The living room was bathed in golden-hour hush—countertops aglow, shadows stretched long across ceramic tiles. Zack and Zi Qian were already elbow-deep in groceries, tossing items onto the kitchen island with the fervor of frat boys prepping for a barbecue.
"Okay, kitchen team!" someone from production shouted. "You four are on dinner duty."
Zack flexed instinctively as he reached for a chopping board, muscles doing what bronzed muscles do—clenching like they had somewhere to be. "Hope someone here knows how to chop onions without crying."
"Define crying," I murmured.
Michelle appeared beside me like gravity—quiet, inevitable. Her fingers brushed mine as she passed me the cutting board. "I've got you. We'll survive this."
She stayed close. Whisper-close. Like her body was reading mine, syncing to my rhythm before I even found it. When I reached awkwardly for the tomatoes on the top shelf, she stepped behind me—one hand gently bracing my waist, the other stretching past my shoulder.
"Got it," she whispered, breath grazing the curve of my neck.
Butterflies. A flurry of them. Hot and insistent. They rose up from my stomach, unfurling beneath my skin in dizzy waves, until I forgot how hands were supposed to work. Her touch wasn't loud. It was anchoring. Like she wanted me to feel safe inside my own chaos.
Zi Qian moved with precision, organizing ingredients into neat rows like he was prepping for a chemistry lab. He held up two mushrooms, eyes serious. "Which one's fresher?"
Michelle answered smoothly, polite and clean. Zack, meanwhile, leaned on the counter like a shirtless ad waiting for the wind machine—grinning, flexing, tossing her compliments that had all the subtlety of gym chalk.
She smiled at them both, distant but civil. The kind of smile you give to polite strangers on elevators. And then, she turned to me—nudging my foot gently with hers.
It felt private. Like we'd built a language out of side-glances and small, deliberate collisions.
I struggled with a chili pepper that refused to sit still. Michelle leaned in. Her voice dropped. "Do you want me to take over?"
I shook my head. "If I surrender now, you'll mock me forever."
Her smirk curved like mischief made tender. "Hmm... True. But you'll owe me ice cream for surviving this kitchen massacre."
We both laughed—quiet, crooked laughter, slipping under the clatter of pans and Zack's constant need to be charming. And while he preened and Zi Qian stacked tofu like origami, Michelle touched me again. Not loudly. Not for show.
Just—touch. A hand on my back when I reached for oil. Her fingers curling over mine while I chopped bell peppers. Skinship as punctuation. As sentence structure.
I was no longer just buzzing.
I was blooming.
From the warmth. From her voice. From the possibility that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't invisible. Not to her.