Thinking of how Grace Barron must picture her as a woman who lives off takeout and probably can't fry an egg, Oakley Ponciano made a decision. She would cook a dinner so good Grace would have to reset her opinion from the ground up.
She could lack many things—time, money, patience—but never confidence. The more someone doubted her, the harder she charged.
"Tonight," she texted, chest up, chin high, "I'm going to expand your horizons. Prepare to witness true genius. Prepare for a glorious dinner."
She curved her mouth into a rogue's smile, opened a recipe video on her phone, and started washing produce like a woman about to stage a coup.
The menu, as decreed by her unshakable optimism: a pan-braised fish in a sweet glaze; tomato–tofu–egg soup; celery sautéed with smoked tofu; crispy sweet-and-sour pork; garlicky butterflied shrimp over fine noodles; and a simple plate of greens.
She hauled the pork loin to the board, planted one palm on the meat, lifted the knife with the other, and began slicing—brimming with confidence even as a furrow stitched between her brows. It had been too long. If she'd ever had kitchen skills, they were now in hibernation.
She held a slab of pork up to the light and admired it—the thickness of a novella, not a poem—then put it aside and cut more. Who said slices had to be thin? Thick has personality; thick is honest; thick chews back.
But once the meat was marinated and floured and the oil was talking, chaos set in.
Either she'd bungled the batter or the slices were indeed the size of floor tiles. What rose from the pot could not be called "crispy anything." It was a tangle of battered misfortune. Half the pieces wore a pale, uncertain crust; the other half had gone straight to charcoal.
Oakley stared at the carnage, decided that details were a trap, and pivoted hard to the sauce. Taste, she reminded herself, is ninety percent redemption.
She meant to test the glaze, but as it bubbled up in a field of frantic blisters, panic took her steering wheel. She dumped the "pork" in and stirred like a survivor of a small kitchen war. When she finally lifted a piece to taste, her fine brows pinched.
Appalling. Sour and salty in a way that scalded the throat. She had never eaten anything so determinedly awful. Worse—she had made it with her own hands.
She spat delicately into the trash, set the chopsticks down, and leaned on the counter with a grimace.
No. She had bragged. She would not smack herself in the face with reality this quickly. There were other dishes. First attempts are practice rounds. The next would be the masterpiece. She nodded at the air as if it had doubted her, pulled out a tray of pre-sliced blackfish, and set it aside like a promise.
At least the fish was already cut. Less chance to ruin it with the knife.
Humming, she reached for two tomatoes and began to quarter them, the picture of domestic delusion.
—
By six-thirty the city had slipped into that deepening blue-black that blurs every edge. Grace finished the last of her emails, felt the day unclench a notch, and checked the time. Oakley had promised a revelation. Grace couldn't help smiling, curious despite herself about what, exactly, would land on the table.
Driving home, she slipped through the river of headlights, tired, yes, but oddly soothed. It felt like a stream was running through her—narrow, clear, steady.
She parked at seven, opened the front door, and inhaled.
From the kitchen, an aroma drifted out. Not… bad, precisely. Not good either. Just… unusual. Like something had gotten lost and then insisted it had always meant to take the scenic route.
She was about to call out when Oakley's voice flew from the kitchen, high and tense. "You're back?!"
Nerves. Of course. Time always ran like water—you blink and it slips out between your fingers.
Grace looked over and saw Oakley step into view with a spatula gripped like a weapon.
Small frame, pretty face—too pretty for an apron, really. She carried both glamour and mischief, a kind of gorgeous wrongness for the setting.
She looked like the sort of person who would accidentally blow up a kitchen and then post a charming photo of the smoke.
"Yep," Grace said, walking toward her. "Is the glorious dinner… ready?"
She'd wondered all afternoon—half eager, half skeptical.
Oakley lifted a palm like a traffic cop. "Don't come any closer!"
Grace, absurdly, thought of a meme that said: Back. Back. BACK.
It was the sort of gesture that screamed there was a magnificent mess behind her.
Grace froze, dutiful. "What's wrong?"
She tried to angle a look past Oakley's shoulder and was met with an ominous prickle of intuition.
"Not done yet," Oakley said, leaning artfully against the wall, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I don't like being watched while I work. Throws off my groove."
Fair point.
"Oh? So?" Grace arched a brow.
"Maybe… go do your thing? Tie up whatever you were doing?"
Grace took in the jitter around Oakley's eyes and decided to be kind. "Okay. I won't come over. Don't stress."
It was true some people seized up under observation; what flowed in private turned to paste with an audience.
"Great. I'm on it." Oakley turned back to the stove, lips pressed, spatula raised.
She lasted two minutes before a shriek cracked the air, loud enough to make the windows consider their options.
Grace flinched. "What happened?"
She was already half up, ready to help, when Oakley, as if sensing motion, shouted, "Do not come in here!"
Her voice was pitched just shy of "bring down the firmament."
Grace watched the doorway for a beat, then laughed under her breath, shook her head, and sank onto the sofa with her phone.
A message pinged from Hannah Barron.
When are you coming back tomorrow?
Grace blinked. Hannah rarely asked. Usually whether Grace came home or not didn't register as more than a ripple.
Before Grace could ask what was going on, another message arrived: That "Little oven's Pastry Shop"—did it open a branch in Skylark? The kid says they're craving it. If you've got time, could you bring some back?
Grace stared a second, then quietly deleted the "Everything okay?" she'd typed. She wrote: Sure.
So that was that.
After a pause, she opened the delivery app, found the shop, browsed the categories like a conscientious aunt, and added a sampler box to her cart.
Order set, she looked out the window. The trees in the courtyard had put on a thin veil of gray. Even through glass you could feel the cold stacking up outside.
She turned back to her phone and opened a silly game. Suddenly she saw the point of them—clean, mindless loops for a brain chewed up by the day.
Thirty minutes later her stomach sent up a formal complaint. She set the phone down. "How's it going in there?"
Oakley's head popped around the doorway. "Almost!"
Her expression was… interesting.
Grace rubbed her now-flat stomach. "Need a hand?"
She honestly wasn't sure they would both survive if she did nothing.
"Nope!" Oakley chirped, and ducked back out of sight.
One minute later, a bright sound rang like a bell. "Done! Come over!"
Grace stood at once and crossed the room.
On the wooden table sat two covered plates. It was impossible to tell what lay beneath; both wore silver domes like crowns.
"So ceremonial?" Grace asked, amused. "What's inside?"
Oakley stood beside her, smoothing her hair, hands a little fidgety. "Dinner," she said, with great dignity.
Grace gave her a puzzled look, then—like a lady-in-waiting testing for poison—lifted one lid.
She went very still.
After a moment, she turned her head slowly and smiled. "So… by 'glorious dinner' you meant… clear-broth noodles?"
To be fair, the noodles looked spotless—pale and orderly, lying in a light broth dotted with tiny moons of oil and flecks of green onion. Very… refreshing.
Oakley coughed. Twice. "I'm sorry. I meant to cook a spread. It all—crashed and burned."
She had tried. She had followed videos. But her hands and her brain had refused to share a mission statement.
"Crashed and burned," Grace echoed, exactly as she had expected.
If Oakley had been a natural, she wouldn't have staged the red-carpet reveal.
"Mm-hmm," Oakley said, eyes sliding away. "Don't quibble. Food is food. Be grateful."
Before Grace could answer, Oakley had already swept around the table, sat, tossed her hair, and lifted her chopsticks. "Come on, eat before the noodles swell."
Grace scraped a thumb lightly along her temple, smiled, and took the seat opposite. She lifted a neat bundle of noodles, tasted.
Oakley watched, stirring her own bowl, trying to look like she wasn't waiting for a verdict. "Well?"
Grace considered. "Honestly? Not bad."
The broth was neither shy nor loud. The scallions had softened to velvet, and when the springy noodles slipped past her lips the faintest, briny sweetness bloomed along her tongue, a flavor that lingered in the cheekbones.
Grace had never known what people meant by "the taste of home." It was a phrase that floated around dinner tables like steam and never sat down. And yet this bowl—simple, honest—made a shadow of it flicker in her, some small room she had never visited and was startled to find lit.
"Really?" Oakley asked, quick and breathless.
Grace nodded. "Really. You're… actually pretty good in the kitchen."
For this bowl alone, she meant it. Oakley had caught the balance right on the rim.
Oakley took a bite, considered. "I rise and fall. If I keep it rustic, I can manage. Anything complicated and my brain… drops a stitch."
She envied the ones who only had to see something once and it lived in their hands. Beside them she felt painfully average.
Grace shook her head. "That's not a flaw. You just haven't done it enough."
Oakley tilted her head, chopsticks poised. "You mean that?"
"Of course." Grace took another mouthful. She had been starving, and good food made her restraint lazy. When she was done, she picked up the bowl with both hands and drank every last strand of warmth from it.
Watching her, Oakley's chest unknotted. The approval landed like a medal on a ribbon—light, silly, and somehow important. She twirled another cluster of noodles, smiling without noticing.
After.
Grace reached across, collected both empty bowls, and headed for the kitchen to clean up.
She took one step inside and stopped cold.
It looked as if a small cannon had gone off. Flour ghosted the air. Oil sparked on the stovetop like a constellation. The middle of a pan was stamped with a blackened moon. If Oakley kept "experimenting," Grace thought, tomorrow they might be trending for all the wrong reasons.
"Huh," Grace said, lips pulling into a crooked line. "Impressive. Oakley, have you ever met a Husky?"
She had anticipated chaos. She had not anticipated… scale. This was not beginner's luck gone sideways. This was an achievement in entropy.
Oakley shot her a glare. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Grace's eyes were kind; her smile, not helpful. She shook her head. "Nothing. Just wondering if you're related."
Oakley caught up at once. "Wow. So you are calling me names."
"Where?" Grace protested, laughing. "I'm praising your boundless energy. Very healthy."
Which, translated, meant: I am teasing you and I cannot stop myself.
Oakley planted her hands on her hips. "Forget it. My heart's an ocean; I won't stoop to argue with the peasants."
She wore the crown well—high-chinned, mock-regal, adorable.
"Okay," Grace said, half bowing.
Everything Oakley did seemed to turn charming, even when she was righteous, especially then.
"Hey," Oakley said after a moment.
"Hm?" Grace turned.
Oakley folded her fingers together and worried them, looking anywhere but Grace's eyes. "Do you ever… think I'm useless?"
In this household, she sometimes felt like a mascot with legs. Pretty, yes. Decorative, yes. Functional? Less clear. And who needed a mascot when the team was one person who could already play every position.
Grace frowned. "Why would you think that?"
Oakley puffed out her cheek. Everyone else's girlfriend seemed soft-spoken, skilled, effortless. She was a chaos bird with a straight-girl brain in a queer romance, and a small, hard thought pecked at her: If she could do nothing properly, why would Grace ever choose her? Why would anyone choose what they didn't need?
She took a breath. "I just realized something. If I can't do any of this, won't you feel shortchanged—being married to me? I know we're not… traditional. But the point is to tag-team life, right? Fill in each other's gaps. And if I'm making your life harder than it would be alone… won't you feel dragged down?"
Grace shook her head at once. "How could I? Cooking and chores? We can hire help. I've just been too slammed to set it up."
She didn't understand where that anxious logic came from. In a modern life, anything tedious could be outsourced if your wallet could breathe.
"True." Oakley hesitated, then asked softly, "Then what's the point of me? For you, I mean."
Grace paused. The answer wasn't a list. It wasn't even a sentence. It was a texture, a weather.
"Do I have to quantify it?" she said at last, thinking out loud. "I don't know. I just… feel more alive when you're here. It's easier to breathe. Maybe that's the point."
She used to hunt meaning like a truffle pig—work for what, friendships for what, life for what. Then she'd learned that comfort had its own philosophy. If the day sat well in your body, everything sprouted reasons without being asked. If the day hollowed you, you could chase "truth" forever and never catch a seed.
"So," Oakley said, eyes brightening on the pivot, "I make you feel good?"
Grace nodded. "You do."
The words slid into Oakley like warm tea. So she wasn't a burden. So she might even be—a good.
Grace rolled up her sleeves, reached for the faucet, and then stilled at the sink. A large, black, indistinct object lounged in the basin like a burnt-out meteor.
It was so singularly… ruined that her brain refused to label it. "What is this? Charcoal?"
"No," Oakley said, biting her lower lip.
"What is it, then?" Grace leaned closer, truly curious about what transformation spell had been cast here and what, precisely, it had slain.
Oakley sighed and met her eyes. "A fish."
"A… fish?" Grace's mind balked.
It required faith to connect this lump with the concept of fin and scale.
"Uh-huh." Oakley blew a stray hair off her nose. "I wanted to do a proper fry, and then—while I was chatting for one second—it went full charcoal. I mean, unbelievable."
Time had dilated—heaven's minute to earth's century. Also, possibly, she had added too much flour. Or too much hope. Hard to say which.
Grace glanced at the charcoal-fish, then at the sanctified simplicity of clear-broth noodles on the table, then at Oakley's sheepish face—and cracked up.
"So the 'glorious dinner' morphed into minimalist pasta?"
Arms crossed, Oakley scowled with theatrical grievance. "Yes. I tried to save them, but they died in my hands with their eyes open. What was I supposed to do—resurrect them like some kitchen deity?"
"Died with their eyes open." Grace bent double, laughter catching at her waist. It was awful, and it was perfect.
"Is it that funny?" Oakley widened her eyes on purpose, pretending outrage.
"A little," Grace admitted, shoulders hitching. Oakley was joy walking around on two legs. The world had more colors around her, even the ugly ones.
Oakley watched the tension fall off Grace like an old coat, and a slow smile curled her mouth. "That's good, then."
Grace blinked. "What's good?"
"They say a smile from a beauty is worth a fortune. I got yours for the price of one disastrous meal." Oakley stepped in close, the light in her eyes turning liquid. She scratched lightly under Grace's chin, playful as a cat. "You're gorgeous when you smile."
Then she looped an arm behind Grace's neck and drew her down, brushed the corner of her mouth with her own.
Warm breath, sugar and steam. A voice like velvet against silk: "Do it more. I like it."
It was shameless. And soft. And it lit a match in the quiet room.