and if i said i wasn't?

He leans against the counter for most of it, hiding from the sun, passing things down from a top shelf when she asks. The big mixing bowl, the non-stick cooking spray. Each "thank you" comes with red cheeks and the grin he'd die for, and he asks if she needs anything else so he can have another.

She slices bananas, whisks the batter until it's smooth, asks "oh, do you mind if I play a little music while we cook?"

Little bitty pretty one.

It's too loud, but somehow it fits. He can't be annoyed when she's like this. When she let's him pull her away from the work, close to his chest, just to smile down at her for a moment.

"My dad sung this to me, I think." She smiles back. "It's stupid."

"It's terrible," he says, but he hums along anyway, swaying her in his arms before she flits back to the stove.

The kitchen smells sweet, warm. Cinnamon and flour. The sizzle of fake butter.

"I used to make breakfast with my grandma," she tells him, eyeing the rise of bubbles in the first pancakes on the griddle. She flips them when they're just right. "Well, I used to watch. She wouldn't let me near the stove. I'd just watch and hold the plates when the pancakes were ready. But it was about being with her, y'know?"

When Rebecca couldn't look at her, Alma was raised by her grandmother. It's not something she mentions often.

Mason tries to imagine what that feels like, not wanting to look at her. Out-of-place curls and glasses sliding down her nose and the methodical movement of her hands. Willfully ignoring this existence? It doesn't make sense to him.

She lifts a pancake off the griddle, and he doesn't wait for her to ask. The dish is there, and with the same sleepy, bashful word of gratitude, she stacks the pancakes.

Alma makes him part of this. Becomes one of his few meaningful memories, the same way he becomes one of hers.

It's Sunday afternoon, but their day is just beginning.

Cherry didn't want to go back inside. She turned, stepping close to him, pressing herself further into that something between them, heavy as the humidity that thickened the air, electric whenever their hands brushed, their own summer storm brewing for weeks now, finally making land. She took the risk first—rising on her toes, fingers twisted in the front of his shirt, she pulled his lips down to hers, and kissed him.

His hands found her waist before she could even spare a thought to how he might respond, his lips parting against hers as he pulled her close against his broad chest. She pulled back, grinning into the slight space between them and meeting his eyes, and said, "My house isn't that far."

Mark didn't say anything to that, only looked at her, his eyes dark in the soft lights that decorated the tavern's awning. He might say no, just to be contrary, just to pretend she hadn't pushed past the solitary image of himself he presented to the rest of the world, but—there! The sweet, almost shy smile broke across his features, the one that kept her coming back no matter how disgruntled he was when she arrived. She stepped away from him, holding out her hand, and he laughed, warm and deep, as he grasped it.

"Lets go, adventurer," she said, and pulled him into the rain.

Cherry's back met the solid wood of her front door, and her lips met the warmth of Mark's. He crowded her against the door, his hands hot against the small of her back where they slipped beneath her top. The rain still fell warm and heavy down on them, so she reluctantly freed one of her own hands from the back of his neck and scrabbled for the doorknob. It swung open behind them, and they stumbled through with quiet huffs of laughter. Cherry stepped away to shut the door and cast an eye out for Bubblegum, whose soft hops she could just hear over the rain.

"You have no furniture," Mark said. He sounded amused—she couldn't see his face, but she was sure he had an eyebrow raised.

"I've had a lot on my plate," Cherry said, leaning around him to look into the empty darkness of what should be her kitchen. She'd only been here a few months, and in that time she'd had so much to do—diving work for the lab, clearing monsters out of the cavern, learning to grow crops and build bee houses and tap trees until she had just enough money to buy herself a few chickens and cows. It took time. Besides, had he seen the prices at Joko's furniture store?

She stepped away from the kitchen, pulled her top over her head, and said, "I have a bed."

She laughed as Mark lifted her, lips moving across her neck as he carried her the few feet to the bed. He set her down, surprisingly gentle, and Cherry gripped his shirt again and pulled him down after her, gratified by the weight of him on top of her. Their lips met again, and her hands wandered, rucking up his soaked T-shirt and sliding across the expanse of his back. She sighed against his mouth when he cupped her breast over her bra—she might have worn something prettier, something with lace, maybe, if she'd known they'd end up here, not that he seemed to care—

This time Mark pulled back, leveraging himself onto an elbow so he could look down at her. It was hard to make out his expression in the dark, but there was a gravity to the way he paused, to the part of his lips as he watched her. He said, in a gravelly whisper that rumbled a slow heat through her body, "I've been thinking about this a while."

"Yeah?" He was difficult to read, sometimes, even in the light, but the words struck her as vulnerable, the sweet follow-up without the leave-me-alone that came before. She cupped his cheek, and felt his slight nod more than she saw it. "Me too."