The sun was relentless. By 8:00 AM, bright beams of golden light were streaming aggressively through the uncurtained bedroom window, hitting Paris straight in the eyes. She groaned, pulling the heavy duvet over her head to block it out, searching blindly for the warm space Adam usually occupied next to her.
It was empty.
She blinked her eyes open, adjusting to the brightness. From down the hallway, a strange, rhythmic clanging sound echoed, followed by a faint, muffled curse. Paris sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The house was freezing, but the air carried a distinct, unmistakable smell.
Something was burning.
Leaping out of bed, Paris padded down the hallway in her bare feet. As she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks.
The room was a battlefield. Adam was standing in the center of the kitchen, wearing nothing but his gray sweatpants, holding a smoking frying pan in one hand and a dish towel in the other. He was frantically waving the towel toward the smoke detector, which was currently blinking a menacing red. On the counter, the new, hyper-complicated espresso machine they’d bought was making a terrifying, high-pitched grinding noise, vibrating violently against the drywall.
"Adam!" Paris yelled over the noise of the machine.
Adam spun around, his face a mix of panic and sheepish guilt. "Don't panic! Everything is under control! Mostly."
Paris rushed forward. She bypassed the smoking pan entirely, reaching behind the espresso machine to rip the power cord straight out of the wall. The kitchen instantly fell into a blessed, ringing silence. She then grabbed the frying pan from Adam's hand, set it on a cold burner, and flipped the stove exhaust fan on high.
She leaned against the counter, catching her breath, and looked at the kitchen. There was a carton of eggs with two cracked shells on the floor, a box of bacon that looked suspiciously charred, and Adam, looking like a caught schoolboy.
"What," Paris said, her voice dripping with amusement, "is all of this?"
Adam rubbed the back of his neck, leaving a small smudge of soot near his collarbone. "I wanted to surprise you. A proper, big Sunday breakfast for our first official week living together. I had a whole plan. But the bacon cooks way faster on this stove than my old one, and the coffee maker... I think it’s sentient, Paris. It refused to cooperate."
Paris looked at the slightly burnt bacon, then back up at Adam’s wild hair and the genuine, sweet disappointment in his eyes. Her heart did a familiar, involuntary flip.
"Hey," she said softly, stepping closer into his space. She reached up, using the pad of her thumb to gently wipe the soot from his skin. "You tried to make me breakfast?"
"I wanted it to be perfect," Adam admitted, his shoulders dropping as he sighed. "Instead, I almost took out the building's insurance policy."
Paris laughed, a bright, clear sound that filled the messy kitchen. She slid her arms up around his neck, pulling him down into a soft, slow morning kiss that tasted faintly of coffee and sleep.
"It is perfect," she murmured against his lips. "The bacon isn't completely ruined, the smoke alarm didn't actually go off, and you're here."
Adam’s arms wound around her waist, holding her close against him as the morning sun warmed the kitchen floor. "So... we're not ordering takeout?"