Rhea knocked for a pan and found Luca barefoot, tattooed, and making enough pasta for a confession. In the borrowed pan, the joke became a challenge before either of them could step back. The air had that bright, reckless feeling that arrives when two adults know exactly what they are doing and decide to call it harmless anyway.
The night kept making room for them: late-night kitchen, pasta, red wine, cozy heat. They traded looks, then dares, then the kind of laughter that makes a person forget what they came to prove. Nobody said the word date, but everything between them started behaving like one.
One spoonful became two. One glass became three. The kitchen got messy, and neither of them apologized. By the time the chapter ended, one small choice had already changed the temperature of the room. It was not the kind of heat that burned everything down. It was the kind that made the whole world glow a little closer.