Page 60 of The Rust in Her Hair

A window over the sink lets in the morning light, and a row of potted herbs sits on the sill, green and a little overgrown. There's a kettle on the stove and a bowl of fruit getting ripe on the counter and a magnet on the fridge shaped like a taco.

Everything about it is small and functional and lived-in.

"So what are you in the mood to make?" Owen crosses to the fridge and pulls it open, scanning the shelves. "We've got eggs, bacon. I could help make French toast if you're feeling fancy. Or there's cereal, if you want easy."

He looks back at me, waiting.

And that's when it hits me. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I've never made a meal in my life. Not once. We’ve always had a chef. Someone that made the menu my mother laid out, and I just ate it.

Hell, I couldn’t even fry an egg if my life depended on it.

"I, um." I look around the little kitchen, at the stove and the fridge, then at the cabinets like they might open themselves and teach me. "Whatever's easiest. I’m not in the mood to cook."

"Easy it is." Owen shuts the fridge and looks up at the top of it, where a row of cereal boxes stands crammed against the cabinets. "Let's see. We've got the frosted flakes, chocolate puffs, fruit rings, and whatever this marshmallow situation is that Mack keeps buying."

I drift over to stand beside Owen, tipping my head back to read the unfamiliar boxes.

They're loud and bright, cartoon animals grinning off the fronts, colors that don't exist in nature. Nothing like the cereal I grew up on. My mother kept exactly one kind in the house, a plain gray bran that tasted like wet cardboard. I ate a small bowl of it every morning with a hard-boiled egg, because it was what appeared in front of me.

Sugar was for the weak.

"I've never had any of these," I admit. "Any of them. I don't even know what half of them are."

"Really?" Owen looks down at me with that sexy smile, easy and kind.

"Really."

"Well then." He reaches up and rests a hand on the boxes. "Which one do you want to try first?"

"First?"

"First." His smile widens. "You've got a lot of catching up to do. We'll get through all of them, eventually."

"That one." I point. "The red one. With the bird."

"Good instinct." He pulls it down, then reaches for two more. "Actually, let's do this right. We'll make a flight."

"A flight?"

"Yes," he says as he turns to open the cabinet behind him. "Kind of like when you try a flight of whiskey in a bar. You know."

I don’t know, and he seems to sense that.

"A flight is where they give you three or four different kinds of whiskey in little glasses so you can taste the difference between them." He pulls out a stack of small bowls. "We’ll put a little of each cereal in each bowl. This way you can try them all and compare."

I lean a hip against the counter and raise an eyebrow at him. "Do you spend a lot of time drinking flights of whiskey in bars?"

He snorts, shaking his head. "God, no." He pushes his glasses up his nose. "I'm more of a flight-of-pastries kind of man." He leans in a little, dropping his voice like he's letting me in on something. "There's a place downtown that does a tasting board. Six little tarts. It's the highlight of my month."

"Now that sounds lovely."

Thirty minutes later, we're sitting at the little folding table by the living room, bowls scattered between us, and I've reached a verdict. The red box with the bird is the clear winner, sweet and citrusy and a little tart. But I've also made a discovery. If you mix the fruit rings with the chocolate puffs, and add just a few of the marshmallows, you get something better than any of them alone.

I'm mid-bite of my third custom combination when Owen sets his spoon down and stares at me.

"That is a war crime," he says. "You've taken three perfectly good cereals and built something unholy."