Noah Bennett apparently had a talent for timing his commute so he arrived home at exactly the moment the building decided to provide him with a social encounter.

  It was less a supernatural gift and more just statistical probability: he left the Science & Engineering Library at the same time every day, because predictable schedules were cheaper than therapy, and King’s Park Flats operated on the principle that if you appeared in the lobby often enough, you would eventually meet someone carrying an unreasonable amount of something.

  Today, it was groceries.

  Noah pushed through the glass doors and nodded at the concierge desk out of habit. The lobby smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and someone else’s expensive hand soap, the kind that made you feel like your hands should apologize for being ordinary.

  Rachel Ellis stood near the mailboxes with two paper bags hooked over her wrists. She looked composed the way she always did—chin up, shoulders squared—except her grip on the handles was a fraction too tight, and her eyes kept checking the elevator like it had personally offended her.

  Noah slowed without meaning to.

  She wasn't struggling in an obvious, dramatic way; she was simply "managing." But Noah knew enough about "I’m fine" as a lifestyle to know that usually meant she was one torn paper handle away from a public breakdown.

  Rachel turned at the sound of the door and saw him. Her face did that thing it sometimes did around him—something quick and unguarded flickering across it—before settling back into calm neutrality.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey,” Noah replied, giving her the easy smile he’d practiced into muscle memory. Charisma was just good manners with an effective delivery method.

  He nodded toward the bags, keeping it casual. “Stocking up?”

  Rachel’s mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “Attempting to,” she said, like the grocery store had taken it personally.

  Noah raised his eyebrows. “Attempting.”

  Rachel exhaled through her nose. She shifted the bags higher, and one of the handles creaked in a way that suggested it had opinions about her life choices.

  Noah’s first instinct was to take a bag. His second instinct—slightly more experienced—reminded him that Rachel tended to treat offers of help like they came with invisible strings. He didn’t want to turn a ten-second lobby encounter into a negotiation.

  Also, the elevator was right there. The trip was short. The bags hadn’t actively failed yet.

  He compromised by doing what he did best: hovering at a respectful distance while being ready.

  Rachel’s lips pressed together. A beat passed. Then she added, quieter, as if the sentence had slipped out on its own, “It’s just… stupid.”

  Noah tilted his head. “The bags?”

  “The contents,” Rachel corrected.

  The elevator chose that exact moment to arrive with its soft chime.

  The doors opened.

  Noah stepped aside and let her go first, because he was polite and also because he was curious in the way polite people were allowed to be.

  Rachel walked into the elevator with the careful posture of someone pretending she wasn’t carrying her entire adult identity in paper sacks. Noah followed, and the doors closed them into the elevator’s mirrored quiet.

  Rachel stared at the floor indicator while they rose, as if eye contact with a neighbor might cause her to confess.

  Noah watched her reflection once—briefly—just long enough to decide whether she wanted silence or a distraction.

  Her shoulders were set. Her mouth was tight. She looked like she had already argued with herself about saying whatever she was about to say.

  Noah decided to make it easier.

  “Did the grocery store do something to you?” he asked mildly. “Because we can file a complaint. I can be stern.”

  Rachel’s gaze snapped to him, startled. Then her mouth twitched.

  “It was… fine,” she said. “I just…” She stopped, eyes flicking away, and then—against her better judgment, apparently—continued. “I bought things. I thought they were the right things. And then I got home and realized I didn’t actually buy—”

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  She paused, like the word would become real if she said it.

  “Food.”

  Noah blinked once, because he hadn’t expected honesty at this altitude.

  Rachel glanced at him, cheeks faintly pink behind her glasses. “I bought spices,” she said, as if presenting evidence in court. “And peanut butter. And jam. And… snacks.”

  Noah let a beat pass, solemn. “All important.”

  Rachel’s laugh came out sharp and reluctant. “Not even bread,” she finished, and the self-deprecation in her voice was gentle but obvious—an attempt to turn embarrassment into comedy before it could become shame.

  Noah felt something soften in his chest, because he recognized the maneuver. He’d been doing variations of it his entire life.

  He nodded toward the bags. “So. A pantry.”

  Rachel lifted one bag like a demonstration. “Exactly.”

  “But without the part where you can turn it into a meal,” Noah added.

  Rachel exhaled, a little helpless. “Yes.”

  The elevator dinged at their floor. The doors slid open.

  They stepped into the hallway together, and for once there wasn’t that awkward divergence where one of them suddenly remembered they were supposed to be busy. They were simply two people walking home at the same time, which was normal and harmless and—Noah noted, without examining too closely—surprisingly pleasant.

  Rachel’s door was only a few steps from his. She slowed near it, shifting the bags again, preparing to do the polite thing where you say goodnight and go inside and pretend you have everything under control.

  Noah watched the paper handles. Watched the tension in her fingers. The bags weren’t tearing yet, but they were thinking about it.

  He also registered—because his brain collected details whether he asked it to or not—that whatever she’d bought, none of it looked like it would require a cutting board.

  He spoke before he could talk himself out of it.

  “I’m making dinner,” Noah said, and immediately wished he’d phrased it like less of a… declaration. “Nothing fancy. But if you want to come over and eat with me, you can.”

  Rachel froze mid-reach for her keys.

  Noah felt the words land and realized, a half-second too late, that I'm making dinner could easily sound like You clearly can't feed yourself, let me rescue you. He pivoted quickly, keeping his tone light to give her an out.

  “No pressure,” he added quickly. “I just… tend to cook too much, and you said ‘not even bread’ like it hurt you.”

  Rachel looked at him, eyes wide behind her glasses. For a moment he saw something flare—anxiety, probably—before she tried to pack it back into its box.

  “I can—” she started, then stopped, because the end of that sentence would be a lie. “I don’t want to impose.”

  Noah nodded as if she’d said something entirely reasonable, because she had.

  “You wouldn’t be,” he said. He kept it gentle, not joking—jokes would give her an easy exit and he didn’t actually want her to take it unless she needed it. “It’s dinner. I like cooking. And you look like you’re going to try to eat cinnamon and peanut butter as a meal.”

  Rachel blinked, offended. “I wasn’t going to eat cinnamon.”

  “No,” Noah agreed, dead serious. “That would be unhinged. A responsible adult chooses nutmeg.”

  Rachel laughed—quiet and helpless, like it slipped past her defenses before she could catch it. The sound loosened something in her shoulders. For a moment she looked less like a person performing adulthood and more like a person simply existing, briefly relieved of the duty to be sensible.

  Noah felt something in his chest click into place.

  He had made her laugh. He could make strangers laugh if necessary. But Rachel’s laugh sounded like relief, and relief was… precious.

  Her gaze dropped to her bags. She swallowed. “You really don’t mind?”

  He’d cooked for himself for years—for efficiency, for the soothing repetition, for the control, or simply because he could. It was a solo act. He didn't cook for other people. Not casually.

  The fact landed with quiet weight.

  Noah didn’t let it show. He kept his smile easy. “I wouldn’t offer if I minded,” he said, which was true. He didn’t add that he’d offered because he wanted to. Because the wanting part still felt new and slightly hazardous, like touching a hot pan without a mitt.

  Rachel hesitated one more time, like she was giving her pride a final chance to veto. Then she nodded once—quick, decisive, as if agreeing before she could change her mind.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Noah’s pulse did something annoyingly noticeable. He covered it by shifting his weight and nodding back like this was the most ordinary exchange in the world.

  “Okay,” he echoed. “Give me a bit. I’ll cook. You can… settle in.”

  Rachel looked at her door, then at him, expression careful. There was something softer threaded through it now—trust, tentative and fragile.

  “All right,” she said finally. “In a bit.”

  “In a bit,” Noah agreed.

  Rachel unlocked her door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her with the careful gentleness of someone trying not to make the moment too real.

  Noah stood in the hallway for a second longer than necessary, staring at her door like it might say something back. Then he turned, walked into his own apartment, and shut his door.

  The reality of what he'd done caught up with him a second later. He’d invited Rachel Ellis into his apartment like it was a normal Tuesday activity, ignoring the shift in the hallway's atmosphere and the inconvenient spike in his own pulse.

  Noah leaned back against his door and stared at the kitchen across the room like it might offer counsel.

  Cooking for someone else, his brain supplied, was just cooking. Same chemistry, same heat transfer. The only variable that had changed was the stakes.

  He pushed off the door and went to wash his hands—because he always washed his hands before he cooked, and because it gave his body something to do while a quiet part of his mind tried very hard not to be too pleased with itself.

  A few minutes later, a soft knock came from the front door.

  Noah paused, dried his hands on the towel, and exhaled once like that might reset his pulse.

  Then he crossed the room and opened it.

  Rachel stood there empty-handed now, hair a little messier, glasses on, cardigan soft enough to make her look like she’d chosen comfort over performance for once. Her expression was composed in a way that didn’t quite hide the nerves underneath.

  She lifted one hand as if she might wave, then decided it was too much and let it hover awkwardly instead.

  Noah stepped back, making room.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Rachel took a breath.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She stepped inside, crossing the threshold into his apartment. It was only a step, but something in him went unsteady anyway—like the quiet had shifted its weight.