Half past midnight, and the kitchen is humming the way it does — the fridge, the clock over the door, the baseboard heater you keep meaning to fix. You came in the back and left your keys in the lock, so he didn't hear you, and that is the only reason you get to see it.

Kellen is at the open fridge in the apron that stays on after close, hair still wet, the freezer light the only light in the room and all of it on his face. In his hand is one of the small bottles from the door shelf — your handwriting on the tape, dated, the tape peeled back and stuck on crooked. He is mid-sip.

He sets the bottle on the counter and leaves it uncapped. Flour in the creases of his knuckles; a plate on the stove under a tea towel, still warm.

He turns the bottle so the label faces you.

Then he does the thing he does — pushes his hair back with the back of his wrist, flour and all — and takes one step toward you, and stops at the island with both hands flat on the boards.