Noah Bennett had learned that the fastest way to become responsible for something was to look competent near it.

  Which was how he’d ended up walking to the grocery store at nine-thirty in the morning beside Rachel Ellis—list in hand like legal paperwork, face set like the universe had been warned.

  They’d run into each other in the lobby on the way out—pure coincidence, unless the building had started arranging meet-cutes as a hobby—and she’d been the one to bring it up, briskly, like asking him to come along was a practical decision and not… anything else.

  “I made a list,” she announced, as if Noah had accused her of wandering the aisles on vibes alone.

  Noah glanced at the paper. The top line was underlined twice.

  GROCERIES.

  There were bullet points. There were categories. There was, inexplicably, a little star beside “bread.”

  Noah didn’t comment on the star. He was trying to be respectful of the fact that she was clearly going through something.

  “Good,” he said solemnly. “A plan. An agenda. A manifesto.”

  Rachel shot him a look, then—despite herself—her mouth twitched. “It’s just a list.”

  “Lists are never just lists,” Noah said. “They’re proof. They’re accountability. They’re how you avoid coming home with three boxes of cereal and a sense of despair.”

  “I have never purchased despair,” Rachel said, offended.

  Noah looked at her with calm certainty. “You would, if it came in a resealable bag and had a seasonal flavor.”

  Rachel bumped her shoulder into his arm—light, wordless—and his heart lurched like it had missed a step.

  They walked in the direction of the little grocery store a few blocks away—close enough to be convenient, far enough that you could pretend you weren’t only there because it was close. The air outside was the kind of mid-summer heat that suggested 100% humidity wasn’t going to be the limit that afternoon. Everything smelled faintly like sun and pavement and the promise of air conditioning.

  Noah kept pace beside her, hands in his pockets, doing his best not to stare.

  This was normal, he told himself. Neighbours walked places together. Neighbours helped each other navigate recycling policies and the strange logic of a trash chute.

  It was not Noah’s fault that Rachel’s copper hair was pulled up today, exposing the back of her neck in a way his brain had decided was relevant information. It was not his fault that she looked at her grocery list with a disproportionately serious and equally adorable expression.

  He was being normal. He was being normal in the very specific, suspicious way that meant he was thinking about it.

  Rachel folded the list once, then twice, like she was trying to compress the task into something manageable. “Okay,” she said, as if speaking to herself as much as to him. “Rule one: we do not buy only ingredients that require kitchen things I don’t have.”

  Noah blinked. “Kitchen things?”

  “Kitchen things,” Rachel firmly reiterated. “Like, you know, food processors, or... ”

  “Knives?”

  “I have knives,” she said, tone dangerously close to a pout.

  Noah’s gaze flicked to her hands. “How many knives?”

  Rachel blinked. “Enough.”

  “That’s what people with one knife say,” Noah replied.

  Her stare went flat. “It’s a good knife.”

  Noah nodded solemnly. “I’m sure it is.”

  Rachel huffed, but she was smiling.

  Noah let the silence stretch for a moment, trusting that it was comfortable and not just empty. He wasn’t usually comfortable with silence around people he didn’t know well. Silence was usually a warning. Or, occasionally, the warning was the silence.

  With Rachel, the quiet felt… shared. Like neither of them was being chased by it.

  He glanced at her list again. “So what are we aiming for here?” he asked. “Survival? Actual meals? A third category where you become morally superior through salads with multiple kinds of leaves?”

  Rachel’s mouth tightened. “Meals,” she said, then added, a bit more reluctantly, “and also… breakfast.”

  Noah nodded. “Excellent. Starting the day with intent.”

  Rachel gave him a look. “I have intent. I just don’t have… time.”

  “Mm,” Noah said, because he heard the thing under it. The same thing he’d heard in her voice in the lobby, the same careful tone she used when she didn’t want to admit that something was hard. He didn’t push. He’d already learned she didn’t like being pushed.

  They reached the crosswalk, waited, then moved with the crowd when the light changed. Rachel walked like she was trying to outrun her own thoughts. Noah matched her, which was easy; if he’d learned anything from living alone, it was how to move efficiently while carrying too many things.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Half a block later, Noah spoke again, because he’d caught himself thinking something and couldn’t unthink it.

  “So,” he said lightly, like he was asking about the weather. “Any allergies? Strong dislikes? Things you refuse on principle?”

  Rachel blinked. “What?”

  Noah shrugged. “Just making small talk with a side of intel gathering.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses a fraction. “And why do you need intel?”

  Noah kept his tone even. “Because I’m… supervising the list,” he said. “And list supervision is a delicate art. It involves knowing whether buying olives is a helpful choice or an act of betrayal.”

  Rachel stared at him for a second longer than necessary. Then she said, suspiciously, “I don’t have allergies.”

  “Okay,” Noah said. “Dislikes?”

  Rachel thought for a moment, approaching the question honestly despite some skepticism as to its motives. “I don’t like… raisins.”

  Noah nodded, filing it away with the seriousness of someone documenting a medical condition. “Good. Important.”

  Rachel’s expression shifted. “Why are raisins important?”

  “It affects baked goods,” Noah said. “And baked goods are an important commodity to exchange among neighbours.”

  Rachel’s lips pressed together, trying not to smile. “I thought you hated baking.”

  Noah glanced at her. “I don’t hate baking, I just lack the aptitude for witchcraft and therefore avoid it.”

  Rachel let out a laugh—quick and startled, as if it had escaped.

  Noah felt an immediate, quiet satisfaction. He ignored it, because it felt like the kind of emotion that would get you into trouble if you examined it too closely.

  They kept walking.

  Noah asked, “Spice tolerance?”

  Rachel’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m… fine.”

  Noah waited. He didn’t argue. He just watched her face from the side.

  Rachel exhaled, resigned. “Fine as in… I can handle spice. I’m not dramatic.”

  Noah nodded. “So you won’t cry if a pepper looks at you.”

  Rachel shot him a glare, though it was a little too playful to be intimidating. “I will not cry because of a pepper.”

  “Very brave,” Noah said.

  A moment of silence passed, and then Rachel fully turned her head to look at him now. “Why all the… data collection?”

  “It’s practical,” he said, which was not an answer.

  Rachel’s gaze stayed on him. Her eyes were sharp—smart, a little bit anxious, very good at spotting evasions. Noah had noticed that on day one, because people who paid attention to other people tended to recognize it in each other.

  “Practical for what?” Rachel pressed.

  Noah felt his ears warm. He didn’t know why this was embarrassing. It was a normal question. It was not a normal answer.

  He cleared his throat lightly, as if he’d suddenly developed an interest in breathing.

  “For,” he said, and then forced himself to keep his tone casual, “the next time you’re over.”

  Rachel blinked.

  Noah kept his gaze forward, as if the sidewalk had become extremely fascinating. “If such a thing were to happen,” he added, because apparently he enjoyed lighting himself on fire and then trying to blow it out with qualifiers.

  The silence that followed was not awkward. It was… charged. Quiet in a way that made Noah suddenly aware of the space between them and the fact that it existed.

  When Rachel spoke, her voice was calm, but there was a slight hitch under it—like her brain had stumbled over something and was trying to recover with dignity.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Noah risked a glance. Rachel’s cheeks were pink. Not bright, not obvious—just a faint color that suggested her thoughts were warm and inconvenient.

  “Yep,” Noah said, because he was apparently committed to being eloquent today.

  Rachel stared straight ahead for a beat longer, then said, briskly, “Okay.”

  Noah’s mouth twitched. “Okay,” he repeated.

  Rachel’s lips pressed together. Then, to his surprise, she smiled—small and sideways, like she had just won something he hadn't realized they were playing for.

  They reached the grocery store. Automatic doors hissed open. Cool air washed over them like a mercy.

  Rachel visibly relaxed the moment they crossed the threshold, which was… interesting. Grocery stores were full of decisions and fluorescent lights and people who parked their carts sideways and then acted surprised the world still contained other people, yet Rachel seemed to handle external chaos better than internal.

  Noah grabbed a basket on instinct. Rachel watched him, then picked up another one as if to prove she was capable of carrying her own burdens.

  Noah pretended not to notice. He did notice.

  They walked into the produce section first, because produce was where all responsible grocery runs began. It was also where all responsible grocery runs died, depending on how many vegetables you could emotionally tolerate.

  Rachel unfolded the list, smoothing it with both hands. There were little checkboxes now. Noah hadn’t noticed the checkboxes before. He admired the commitment.

  “Okay,” Rachel said, scanning it. “I have… vegetables.”

  Noah nodded gravely. “We’re doing it. We’re making choices.”

  Rachel glanced at him. “Don’t make it weird.”

  “I’m not making it weird,” Noah said. “Vegetables make it weird by existing in bundles and expecting you to know what to do with them.”

  Rachel’s mouth twitched. “I can handle vegetables.”

  Noah glanced down at the list again, then—without thinking—asked, “Do you like broccoli?”

  Rachel froze.

  Noah froze with her, because he realized what he’d just done. He’d asked like it mattered. He’d asked like her answer would change his plans.

  Rachel turned slowly to look at him, eyes narrowing. “Noah.”

  Noah’s pulse jumped. “Yes.”

  “Are you—” Rachel began, then stopped, clearly recalculating. Her cheeks pinked again, faint but unmistakable. “Are you planning meals.”

  Noah felt an immediate urge to deny it, because denial was a reflex. Then he remembered he didn’t actually want to deny it.

  So he went with something safer. “I’m,” he said carefully, “considering possibilities.”

  Rachel stared at him for another long second.

  Then her expression softened into something warmer, something nearly helpless. “I don’t dislike broccoli,” she said, and there was a strange gentleness in the way she offered it, like she was giving him permission.

  Noah swallowed. “Okay,” he said.

  Rachel looked down at her list again, pretending to read it as if it hadn’t suddenly become difficult to breathe in a normal way. “I also,” she said, “like mushrooms.”

  Noah blinked. “Good to know.”

  Rachel shot him a look that said: you’re going to be the death of me.

  Noah felt, unhelpfully, like he could live a long time under that look.

  He made a decision—fast, subtle, and very Noah. He reached into the basket and picked up a head of broccoli like it was a normal choice and not a symbolic act. “All right,” he said. “Broccoli. Mushrooms. No raisins. We’re building a profile.”

  Rachel’s blush deepened. She turned abruptly toward the produce display as if it had said something offensive, before glancing back at him, then away again quickly, as if looking at him for too long would make something obvious.

  Noah adjusted the broccoli in his hand, suddenly aware of how domestic the moment was—how normal it felt to stand beside her under fluorescent lights and argue about vegetables like it mattered.

  He didn’t know when “seeing her” had started to feel like a relief.

  He didn’t know when “the next time you’re over” had become a sentence he could say out loud.

  He only knew that his chest felt… full.

  And that the quiet tension between them wasn’t discomfort.

  Rachel cleared her throat, as if she’d been thinking too hard as well. “Okay,” she said briskly, list back up like a shield. “Next item.”

  Noah nodded, because he could do brisk. He could do practical. He could do normal.

  He just wasn’t sure how long he could keep pretending that this was only about groceries.