I open the door and look at the bag.
“This is a working night,” I say.
“I’m cooking.”
“You cook?”
He looks at me like this is an odd question.
I step back.
The bag contains pasta, jarred sauce, two kinds of cheese, and one bunch of basil that looks like it made the trip under protest.
“The basil looks traumatized,” I say.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s wilted.”
“It has character.”
I close the door behind him. “Is this because of the pasta I insulted the other night?”
“You called it beige resignation.”
“It was.”
“I’m correcting the record.”
“That is either mature or petty.”
“Can be both.”
I go back to my laptop because watching him navigate my kitchen is going to be either charming or a logistical emergency, and I have work either way.
It becomes an emergency within six minutes.
The pasta water boils over before he has the lid fully off. He deals with it, gets the burner lower, then cannot find a strainer and opens four cabinet doors before I call from the desk, “Top left. Behind the mixing bowl.”
“You own a mixing bowl?”
“I own the idea of baking.”
He finds the strainer.
The cheese situation becomes complicated. He bought two kinds that do not work together and he is standing at the counter looking at them like they have personally betrayed him when I give up on the transcript and come to stand beside him.
“Which one were you planning to use?”
“Both. I had a plan that required both.”
“One of those is string cheese.”
“It’s cheese.”
“Ryan.”
He looks at me. Slightly defensive. Too endearing, which is a professional problem I will address later.