Page 86 of Zane

“What was the first thing I cooked for you?”

“This.”

He glanced over at her. “Bolognese?”

“Yes. I told you that I liked spaghetti with a meat sauce, and you said that you could make something similar, but much better.”

“And did I?”

“Yep. I’d never seen anyone make pasta before, so that was fun. And it all tasted delicious.”

“So I made a good first impression?”

“Good firstcookingimpression,” she said.

“Did I make other impressions? What was your very first impression of me?”

“I was told, even before I met you, that though you were handsome and super nice, you were off limits for anything but friendship.”

Zane set the wooden spoon down and turned to face her. “Did they say why?”

“Just that you were very career focused, and every woman who’d tried to get your attention was rebuffed. I wouldn’t have pursued you, regardless. So when we did meet, I just viewed you through the lens of a co-worker. And later, a friend.”

“And your impression of me as a friend?”

“You were super nice, but also very intense when it came to cooking and your career. There were times you yelled at people, but everyone would say it was deserved. I don’t know how you were at your new restaurant, though, since I wasn’t there with you.”

“Sometimes the only way to get people to listen in a busy kitchen is to yell at them,” Zane said as he turned his attention to the sauce. “Hopefully, I never yelled at you.”

“Nope. You never did.”

“Did we argue?”

“Not really. Probably our most intense discussions came around our elopement and the move to Tampa. Not that we disagreed about either, but more along the lines of discussing how we were going to carry it all out.”

Zane wanted to know everything. To understand the dynamics they’d had between them. What they had now wasstill awkward and, at times, tense. This was never how he’d envisioned a relationship being.

He filled a large pot with water, then slid it along the counter to the stove, where he set it on a burner. Though he would have liked to have had some sort of garlic bread with the meal, he wasn’t much of a baker. Especially when it came to yeast products.

“Is there anything you want me to do?”

“You’re my sous-chef, right?” he asked.

“Sometimes. Are we having a salad? That’s my forte, after all.”

Zane chuckled. “Sure. I think we have the stuff for a garden salad.”

For the next little while, Kelsey cut up vegetables for the salad, then set the table. Shortly after five, Lee and Rori arrived home from the vet clinic.

“I have to say, I’m really seeing the appeal of having a personal chef,” Rori said when she walked into the kitchen. She took a deep breath, then exhaled with a satisfied look on her face. “It smells delicious.”

“It tastes delicious too,” Zane said with a smile.

“Well, let us go get cleaned up and changed,” Lee said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Once they’d left, with Elsa trailing after them, Zane put the pasta into the boiling water, to which he’d added some oil and salt. Kelsey got a pitcher of water from the fridge and set it on the table.

She ended up having to help him drain the pasta once it was done, since he couldn’t manage to lift the pot off the stove onhis own. Sliding it along the counter when it was filled with hot water didn’t seem like the smartest move.

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