Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
DEAN
“I love you, Tay. I really do.”
He hadn’t said it back.
He’d kissed me, though—kissed me like he meant it. So that was okay. Or… it would be. Because I was ready to earn it, this time around.
Which was why my kitchen looked a mess. On the countertop, neglected mint wilted next to pomegranate seeds and a half-peeled mango, my failsafe dessert in the form of a fruit salad more like a forensic scene.
Still better than the su bore?i that I’d chosen to attempt, tricked into believing I could actually pull it off by temporary delusions of cooking grandeur.
I grafted bypasses into vessels no thicker than a fingernail—surely following a few simple recipe steps would be a piece of cake.
As it turned out: nope.
What was supposed to be a tidy stack of gossamer yufka, spinach, dill, and feta held all the appeal of a murky swamp—the dough sheets slumped like teenagers who didn’t give a fuck, spinach leaked across the baking tray, and when I prodded the center with a knife, liquid oozed out to greet me. Nailed it.
The timer on my phone went off. I fumbled for it with hands dusted in corn starch—an improvised thickener that had done precisely nothing—and pulled up the Turkish cooking video I’d paused six minutes ago, when the chef had chirped, “Now, simply drizzle the remaining butter over the top sheet.” Simply. Yeah, fuck you, too.
Reality check: 6:34.
Tay had sent a text some twenty minutes ago.
Leaving!
He’d need about half an hour, so—time for plan B: Fry individual portions in a pan and pretend it was a thing.
What was it that Charley had called my purely imaginary and very lonely pina colada?
A tropical reimagination? No, a reduction.
Right. Maybe I could call this disaster a borek deconstruction?
Jesus, I was the deconstruction. Unraveling like the end of a long shift, adrenaline fading along with the aftertaste of sad hospital coffee. This was not a test.
Right?
Right, yes. It wasn’t. Because he’d kissed me. And he’d accepted my key, would be here in just a little while. So what if he hadn’t said it back? He’d waited two days—only fair that I wasn’t granted immediate forgiveness.
So—not a test. But I still didn’t want to fail at this…
romance thing. Cooking a meal from scratch, candles on the table—which, not yet.
Soft, happy music—also not yet. I didn’t know what he’d like because on the island, it’d been nothing but the waves, karaoke, and whatever choices the DJ made at group events.
Worst case, I’d ask the algorithm for some hopeful but not cheesy playlist.
Stop stressing, Dean.
All right. Action.
I sectioned off a soggy piece and transferred it to a sieve, hoping to drain some of the excess liquid.
Butter sizzled when I dropped the whole sorry mess into the pan.
Hi, Tay. It’s hospital-cafeteria Monday but worse, hope you don’t mind.
I added more butter and a pinch of salt because when in doubt, coax the taste buds into a temporary comfort-food high.
Playlist. I left smears on my screen when I tapped through to a promise of the best love songs from the seventies and eighties—couldn’t go wrong with some mellow retro vibes, right? I hit shuffle, only for some dude to start crooning that he wanted to take forever tonight. Good God.
And of course, of fucking course that’s when the door opened. Kill me now.
“Dean?” Tay called.
If I stayed very still, maybe he’d try the living room first?
A twin thud of shoes kicked off somewhere in the hallway.
Footsteps. Too late, I noticed the burnt smell wafting over from the stove.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I dropped my phone and rushed over, elbowed the bowl I’d set out for the fruit salad—grabbed for it with greasy fingers.
Glass shattered. I kind of wanted to cry and laughed instead.
That’s how Tay found me—face tipped up to the ceiling, butter sprinkles and flour on my faded T-shirt that I’d meant to change, cheesy pop on the speakers, and wondering if the smoke alarm would go off in a second to complete my utter humiliation.
“Hey.” He took one step into the kitchen, glanced around, and focused back on me. His voice dropped to something soft and concerned. “You okay?”
“I’m…” I exhaled another laugh, shrugged, then tried for a smile that looked less frazzled than I felt. “Honestly? I’ve been better. Wanted to impress you and made a mess of it instead.”
“Impress me?” he asked. Butter sputtered as my deconstructed borek sagged further into itself. I stretched to jerk off the burner.
“Careful,” I said when he took another step toward me. “There’s broken glass on the floor. Knocked over the bowl for the fruit salad.”
He halted. “You made it yourself?”
“Started.” I waved at the counter—mint bits and abandoned mango and all. “Didn’t finish.”
God, this was—just, I’d had a plan. Beg for another chance, ace dinner, make him stay the night and also forever. Now? Oops.
“Yeah, I can see that.” His lips twitched. “Also, is that su bore?i?”
“It was meant to be, yeah.” I poked the edge of it with a spatula, and it dripped butter like an insult. “Wanted to make something that might feel like home to you. Like those big family parties you mentioned. Except this is more… savory glop with a twist.”
When I dared to chance a glance, it was to find both his brows quirked up in amusement. “Mutiny of the yufka?”
He didn’t sound disappointed. In fact, he sounded bright, inexplicably happy, and that gave me the courage to really look at him—hair still wind-swept from the roof and face a little tired from the day, but his eyes were warm like the first day of spring.
“Hostile takeover,” I said, setting the fork aside to reach for the dustpan. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t move, head tilting at a curious angle. “What for?”
“I had a plan, you know?” I stooped to sweep up bits of broken glass. To add insult to injury, the music switched to another dude promising that nothing would change his love for me. “Or,” I amended, “a vision, I guess. Quarter-hour plating schedule, candles, tasteful music.”
“Hey.” Tay was suddenly right there, fingers light on my wrist. “Dean. You tried to cook something you’ve never done before just because you thought it’d make me happy. You really think I’m gonna give you performance notes?”
“But it’s all wrong.” Jesus, I sounded like a bratty kid.
“Wrong how?”
I kept my attention on the gentle brush of his fingers along the back of my hand. “Too wet, too greasy…”
“Like me after a run?” A grin shone through the question. “Seriously, Dean—I didn’t come for the food.”
I glanced up at him, and—God. I’d built an entire identity out of self-assured precision and careful detachment, but he sliced through it all like lightning. “Still,” I said, “you deserve—”
“I love you.”
Everything inside me went quiet. He’d said it like it was easy, obvious, and the words hit differently from that moment at the airport when they’d detonated in my gut like a grenade, the blast radius sweeping away all rational thought.
This time, it felt like a blanket thrown over the noise in my mind.
“Love you, too,” I remembered to say, and then he drew me up, framed my face, and kissed me—slow and sure, smiling into it.
I needed a second, like surfacing through layers of sleep.
Then my brain kicked back in and I reached for him, fingers wound tight into the front of his sweater, my other hand curled around his shoulder, digging in, keeping him just like that, here, with me.
Except I didn’t need to convince him anymore—beautifully, miraculously, he’d already chosen.
Me.
I eased my hold, and he moved back just enough for a full, bright grin. “So. Takeout?”
My laugh came out a little shaky, real. “God, yes. And… salvaged fruit salad, maybe?”
“Deal. You order, I’ll resuscitate the mango.”
For a second, I took it all in—the mess on the counter and Tay carefully maneuvering his way around broken glass in socked feet, lips quirked up at the corners. I exhaled and let my own smile grow.
Who needed perfection anyway?
“Fuck.” Tay half closed his eyes in bliss. “This is good.”
My fingers shone with olive oil. I wiped them off on a napkin before my cushions saw lasting damage. “Yep. Can’t wait to stent myself in five to ten years.”
“Worth it.”
“Debatable.”
He grinned around a slice that sagged with extra cheese, his foot hooked around mine where we sat sideways on my couch, facing each other.
The table I’d started setting before he arrived seemed to sulk at being rudely dismissed, and I didn’t care even a little, high on this moment and the flaring hope that in the future we’d be just like this—different label on the pizza boxes maybe, the couch a little more faded, shift schedules projected by some holo-calendar.
But with our knees bumping, his voice soft and a little tired from the day, my own body heavy with home and the beautiful exhaustion of relief.
There were things we hadn’t sorted, though.
“Listen.” I let my voice dip, and his gaze flicked to me, suddenly careful. “About… logistics, I guess. Recusing myself was the easy part. If you choose CT—”
“I’m applying for peds,” Tay tossed in, almost offhanded, as if it was really just that easy. I set my slice of pizza back down on the plate, a lot less hungry all of a sudden.
“Since when?”
He licked cheese off his thumb, smiling. “Today.”
“Tay…” I sat up a little straighter and reached out to clasp his ankle.
“Hey. I’m not doing it for you, okay?” His smile persisted even as his eyes turned a little thoughtful.
“Remember that conversation we had about it, on the deck of our villa? You asked if I was drawn to CT because ‘heart surgeon’ sounds more impressive than patching up kids. Even if both specialties are equally competitive.”