I took those two pills, but I felt like I was losing my mind. Then I thought about myself. Thirty-two years old. A chef who spent most of his life in a kitchen and could not dare look him into his eyes. A guy who apparently spent months tracking another person’s coffee habits. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. 

I had to focus on making sure he was okay for now. That sounded simpler. 

Christmas arrived faster than I expected.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with my razor in one hand, trying to decide whether I should shave completely or leave some of it.

I turned my face slightly. There were more grey hairs above my ear than I remembered. Or maybe I was only looking for them now.

Since when did I care?

Apparently since I started going to Christmas dinners where Kento would be. That was embarrassing enough to make me finish shaving.

The shirt wasn’t helping either. I changed it once, changed back, then stood there looking at myself for another minute before deciding I needed to get out of my own bathroom.

I grabbed the gifts and reached for my car keys. Then stopped. There would be alcohol. Subway.

I checked the address before leaving. Then again on the train. Somehow, despite all of that, I arrived fifteen minutes early.

I spent ten of those minutes walking around the block because ringing somebody’s intercom fifteen minutes before Christmas dinner felt aggressive. At five minutes early, I decided that was socially acceptable enough and went inside.

By the time I reached the apartment door, I was nervous again.

I knocked and almost immediately, footsteps approached from the other side. I adjusted the bag in my hand and smiled before the door even opened.

It wasn’t Kento.

The man standing there was older than me, wearing glasses and a white shirt. I thought it was his dad, so I introduced myself.

“Oh, hello. I’m Geonsu. You must be Mister Beck—”

“Who are you?”

My hand stopped halfway toward him.

“I think you might have the wrong apartment.”

I looked at the number beside the door, but I didn’t have to. Kento’s pheromones lingered in the air the moment he opened the door. Before I could explain, movement farther down the hallway caught my attention.

Kento. Oh. There he was.

His hair was clipped up, although several pieces had already escaped around his face. An oversized shirt hung loose around him, exposing one shoulder, with silver necklaces resting against his skin.

I had gotten used to seeing him dressed in ways that made people turn their heads. Apparently he could do the same thing in an oversized shirt.

I gave Denise her wine while I was being guided into the living room and hoped I made the right decision with the one I picked. But the present that stressed me out the most was Kento’s. 

I agonized over which one to pick. I didn’t know which one would represent him better, so I chose the most beautiful one I could find. I hoped he liked it. 

I didn’t know how to let him know I brought him something so while Denise was instructing him to bring something from his room, I just put my hands out and stood before him, waiting for him to see me stand there stupidly. 

He took it without saying anything, which I was thankful for. Everyone was doing something else, so no attention was paid to us. He opened it and looked inside, then suddenly ran to the kitchen.

Seeing him run to present the espresso spoon gave my heart a little throb. I felt accomplished. He then returned to me in the living room and approached me. His eyes were sparkling and moving fast, his pupils dilated and his lower lash line looked damp. 

“Thank you,” he said. “I really like it. How did you know?”

“I asked Romina…” I was spouting nonsense. I could not let him know I watched him buy coffee and espresso for a span of almost four months. 

I came up with the most plausible explanation. I hope Romina would not expose the fact that we didn’t talk about this at all. I could only smile at him like an idiot and hope they didn’t talk about it later. Then suddenly, he left and came back into the living room quickly. 

“I hope you like it,” Denise said. 

I looked at Kento and he also extended his arms the way I did previously. Was he teasing me?

I took the box from him and opened it. Oh. A dark blue scarf was folded inside. I ran my thumb over the fabric before lifting it out. It was ridiculously soft.

“Thank you.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed the material between my fingers again. “I’ve never had one this nice.” I folded it carefully and put it back into the box.

Then it occurred to me. A scarf. I looked at Kento.

I wore scarves all winter, but it wasn’t like we had known each other for years. And somehow he had noticed what I wore often enough to pick one for me.

Alright. Maybe I wasn’t completely making this up. I looked down at the scarf again, trying not to smile too much.

He liked me.

Maybe not the way I liked him. I had spent several months developing a crush on him before he even knew I existed, so I had an unfair head start there.

But come on. The phone call. The way he kept finding reasons to talk to me. Now this.

There was something. But apparently, knowing that didn’t make looking at him any easier.

Dinner got easier once everybody started talking. Denise kept putting food on my plate, Cynthia and Romina were loud enough to carry most of the table by themselves, and Kento sat almost directly across from me.

Every now and then I looked over without thinking. Every now and then he caught me. I was stealing glances, watching his fingers maneuver the fork and knife, and sometimes put his hair behind his ear to not get in the way of eating. 

At some point Alex asked how long I had worked at Toscana. That turned into how long I had been cooking, which somehow turned into Cynthia asking my age.

“Thirty-two.”

“Oh, you’re a baby.”

I laughed. “Thank you.”

Something changed beside Kento. Alex had been cutting into his food. His knife stopped for barely a second before moving again.

I looked at him and he looked back at me. His smile died and for a second, I thought the way he put the knife down was meant to draw a line between me and Kento.

Oh. Maybe twenty-three and thirty-two sounded a little different when somebody else heard the numbers too.

I had thought about it after Nari’s birthday, obviously. Nine years wasn’t nothing. Kento was an adult, and I wasn’t going to make something strange out of liking him because of a number.

Maybe it was an issue. Still… I looked across the table. Kento was listening to Cynthia now, smiling into his glass.

Eventually the night slowed down. Romina and Cynthia ended up asleep on the couch, and sometime during cleanup I found myself at the kitchen sink with Kento beside me.

I washed. He rinsed. It worked well enough until we both reached for the same plate and our fingers knocked together.

“Sorry.”

I handed it to him. A few dishes later, it happened again.

His fingertips grazed mine this time. Barely anything. Still, warmth crept higher beneath my shirt and settled around my neck.

The problem was that I could smell eucalyptus. My eucalyptus.

I had taken my suppressants before coming here. Between those and my own control, there had been nothing to worry about for most of the evening. Apparently several glasses of wine and Kento standing close enough for our hands to keep touching had changed that.

I tried pulling it back. It worked for maybe a minute. Then something warm and familiar moved through the dish soap and whatever remained of dinner.

Black tea. Bergamot. My hands stopped beneath the water. That wasn’t residue from the apartment. It got stronger.

I looked at Kento. He was already looking at me.

Oh.

For a second, neither of us moved. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that. I knew what I wanted it to mean. That was the problem.

After the scarf, after the phone calls, after everything else I had spent the past few weeks trying not to read too much into, having his pheromones suddenly curl around mine made optimism dangerously easy.

I lowered my eyes and went back to the plate before my face could give me away.

“Your suppressants are wearing off.”

I looked at him. “You noticed?”

“A little.”

“Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

Because I was standing in his family’s kitchen leaking pheromones because his fingers had touched mine twice?

I smiled and kept that answer to myself.

“Why did you take them tonight?” he asked. “You’re not working.”

“I didn’t know who would be here. Or if your family had secondary sexes. I didn’t want to walk into somebody else’s apartment smelling up the place.”

“They’re all Betas…” He rinsed the plate I handed him. “I thought dominant Alphas had better control.”

I chuckled under my breath. I did. Usually.

“Usually. Yeah, sometimes…” I kept my eyes on the sink. “Things make it difficult.”

There were about twenty different ways I could have finished that sentence that didn’t involve telling the man directly that he made it difficult for me to control my pheromones.

“Like wha—”

No. Shut up. Shut the fuck up…

“You.”

My fingers tightened around the plate. I looked at him.

Kento had gone completely still. His face started turning red. Mine probably wasn’t doing much better. 

Neither of us said anything. The water continued running between us. For one stupid second, underneath all the embarrassment, I was glad I had said it. I wanted him to know.

That realization made my chest tighten. Then Kento gripped the edge of the counter.

I opened the window and made sure my scent escaped the tiny kitchen. I excused myself, wanting to leave, since Kento seemed affected by either me or the alcohol. I didn’t want to, but it was getting late and the thought of seeing him sober another day gave me the strength to finally take my jacket with me toward the exit.

My feet didn’t want to move. Denise must have left some make-up on my face because he wiped it off for me. It was the first time he touched me. His fingertips were still warm from the dishwashing. I didn’t want to look away from him. His face was so beautiful. 

“Text me when you get home,” he said.

This time, he looked away first. I wanted to see his eyes one more time before departing. I didn’t want to ask him to look me in the eyes. But I wanted to feel his warm finger again.  

“I will. Good night!” 

“Good night.”

I started down the stairs before I could find another excuse to stand there. I could still feel where his thumb had passed over my cheek.

A few steps down, I heard the apartment door still hadn’t closed.

I made it halfway to the next landing before I looked back. Kento was still standing there. He had one hand on the door, watching me through the opening. He hadn’t gone inside yet.

I smiled. He smiled back. Something warm pulled through my chest again. I turned toward the next flight before I did something stupid like walk back upstairs.

The door stayed open behind me for a few more steps.

My mind is free to wander while I prepare for dinner service the next day. I wondered what he was doing. Whether he slept in after Christmas. Whether he was drinking coffee right now. Whether he remembered to eat breakfast…

If I invited him to eat here again, would he come over? And if I invited him to come for breakfast, would he agree? I could feel my heart pounding harder and harder. 

Amara was preparing her desserts for tonight and while doing so, the smell of orange and lemon reached me. I realized only after I snapped my head back at the door that he was not there. 

My thoughts return to him again and again. I remembered his eyes, the way they held mine for a second too long. The way he would put his hair behind his ear and the pieces would drop again later as he moved his head. 

I found myself wondering what it would feel like to touch them. Would he let me? 

I thought about the way his waist disappeared beneath oversized shirts. The way he leaned against the kitchen counter while helping with the dishes. The warmth of his fingers when he wiped the makeup from my face. 

If I asked to kiss him, would he let me? Or would he pull away?

I want to see him. I want to hear his voice. I want to touch him again. And… I stopped looking for excuses. 

There was no point pretending otherwise… I had fallen for Kento.