"But you reached the finish line," he countered, his tone turning surprisingly soft, his green-golden eyes locking onto mine with comforting approval. "That’s the only metric that matters. It took you a bit today, it’ll take you less tomorrow, even less by next week. You'll see."
For the next few minutes, our conversation drifted comfortably over to my remodeling projects. Dad was coming over later that afternoon to help me unbox and assemble the new furniture, and Xander was planning to join us the second he finished working.
"You are going to make us lasagna for all this heavy labor, right?" Xander grinned, devouring his breakfast.
I let out a dramatic sigh, barely hiding my chuckle. "You do realize I have a vast repertoire of other recipes that are just as good, right?"
"But nothing
