"You’re going to make it very hard to cut this onion evenly," she said. Her voice was impressively steady, which only meant she was putting effort into it.

"You’ll manage," he replied as he continued caresing her intimately. "You seemed pretty confident about your cooking a moment ago."

"I said that before you decided to," She let out a quiet breath, a soft note of playful frustration that didn’t quite reach her eyes. "You’re very distracting."

"I’m just standing here."

"You’re not just standing here."

A pause.

"Don’t act like you don’t like this..." He said as he leaned in slightly, his voice lowering near her ear, warm and unhurried. "Don’t you like it like this?"

Her grip on the knife stilled for half a second.

"...I do," Sophie admitted, softer now, like the words had slipped out before she could weigh them.

A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. "Mm."

She exhaled, almost a laugh, and shook her head as she forced herself to refocus on the onion, though the small curve of her smile lingered.

Stan continued playing around, his thumbs traced a slow arc along her waist, and he felt the way she leaned back into it, the slight unconscious yielding of her posture, even as her hands resumed their work on the onion.

The knife found its pace again, measured, careful, the scent of it rising sharp and bright into the warm kitchen air.

"Would you like me less," Sophie asked after a moment, her eyes still on the cutting board, her voice carefully light, "if I were wasteful?"

Stan considered this with appropriate gravity.

"Yes," he said.

Sophie tilted her head. "Really?"

"Wastefulness is a character flaw."

She made a small sound of indignation that was undercut entirely by the smile she was obviously suppressing. "That’s very harsh."

"It’s honest."

"And if I accidentally burn the fries? Is that wasteful, or is that a kitchen mishap? Because I want to know what I’m working with here."

"That’s negligence," he said. "Separate category."

Sophie laughed, a low, warm sound, and shook her head without looking up. "Good to know. I’ll try to be competent as well as frugal."

She scraped the diced onion to the side of the board and moved on to the next piece, comfortable now despite his hands at her waist, which pleased him in a way he wasn’t analyzing too closely.

"I’ll try my best," she said, softer. "Not to be wasteful. Or negligent."

"I know."

She glanced back at that, just a quick look over her shoulder, catching his eye.

"You’re very sure of that for someone who’s known me three days."

"Two and a half."

"That’s worse, not better."

A faint smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. "I pay attention," he said, easy, certain. "That tends to make the difference."

Sophie looked at him for a moment longer, something quiet and complicated moving through her expression, and then she turned back to the board. Her fingers curled slightly around the knife handle.

"I know you do," she said.

The fries went into the oven first, spread across a baking tray with olive oil, a measured pinch of salt, and a light dusting of garlic powder that Sophie applied with the focused attention of someone who understood the difference between seasoned and over-seasoned.

"Forty minutes on high heat," she said, sliding the tray in. "I’ll flip them halfway through."

"And the chicken?"

"Stovetop first to get the crust, then into the oven to finish cooking through." She straightened and turned to face him, leaning back against the counter with her arms loosely folded. The kitchen was warm now, the air beginning to carry the faint savory edge of heating oil and spice. "It sounds involved, but it’s actually straightforward once you’ve done it a few times. My mother used to make this every Sunday. Big batch for the whole family."

"Every Sunday?"

"Yes, Every Sunday without fail. I’d sit on the counter and watch." A small pause, fond and distant. "She’d never measure anything. Just knew by sight how much of everything to use. I had to figure out actual quantities later, when I started cooking for myself." She smiled at the memory. "Took me three tries to stop making it either too salty or too bland."

"Which did you default to?"

"Too salty." She tilted her head. "I was compensating for the blandness I was afraid of. It took me a while to trust the lighter hand."

Stan looked at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing. I was just thinking that sounds like you."

Sophie blinked. "Is that an observation or a character assessment?"

"Both."

She held his gaze for a moment, then pushed off the counter and turned back to the stove, pulling the heavy pan forward with a quiet clank of cast iron. She poured oil in a slow, practiced spiral, watching the surface.

Her posture was easy now , the kitchen-ease of someone in their element, comfortable in a way she wasn’t quite as comfortable anywhere else, which was interesting given that she was, by most available metrics, the most composed woman he’d ever met in a social setting.

The oil began to shimmer.

"Come here," she said, without turning around.

Stan moved to stand beside her, close enough to watch the pan.

"What am I looking at?"

"The oil. When it starts to move like that, almost like it’s breathing, it’s nearly ready." She held one hand a few inches above the surface, testing. "Another thirty seconds."

Stan watched. The oil did, in fact, seem to shift and breathe, a subtle, living motion at the surface. Basically, it was just bubbling. He genuinely would not have noticed it without her pointing it out.

"Now," Sophie said.

She lifted the first piece of chicken , dredged in the flour-spice coating, shaken free of excess , and laid it gently in the pan. The sound was immediate and deeply satisfying, a full, rolling sizzle that filled the kitchen like applause.

The second piece. The third.

She arranged them without crowding, leaving space between each one, explaining without being asked, "You need the circulation. Overcrowding drops the temperature and they steam instead of crust. You get soft chicken."

"And soft chicken is"

"A tragedy," she said flatly. "An absolute tragedy."