Page 14 of The Stuffing Situation

She winked.

“Go make me a grandbaby!”

Maya sputtered, nearly choking on a dinner roll.

“Just don’t run from something good because you’re scared. That’s what I did. Twice.” Her mom added it in like a threat. “Go get your turkey stuffed!”

“MOM.”

“Just saying! Give him a taste of your pie!”

The door slammed shut.

Silence descended, the house wrapped in it as though the last curtain had fallen and the stage lights had gone dark.

Maya stood frozen in the entryway, cheeks burning, dignity bleeding out at her feet. The leftover warmth of family chatter still hung in the air, but now it was faint—just echoes caught in the wallpaper. The hum of the refrigerator felt too loud, the house too aware.

Behind her, Felix stood in the kitchen, a dish towel over his shoulder, blinking slowly like a processing wheel on pause.

“What does that mean?” he asked, genuinely confused. “Taste of your pie? Is that sexual?”

Maya groaned, pressing her palms to her face. “Don’t, please. Just don’t.”

Felix tilted his head, patient as ever, but curiosity simmered beneath the calm. He didn’t seem flustered by the sudden intimacy of being alone with her. He was still wearing her dad’s sweater, the sleeves rolled and soft at the edges, faintly dusted with flour from the kitchen, somehow that made him even more human—and more dangerous.

They ended up on the couch, wine in hand, the house too quiet. Too still.

The aftershock of holiday chaos clung to the air, the scent of gravy and laughter still lingered in the corners, but it was fading. Replaced by a hush Maya hadn’t felt in months. Maybe years.

It was the kind of silence that demanded acknowledgment—that dangerous, cinematic pause between tension and touch.

And beside her sat a man who shouldn’t exist.

Felix looked content and relaxed. One arm draped lazily along the back of the couch, wine glass balanced in his large, elegant hand. His profile was unfair: shadowed cheekbones, slow blink, lips barely parted, an unspoken invitation written across his face.

She tried not to stare, but her eyes betrayed her. The soft flicker of candlelight caught the hollow of his throat, the faint pulse that shouldn’t have been there. His knuckles flexed once around the glass, as if he could feel her gaze trace the motion.

He wasn’t looking at her, but he felt her watching.

“So,” she said carefully, swirling her glass. “Just to be clear, you can’t get someone pregnant, right?”

Felix turned toward her, brow slightly furrowed. “To my knowledge, no. I was not programmed with reproductive capabilities.”

Maya made a face. “That was the most terrifyingly clinical sentence I’ve ever heard.”

“But if it becomes medically or emotionally important,” he added, tone thoughtful, “I’d like to help you explore options. Though biologically speaking”

“Felix.”

“Yes?”

“Stop talking.”

She said it softly, not angry, more a plea. Her voice caught somewhere between laughter and a tremor, because even now, even after everything, he was still too composed.

Felix froze, not from fear, but as though recalibrating. Measuring the weight of her words, the edge in her tone, the distance between them on the couch.

For a beat, neither moved. The only sound was the faint ticking of the kitchen clock and the slow inhale that pulled her attention to his chest.