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intensity of their kiss and the beauty of the moment had Lizbeth blinking back tears as her mind rewound to the first night she tried to fix dinner for Logan.
    “Honey, I’m home.”
    Lizbeth giggled at Logan’s greeting as he came through the front door of her apartment. Technically, this was her home. Logan’s was in the condo he shared with Lucas. But since Lizbeth had the apartment to herself for the summer, she and Logan decided to live together for three months to see if they could make it work. They were only four days into the new routine, but so far, things couldn’t be better.
    Well, except for dinner… Dinner could definitely be better.
    “I’m in the kitchen.”
    Aside from reheating leftovers or fixing boxed dinners like Hamburger Helper, she’d never cooked a meal in her life. She sighed as she dumped the mushy mess from the colander back into the pan. After giving it her best shot tonight, that statistic still held.
    “It smells good,” Logan said, stepping up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. He leaned over, peeked into the pot, and wrinkled his nose. “Uh, what is it?”
    “It was supposed to be spaghetti.”
    He took the fork from her hand, jabbed it into the pot where she’d dumped it after straining off the water, then burst into laughter. “Jesus, did you cook it all day?”
    Normally, she would’ve burst into tears at having failed such a simple task as fixing him a home-cooked meal, but Logan’s laughter was infectious and she found herself laughing with him rather than crying like she wanted. “No, but it was obviously too long.”
    He nuzzled her neck, kissed her cheek, then stepped to the side and lifted the lid on the sauce. It was Ragu, not homemade, but considering she hadn’t been able to pull off the spaghetti, it was good she’d started with baby steps.
    “The sauce looks fantastic. We’ll just start over with the pasta.” As he spun in a slow circle, he checked the countertop, opened a few cabinets, then turned back to her. “Where’s the box of spaghetti?” When her only reply was to twist her mouth around and bite her lip, he said, “You used the whole box?”
    His incredulous expression and tone made her feel stupid, and this time, his laughter couldn’t pull her back from the brink of a meltdown. She diverted her gaze and started to run from the room, but before she could withdraw from him, he closed the space between them, picked her up by the waist, and sat her on the counter. “Hey, don’t you dare cry on me. It’s not that big a deal. It’s just spaghetti.”
    “I know, but spaghetti is supposed to be the easiest thing in the world, right? If I can’t even manage that, how am I ever going to learn to do the hard stuff? I’ll never be able to take care of you and our—” She almost said children, but since they’d never discussed kids, she cut off the words and held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t catch the near slip.
    That was, of course, asking too much, because he rarely missed anything. He swiped away a tear with his thumb and cupped her cheek in his palm. “Our what?”
    From the love shining through his eyes and the hope-filled expression on his face, he already knew what she’d been about to say, and he was more than okay with continuing the conversation.
    She sniffed. “Everything our kids eat will have to come from the freezer and be heated in the microwave.”
    A wide grin spread across his face. “I’m sure, with practice, you’ll get better. And I’m not opposed to helping.” He caressed her cheek and studied her eyes. “How many kids do you want?”
    “Two… maybe three. And I want them close together. The big age gap between Miranda and me is too much. I don’t even really know my baby sister. Shoot… I’m about to graduate college, and she’s not even started high school yet, so we have nothing in common.”
    “Yeah, that’s gotta be tough. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to grow up