The Pancakes
338 Words
The next morning, Ava woke to the smell of something burning. She found Noah in the kitchen, surrounded by smoke, staring at a pan of blackened discs with the expression of a man confronting his own mortality.
"I may have exaggerated my pancake abilities," he admitted.
Ava laughed until she cried. Then she showed him how to make pancakes properly—how to test the pan temperature with water droplets, how to wait for the bubbles before flipping, how to add blueberries at just the right moment.
"You're a surprisingly good teacher," Noah said, eating his first successful pancake.
"You're a surprisingly bad student. You argued with me about the flipping technique for ten minutes."
"I like being right."
"You like thinking you're right. There's a difference."
They ate in companionable silence, and when Noah smiled—really smiled, not the public performance but something small and genuine—Ava felt something dangerous shift in her chest.
Don't , she told herself. Don't you dare fall for him. He's made it very clear what this is.
But her heart, as usual, wasn't listening.
The Blackwood Charity Gala was the social event of the season. Five hundred guests, a ten-thousand-dollar plate, and enough media coverage to make a royal wedding jealous.
Ava had planned the event herself—Noah's "gift" to her, he'd called it, though she suspected it was just an excuse to keep her busy and out of his hair. She'd thrown herself into it with characteristic enthusiasm, transforming the Blackwood Tower ballroom into a winter wonderland of crystal and silver and twinkling lights.
She'd also planned a surprise.
"What's this?" Noah asked, finding her in the ballroom an hour before guests arrived. She was adjusting a centerpiece, her hair pinned up, wearing a gown of midnight blue that made her eyes look like stars.
"Your gala," she said. "Do you like it?"
"It's... beautiful." He said it like he was surprised, like he hadn't expected her to be capable of such things. "But what's the surprise?"
- Writer
