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“I...want to,” I admit, quieter now. “I don’t feel obliged. I just...I like doing things with you. With all of you. I want to help. I want tobewith you.”

Xar’s expression softens. “Alright, then.” He tosses me an apron. “You’re on vegetable duty, sous chef.”

Blaise groans. “Do I have to chop things too?”

“No,” Xar says dryly. “You can set the table and not burn the house down.”

“Unreasonable,” Blaise mutters, but he’s smiling as he gets to his feet.

And just like that, the kitchen fills with movement – light and laughter and clinking glass and the sizzle of garlic hitting the pan. It’s the most normal, domestic thing I’ve done in years. I don’t want it to end.

Blaise makes it approximately three minutes before he becomes a hazard.

He clatters the silverware onto the table in dramatic flourishes, whistles off-key, and hums what might be a funeral dirge while placing the placemats – incorrectly – upside down.

“Blaise,” Xar warns, not even looking up from the chopping board.

“Yes, chef?”

“That is the third time you’ve dropped a fork. And the spoons go on theright.”

“I’m going for an abstract placement. Very avant-garde.”

“Out.”

Blaise gasps, scandalised. “You’re kicking me out of the kitchen?”

Xar finally turns, expression perfectly deadpan. “I’m saving the kitchen. Leave. Sit. Play with the chickens. Go smell a candle. I don’t care.”

Blaise turns to me and presses a hand to his chest like he’s just been stabbed. “You see what I endure?”

I grin. “You dropped a fork into the sink. Twice.”

“It was slippery!” he cries, backing out of the room. “Don’t fall for his quiet charm, Evie. He’s a kitchen tyrant!”

Xar closes the fridge with one hip and sighs. “He says that like it’s a bad thing.”

Once Blaise is gone, the kitchen quiets again – just the simmer of something on the stove and the steady rhythm of my chopping beside Xar’s.

It feels...easy.

“I don’t mind the way you are in here,” I say eventually, glancing up at him. “Focused. Commanding.”

His lip quirks, and he raises an eyebrow. “Commanding, huh?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.”

I nudge him with my elbow. “You really enjoy this, don’t you?”

“Cooking?” He nods. “Yeah. Always have. It’s something about creating something with your hands. Knowing how to layer the right flavours. Getting it just right. But cooking for my omega? Something else entirely.”

“It’s like music,” I say, before I can stop myself.

He looks over at me, eyes softening. “Exactly like that.”

We go quiet for a beat, comfortable again. My hands move automatically, peeling carrots, slicing onions. I notice the way his knuckles brush mine now and then, deliberate but never invasive.