "Plenty of time to overthink it."

He huffed a laugh. "Thanks. That helps."

"I'm not trying to help. I'm stating a fact." She chewed, swallowed. "You're going to overthink it no matter what I say. Might as well own it."

"You know me pretty well for someone who's only known me a few weeks."

"I pay attention." She said it simply, like it was nothing, but the weight of it settled between them. She paid attention. To him. To what he did and didn't do, to the way he held a spatula and the way he tucked his feet under his chair. The thought made him feel seen in a way that was both terrifying and good.

He finished his eggs and set down his fork. "What are you going to do today?"

She shrugged. "Go home. Change. Maybe visit my brother." She paused. "He texted me this morning. Wants to know if I'm coming home for dinner this week."

"Are you?"

"I don't know. My mom and I don't... it's complicated." She said it without elaboration, and he didn't push. He was learning that she gave what she wanted to give, and the rest she held close. He respected that. He understood it.

"Well," he said, "if you need a place to not be complicated, my door's open."

She looked at him. Her dark eyes held his for a long moment, something shifting in them—gratitude, maybe. Or surprise that he'd offered it so simply.

"I know," she said. "That's why I'm still here."

He felt the words land in his chest and settle there, warm and solid.

The omelette sat in the bowl, just one left, untouched. He'd thought about cooking it, but the meal felt done. The morning had a shape to it now, a rhythm they'd fallen into without planning it, and the last egg felt like an option they didn't need to take.

He stood to clear the plates. She stood too, reaching for her mug, and they moved around each other in the cramped kitchen with a wordless coordination that surprised him. She handed him her plate. He took it. Their shoulders brushed. She didn't step back.

He ran the water, letting it heat before he squirted soap onto the sponge. She leaned against the counter beside him, her hip against the edge, her coffee mug cradled in both hands. The silence was comfortable, filled with the sound of running water and the faint clink of ceramic against ceramic.

"Riley."

He looked up.

She was watching him with that steady, observing gaze. "Thank you. For breakfast. For this morning." She gestured vaguely, encompassing the kitchen, the half-washed plates, the burnt-butter smell still hanging in the air. "For all of it."

"You don't have to thank me."

"I know. That's why I am."

He turned off the water. Dried his hands on a dish towel. Faced her fully, the counter at his back, the sink dripping behind him. She was close. Close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her dark irises, the small scar above her left eyebrow that she never talked about, the way her pulse beat at the base of her throat.

"I want you to know," he said, the words coming out slower than he'd intended, "that whatever happens today—with Jasmine, with any of this—it doesn't change what I feel about you."

Her expression didn't shift, but something in her posture softened. The tension he hadn't realized she was holding released, a quiet exhale, a slight drop of her shoulders.

"I know," she said again.

And she believed it. He could see it in her eyes. She trusted him, and the weight of that trust was the heaviest, most precious thing anyone had ever given him.

His phone buzzed against the counter tile.

The sound was ordinary—a short vibration, the kind that signaled a text, not a call—but it cut through the moment like a blade. They both looked at it. The screen glowed, face-up, a notification visible from where they stood.

He wiped his hands on the towel again, though they were already dry, and picked it up.

Jasmine's name.

The message preview showed the first few words: Hey! So funny story about tonight...

He opened it before he could think about whether he should read it alone first. The words appeared, full and unguarded, and he heard himself read them aloud before he could stop.

"'Hey! So funny story about tonight. The ramen place called—they had a cancellation, so they can take us at 4 instead of 7 if we want the good table by the window. I told them yes before asking you because I'm a menace. Hope that's okay! Let me know.'"

He finished reading. Stared at the screen. The words sat there, bright and casual, full of Jasmine's loud, laughing energy, pulling the day forward by three hours.

Three hours.

He looked up.

Inde's hand had stilled on the counter. Her fingers rested flat against the laminate, no longer curled around her mug, no longer reaching for anything. She was looking at the phone in his hand, her face unreadable, and he watched her process the shift—watched the information land and settle and rearrange itself behind her dark eyes.

The kitchen felt smaller. The air thicker. The clock on the wall ticked one second, then another, and the morning that had felt so open, so full of hours, suddenly had a shape he hadn't chosen.

She met his eyes. Her voice, when it came, was steady. Carrying an edge of quiet recalibration rather than jealousy—a woman adjusting her footing on ground that had shifted beneath her.

"Guess you should get ready sooner than planned."