Evie blinked her big, dark, and confused eyes at him. Had he just said that her cupcakes smelled revolting? Was he trying to make her feel better? That wasn’t the way to do it. “Excuse me,” She blurted out. “Those weren’t revolting and…” She paused, “And just what is wrong with sugar?!” Her hands landed on her hips and she stared up at him incredulously, “I don’t know if you know this or not, but cupcakes are supposed to be sweet.” It was taking every effort she had not to glance down at his bare chest. Why did he make her kitchen feel so small? It wasn’t a small kitchen but with him standing in it, there suddenly was just… not enough room.

Resisting the urge to shoo him out, she turned back to her mess. ‘How much pollutants do you want in yours then? Cream? Sugar? Or let me guess ...flavoured syrup?’ She didn’t miss the almost laugh he’d made when he retrieved her cups, slanting him a feigned unamused look. “Just cream and sugar, thank you very much.” Even she had her limits. The truth was she could drink coffee any way it was prepared, it was something she’d learned to do on long flights. That didn’t stop her from having a preferred way of drinking it and that preferred way included cream and sugar. “Two spoonfuls of sugar,” She added with mild indignation.

Plunking a fresh cupcake pan onto the island she started to prepare it for what was left of the batter. Out of the corner of her eye, she tried not to stare at his broad muscled back as he fixed the cup but it was a very nice back as far as backs went. With a smirk, she glanced down, and just in time as he turned around and offered her a cup of coffee. Without thinking of her hand, Evangelina reached out to take the coffee. Her coffee was almost in her grasp when…

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ She blinked, he’d pulled the coffee away and set it onto the counter. Her mouth fell open slightly and words tried to come out but didn’t actually make it out. Dropping her eyes to her hand she frowned at it. ‘Is that why the cupcakes died?’ She blinked at her hand for a couple of seconds, it most certainly not the reason the cupcakes had died… they had died because she’d been too busy ogling him in his briefs as he’d stepped out of the bathroom. Her hand was burnt in a failed attempt to rescue them. ‘You should have that under cold water you know.’

Amusement mixed with annoyance flashed in her dark eyes at that and she pinned him with a look, “Are you a doctor?” It would explain his workaholic attitude and long hours. “I ran it under cold water. I’ll be fine.” Reaching out she, plucked her coffee from the counter and took a sip of it. Ahhh! Somethings never disappointed a girl’s heart… Coffee was one of them.

Sliding another dark look over to him, “You know what the super polite thing to do is? It’s to tell the stranger who has let you into their home and let you use their shower all of the gory little details of your life.” Offering him a puckish smile, before she started spooning the second batch of cupcakes into the pan. “Single? Married? Widowed?” Sliding a glance at him with a raised eyebrow, “Bat for the other team?”

Slipping the second batch into the oven, her dark eyes drifted over to her guest and upwards from his torso to shyly meet his eyes before she smiled tentatively as he admitted that he was mostly just trying to console himself. Evangelina didn’t do things halfway. She ate the pasta, drank the wine, saw the places around the world she wanted to see, added cream and sugar to her coffee, and ate the damn cupcakes. Maybe it wasn’t ideal… but she considered herself happier than a lot of people out there chasing that bit of perfection and that was what mattered more to her.

Padding her bare feet softly across the wood floor, she opened the refrigerator as he sputtered about his relationship status. A tiny hand seized her heart a little as he said the words ‘divorce’. Fighting the urge to glance over her should at him, she caught her lip between her teeth and fretted on it. It still sounded pretty fresh, pulling out a box of Chinese leftovers she opened it and sniffed. Seemed edible so she set it on the island and moved on to the next box and repeated the process.

Turning towards him, she settled the third box on the island as she leaned her small frame against it and studied him with all too knowing gaze. He deflected her stare with the information that he was in his thirties, worked in finance, one of two brothers, a Taurus, no criminal convictions and a joke about additional paperwork. A slow smile formed on her lips and she straightened up, giving a small head toss that sent an unruly strand of dark hair flopping to her cheek.

“Those are all good things to hear and I am glad you are already aware of the paperwork I require, give me a second while I fetch it.” Pivoting, Evie started to march out of the kitchen but stopped in the doorway and turned around to laugh and shake her head. “No paperwork… but I don’t particularly like to waste time with awkward conversation. It’s easiest to just lay it all out there and let people make what they will of it.” Reaching for her cup of coffee she took a sip of it and swallowed and nodded her head, fair was fair.

“I only have a brother but I do have a very large and slightly obnoxious family… live next door long enough you’ll probably get to meet a few of them.” Staring down into her cup she continued, “I started working for the airline a couple of years ago and as soon as the position for the international flight or long haul flights came available I jumped at it. I was a law major but in the end it just… wasn’t what I wanted to do.” She didn’t add how upset her parents had been by that decision or how her current job seemed so far beneath their choices so she changed the subject. “I am a Taurus too actually, although technically I am on the Aries cusp… so… yeah… I have no idea what that means though. I am 5’2” and absolutely terrible at volleyball.”

Meeting his gaze again she gave him an encouraging smile and a half-shrug, “And I think that it takes two to make a marriage fail, so don’t be too hard on yourself… not that I have any marriage experience but you’d be surprised the things I see and hear on long flights.” The truth was it was almost as bad as being a bartender.

Gently pushing the box of eggrolls towards him she nodded towards a drawer behind him, “Here keep the hunger at bay until the next batch of cupcakes are finished.”

Evie’s lips curled a little showing off a dimple that one of her teachers had made her stand on exhibit once to explain what a dimple was. The little indent had wrongly been accused of that particular humiliation and still managed to go back and forth in a love-hate relationship with Evie over its sheer existence. Was she a pilot?

“I just burnt my hand pulling a cupcake tin out of the oven without a mitt…,” Dark laughing eyes peered over the top of the refrigerator door at him before she added, “Would you hire me to pilot anything? Let alone a plane that flew international flights?” Her lips curled a little more in amusement already knowing his answer to that before he even said anything. Dipping her head back into the door, she hummed softly and tossed a glance over her shoulder at him again, “I think there may be some sort of violation in the rules of volleyball when you walk under the net.” Her smile warmly stayed on him for a couple of seconds longer than it should have before she produced the Chinese leftover takeout.

Would it be terribly weird of her to already find some sort of comfort in his presence? Was he just one of those people who naturally put other people at ease? As he dug into the eggroll box, she lingered in thought for a moment before she snagged one of the eggrolls and broke it open nibbling at it more than just shoving it wholly into her mouth.

As if realizing what a big he was being, he slowed just enough to ask her if she’d eaten. She snorted and rolled her eyes, “If I didn’t want them ate I wouldn’t have offered them to you… and I am good with just my coffee really.” Lifting her cup of coffee up to her lips she smiled behind the cup as he apologized to her yet again. “I don’t know. I am quite liking your first impression.” Evie took a sip of her coffee and didn’t bother adding that she had a feeling her new neighbor could easily be one of the most tightly strung men she’d ever met. Dropping her eyes she smirked down at her cup, tightly strung wasn’t the only thing tight about him.

A faint rosy tint teased her cheeks and she cleared her throat before stepping over to the sink and setting her coffee down next to it as she started to rinse out a couple of her mixing bowls and spoons to set into the dishwasher a little later.

“You know it’s sometimes easier to talk to a stranger about personal problems then it is to friends or family,” Tossing a faint smile over her shoulder at him before she continued, “How recent was the divorce? Was it amicable or did it end with someone setting the other’s clothes on fire and dumping it out the second-story window in front of your neighbors George and Kim who’d just arrived back home with their 5 kids from the weekend sports games?”

Using the sponge to wipe the bowl out before she rinsed it out and set it on the other side of the sink, she knew she was dramatizing the situation but she hoped he’d feel more comfortable if she deflected with a little bit of humor.

‘Oh, amicable. We’re both adults after all. No reason for it to be any different, it wasn’t like anyone cheated or anything.’

That caused her to pause, her mink brown eyes blinking a couple of times before she glanced over at him. It wasn’t so much the words as the feeling she picked up behind the words. Honestly, she couldn’t imagine ending a marriage amicably. Just the thought left a slightly bitter and heavy taste in her mouth.

Marriage wasn’t something that was supposed to be easy… you didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, or whatever that odd little saying was. Each day a decision was made to love the person you were with… to be a faithful and loyal companion until ‘death do you part’. She didn’t spew her ideas to the man in her kitchen though because, for as modern as she appeared, the truth was Evie was a bit of a traditionalist when it came to certain aspects in her life and she wasn’t ready for someone more sophisticated to make fun of that about her.

Meeting his gaze for half a second before she turned back around to finish washing out the dishes she’d dirted. She could hear his attempt at trying to remain casual over the conversation. It told her right away that the divorce hadn’t been his idea and it left a gnawing curiosity as to what sort of woman he’d been married too.

‘All tied up… six months now.’

She smiled as she worked and set another dish into the sink that she’d then put into the dishwasher. Washing out her sponge she wrung it out and set it in the sponge holder before she turned back to him. The curve of her lip lifting on one corner, “All tied up… and six months fresh… My, my, my… you’re barely back on the market again and trying to make it sound like it old news.” She shook her head softly and let out a deep breath before bringing her unsettling dark eyes and prodding him.

“I don’t think I’d have been nearly as amicable as your ex sounds like she was…” Brushing a strand of reddish-brown hair out of her face that had once been chic bangs but had since grown out, she looked up at him from under thick lashes. “Then again, it sounds like she wasn’t the sort of woman to stick out the rough times. Which in short means, you are better off without her.” Grabbing the now-empty boxes of leftovers she double-checked to make sure they were empty and then threw them away in the trash can under the sink.

“People think going into a marriage is a 50/50 thing where they only have to give 50% of themselves and that the other person will meet them in the middle and it’ll equal the whole 100% but I don’t think so.” She paused to nibble at the bottom of her lip and gave a slight shake of her head. “No, I think marriage is a 110/110 thing and if you’re lucky the two of you together will meet the 100% needed to make the marriage work.” Evie shrugged a little as if it was just an idea she toyed with, rather than something she’d put a great deal of time an energy into thinking about.

Holding up 3 fingers at his question of if she’d ever been married before she smiled and added, “Three almost marriages. The last one I ended up pulling a stunt from ‘Runaway Bride’ on the day of the ceremony.” Marriage in theory to her sounded like something she wanted but then… she’d never loved someone enough to want to give up so much of herself too to make it stick. And knowing she wanted to make it stick it always seemed to bite her in her rather curvy rump that she’d not met someone she’d loved enough to change.

She picked her coffee back up and took another short sip of it, “I haven’t met someone I wanted to give 110% too… There have been a lot of maybes but nothing I was sure about. You know, I see my parents who have been happily married for quite some time now and…” Evie’s words drifted off as she considered her parents and her voice softened a little, “I don’t know… I want someone who looks at me the way my dad looks at my mom when he thinks no one else is looking… It’s corny I know but… I am a bit corny.”

The intricacies behind her family were far too complex to dump onto her new neighbor within their first meeting. Dating and marriage were something taken kind of seriously and simply saying ‘no’ wasn’t the easiest thing to do. The horrified look on his face when she’d mentioned how many times she’d almost been married, she just smiled and shook her head at him. It made perfect sense to her but she’d lived through it already. She supposed if she’d shown up at a stranger’s home and had heard someone like herself tell her that she’d almost been married three times and left the last one at the alter in a full-on ‘Runaway Bride’ escape… she might be staring at herself in the same way.

‘You left a guy at the altar? You couldn’t have told him before?!’

She almost smiled again as she remembered the day, pausing in her dishwashing. Turning her body slightly towards him, she leaned against the counter. Her long lashes fluttered softly as she blinked a couple of times at him before she spoke.

“I probably should have but it wasn’t exactly like I’d planned it out.” She sighed and turned back to the dishes passing one of the bowls over to be rinsed and dried. It wasn’t like you plan this big day down to even what sort of flowers you’d be carrying and what music would be your first dance and then decided for just a bit of extra fun you were going to pick that exact moment have awareness be dropped like a water balloon onto you.

Evie could feel him still watching her almost incredulously, shifting her weight until her hip was leaning against the counter again and she was turned towards him.

‘I’m sorry.’ Of course he was. She didn’t doubt that for a second. He was far to composed and collected to every meaningfully show his shock. Sucking in a deep breath, she looked up at him. ‘It’s not my business, really. You don’t have to explain to me.’ Evie knew just as easily as he’d said that he was simply asking what had happened… even if he wasn’t. Staring up at him, she sighed and shook her head.

“So the first two engagements were more for my family’s sake. The first one was pretty serious. He was the son of a friend of the family and he and I’d casually dated over the years when we were in school. He proposed shortly before I got accepted to college but that wasn’t quite what he wanted. He was fairly certain he’d marry me and we’d live in a nice little house on the coast and get a couple of golden retrievers and all of that.” Evie rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and waved her hands softly. She winced a little as she pulled her eyes back down to meet Achilleas again, she frowned. “The second one was most definitely a mistake. I wanted to say ‘yes’, distract my parents from that feeling of having an ‘almost’ married daughter.”

Evie couldn’t have explained the third one while staring at the man there that took up way too much of her kitchen. Shifting, she busied herself with a spoon as she spoke, “The third one was a man I’d met on one of my flights. I thought it was perfect. Everything I’d ever wanted. That he loved me and that it was what I’d been waiting for.” Scrubbing the spoon a bit harder than she’d meant to before realizing it was ready to be rinsed and dried. She set it roughly down into the rinse water and dipped her head staring at the water and frowned.

Quiet for a moment, she turned around and faced him. If she was going to tell him about this, and she was, she changed her mind. She wanted to look at him, to know that he understood. “It was a perfect day. I walked down the aisle. He was waiting there and I looked up at him and it was like a bucket of cold water hit me. I had gone through that whole relationship without seeing it. Seeing that look that my parents share privately when they think that we won’t notice.” The breath of air that she’d been holding seemed to finally be released. “I just turned and walked out of the church and just kept walking. I was almost all the way back to the hotel before my brother picked me up… the picture in the foyer was taken when my brother went on the non-refundable honeymoon with me.”

Sighing she turned back to finish up the dishes, “He never attempted to contact me after that.” She shrugged, if he’d loved her wouldn’t he have wanted to know what was wrong?

The air in the kitchen was heavy with the smell of cupcakes and counters were cleaned, dishes were washed and drying, and somehow she’d managed to con her hunky new neighbor into folding the towel. Her lips pursed and her head dipped a little to hide whatever thoughts were bubbling over in her eyes. Perhaps it was over sharing. But boundaries weren’t something that Evie acknowledged readily. Boundaries were more static guidelines then cemented lines not to be crossed.

‘You don’t need to talk abo…’ The fact that he was speaking, didn’t jar her any as she steam rolled right ahead and continued talking.

As long as she’d started the story, she might as well explain the rest of it. She hated cliffhangers. It might have made her new neighbor uncomfortable but she’d rather him be uncomfortable listening to it then her being uncomfortable with him making assumptions about what had or in this case had not happened. Uncomfortableness was something that would dissolve once the conversation had been changed… assumptions now those were something much worse. If she wasn’t careful, he’d be laying on her couch at 4 am in the morning unable to sleep in an unfamiliar place and the only thing he’d have running through his brain was the fact that she’d been engaged not once, not twice, but three times and had quite literally left the last one at the altar. Combine that with the fact that she had day old Chinese in her refrigerator and had burned her cupcakes… She groaned inwardly at the thought, yes… he was going to hear the rest of this story.

‘Well I guess it's a good thing then, that you had that realization when you did rather than further down the line.’ He’d waited to speak again until she’d taken a deep breath and relaxed back against the counter letting him digest all of that information.

She blinked her big brown eyes at him and then chuckled. What sort of reaction had she expected? The corners of her eyes crinkled and she tilted her head and looked at him sheepishly. He rubbed the back of his neck and added, ‘I guess that takes some kind of bravery too.’

“I think that’s the first time anyone has said that to me. Usually, it’s: Why didn’t you figure that out before you got to the altar?” Dimples appeared in her cheeks and she shook her head, the wild chestnut strand curling down to bounce across her cheekbone. “No. Not bravery. I was anything but brave with that. I was petrified. What would have happened if I’d…” She realized what would have happened and bit her tongue and looked away. She’d probably have been the one banging on his door at some ungodly hour in the rain because she’d locked herself out of her new house after a recent divorce.

Tilting her head down, she shook it again, “No. Definitely not bravery.” She was lost in thought for a moment when he broke the silence.

‘You’re not burning those ones as well are you?’ Her head shot up and she looked at him but his gaze was past her and pointedly looking at her oven. Her oven. Cupcakes. Burning. Evangelina's wide panicked eyes flew back to him before she skittered about looking for the potholders and opening the oven door.

“Oooo! Not again… not again…” She bounced about, where had those oven mitts gone! They’d just been here. Spotting them they were snatched up and on her hands in the blink of an eye as she was grabbing the pan with the remainder of the cupcakes out and sliding them across the island in the kitchen. Using her foot she closed the oven door and pulled the mitts off as she leaned over and inspected how badly they were burnt.

“Not entirely burnt… just… you know… well done.” She murmured, the lines in her forehead crinkling. Looking up at him, she frowned. “I’m sorry.”