When dinner was ready, he plated it and slid one across to me. The pasta was perfectly al dente — I could tell just by looking at it. The sauce was dark and rich, flecked with herbs I couldn't name. He'd also brought out garlic bread, crispy on the edges, soft in the middle, and set it on the island between us.
The aroma alone made my stomach growl embarrassingly loud.
"I'm so excited," I said with a huge smile.
He smiled back. "Don't be too excited. It might be too good."
"Oh, shut up." I twirled the pasta around my fork — probably wrong, he'd always made fun of the way I ate spaghetti — and took a bite.
I had to stop myself from moaning.
It was good. Really good. Better than I remembered, and I remembered it being amazing. The sauce was rich and savory, the pasta was perfectly cooked, and there was something in it — rosemary? thyme? — that made it taste like more than just food.
He grinned. "You like it?"
"No," I shook my head, keeping my face serious for half a second before breaking into a huge grin. "I loved it."
He laughed.
The food was delicious. It always was. I used to spend weekends at his parents' restaurant when we were younger, sitting behind the counter as his dad yelled orders at the kitchen staff and Rhett snuck me pieces of grilled fish like it was contraband. We'd hide in the back corner, hunched over our stolen food, laughing too loud and trying not to get caught.
Back then, he'd always said cooking was his backup plan — something to fall back on if hockey didn't work out. But I'd known he loved it too much for it to be just that.
"This is so good," I said between bites. "It just might be better than I remember."
"What can I say?" He shrugged smugly. "I am the son of a chef. Cooking is a natural talent."
"Oh please." I groaned, annoyed, but I was still smiling. He really did have a natural talent for it. He was just too full of himself to admit that it came from hard work, not genetics.
"I don't expect you to understand," he said with a mocking laugh. "These are superpowers to you."
I sucked at cooking. He knew I did. I couldn't even boil water correctly. One time, in college, I'd tried to make mac and cheese from a box and somehow set off the fire alarm. The whole dorm had evacuated. I'd never lived it down. Rhett used this as an excuse to make fun of me at every moment. He also all of a sudden said cooking was a superpower that I didn't have. He pissed me off so much with that smart mouth of his.
"Well, fuck you," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Anytime," he smirked.
The word hung in the air. I felt heat rise to my cheeks and looked down at my plate.