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He moved toward the door as I looked around for my shoes. I couldn’t remember what I’d done with them. As I searched, I noticed a folder on his desk that read Project Next Level. My curiosity piqued, but I didn’t want to just paw through it right in front of him.

I found my shoes over by the fireplace, and together we went down to the kitchen. He opened up cabinets for a few minutes, staring like he was deep in thought, but I knew he was really confused.

“It’s been a long time since you cooked for yourself, hasn’t it,dear?” I teased.

“Yes. I would imagine it’s been a while for you as well.”

“Well, I was never a chef or a maestro in the kitchen. However, Ramone and the other chefs at the restaurant showed me a few things. I’m sure we can whip up something.”

I checked the pantry and the cupboards, and my lord was there a ton of food there. I couldn’t believe our options, but at the same time it was late, and I wanted to do something simple. Something we could accomplish together.

“I’m thinking we’ve got mushrooms, we’ve got butter, thick cream, and this bag of tortellini. We’ve got everything we needto do a kick-ass pasta with creamy mushroom sauce.”

“If you say so,” he said, sounding a bit dubious.

“I say so.”

He allowed me to take the lead, which surprised the hell out of me.

“Now, look in that hanging wire basket and tell me if you see any garlic bulbs.”

He rummaged around without complaint until he came up with one.

“Will this do?”

“That’s perfect. Go ahead and grab an onion while you’re standing there.”

I cut a thick slab of grass-fed European butter and flopped it into a saucepan. I gestured to one of the cast iron pots on the wall.

“Hey, take that down and fill it with water, about three inches from the top.”

“That seems like a lot of water for a small amount of pasta.”

“Trust me, tortellini are going to expand like crazy, and some of the cheese is going to get into the water. You’ll want that extra volume, so the pasta doesn’t get a coat of slime.”

“All right.”

I showed him how to crack open the skin of a garlic clove, and the right way to dice an onion for a shop. I was no Gordon Ramsey, but I probably looked like an expert to him.

Once we had the mushrooms, onions, and garlic good and sauteed in the butter, I added the cream in by degrees until we had a rich, brown sauce.

We poured it over the pasta and sat down to eat at the counter. I do believe that Evan had a lot of fun. Plus, you always appreciate food more when you have a hand in its creation.

“Thank you,” I said as he stuck his fork into the morass on his plate.

“For what?”

“For making the effort. For listening to me and not giving me a hard time when I told you how to do something in the kitchen.”

He shrugged. “I try to listen to experts, even if I don’t always agree with them. Besides, it was a lot of fun. I’m kind of surprised that I enjoyed it so much, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said as I bit into the tortellini. It was perfect, the sauce mellowing out the saltiness of the cheese stuffing. “Well, maybe you should let me be in charge more often.”

He gave me a long look and then grinned.

“I don’t know. I might need more convincing that this is a good idea.”

I put down my fork and came around the table. I kissed him first for a change.