We assemble. Sauce everywhere. Cheese in clumps. Mason puts every single pepperoni in one corner. Nick slides the pizzas in the oven, sets the timer, and my kitchen fills with the smell of bread and garlic and something warm underneath both.
“You have flour,” Nick says. “Here.” He reaches toward my face. His thumb brushes my cheekbone. One stroke. Light. Gone.
My skin hums where he touched it. I turn to the counter before he sees.
“Olive oil,” I say. “Top shelf.”
I reach for it. My socked foot slides on the flour I spilled earlier, the flour I never cleaned, and the ground vanishes.
I fall. Not fast. Slow enough to register every inch. My heel slips. My knee bends. The air rushes out of my lungs. And then his arm is there, not catching me, but stopping time itself. His hand on my back
