Page 63 of Rookie Rules

"How much?" Luca asked.

"A tablespoon."

Luca poured from the wrist without measuring.

"That was more than a tablespoon."

"You invited an Italian into your kitchen. Some authority transferred at the threshold."

"You were born in Michigan."

"And yet the water needed salt."

Rowan took the wooden spoon from him before he could disturb the sauce. Luca surrendered it, then opened three cupboards in search of a colander. The first held mixing bowls nested by size. The second held containers with their lids attached. At the third, he paused.

"You label shelves?"

"Only the pantry."

"There is a label that says legumes."

"It prevents confusion."

"With what, Rowan? Fruit?"

His name, unaccompanied by title or challenge, changed the air more efficiently than the kiss had.

The water boiled over. Rowan moved the pot off the burner; Luca grabbed a dish towel and wiped the spill. They worked around each other in the narrow space, shoulders nearly touching, neither willing to be the first to retreat.

"Colander is beneath the island," Rowan said.

Luca crouched and found it. "Useful information supplied after failure. Excellent mentorship."

"You opened every door except the correct one."

"I was learning the system."

Rowan had designed the kitchen so no one needed to learn it. Watching Luca do so felt dangerously like anticipation.

Rowan reheated the sauce while Luca found plates without being told where they were. He opened the correct drawer for forks on the second attempt. The domestic ease of it was so immediate Rowan nearly asked him to sit down.

Instead he grated cheese.

They ate at the island. The conversation moved, with mutual caution, to the final preseason cut and the opening-night opponent's aggressive forecheck. Luca asked whether the weak-side defenseman cheated low. Rowan answered. Luca disagreed with one route. Rowan showed him why it failed if the center arrived late.

For ten minutes they were themselves again, which meant argumentative, precise, and too attentive.

Luca used the edge of his fork to draw a route through a drop of sauce on his plate.

"If Finn pulls their high forward, I can delay here."

"If you delay there, you need support beneath the puck."

"You."

The single word changed shape in Rowan's kitchen.

Last night, it had been an answer.