Kitchen duty was officially Adam’s job this morning, a choice Paris was about to regret. Armed with misplaced confidence and a box of old pancake mix from the back of the pantry, he set out to prove his chef skills. He cracked two eggs with way too much flair—dropping at least half a shell into the bowl—and poured in a heavy splash of milk before attacking the batter with a whisk like he was trying to start a lawnmower. "Is that batter or cement?" Paris asked, shuffling into the kitchen wearing an oversized fleece robe and her hair tied up in a messy topknot. She peered suspiciously into the bowl at the lumpy, gray-white mixture. "It's artisanal," Adam defended himself, dropping a pat of butter into a skillet that was already way too hot. "You just lack vision, Paris. Give it five minutes and you'll be begging for seconds." "Right. Last time you had a 'vision,' the smoke alarm played us a concert for twenty minutes," she reminded him, leaning against the counter with an amused, affectionate grin. Predictably, the second the batter hit the pan, a violent sizzle popped off, followed instantly by a thick cloud of smoke. Adam coughed, waving a dish towel at the ceiling sensor while frantically trying to scrape a pancake that had basically welded itself to the cast iron. "Just controlling the variables," he sputtered through a cough. Paris burst out laughing, walking up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist. "Oh, my disaster-prone hero. Leave the cooking to the professionals before we burn the building down."

The kitchen disaster