Somewhere between folding a hoodie and arguing with a zipper that had philosophical objections to closing, Noah discovered that packing for a two-night stay was mostly an exercise in revealing your priorities.

  Rachel's version of packing involved spreading her entire life across his bed like she was preparing for a small military expedition into unknown territory. There were piles—meticulously organized piles—labeled in her mind as "tops," "bottoms," "comfortable," "presentable," and one mysterious stack he'd mentally categorized as "psychological warfare disguised as legware."

  Noah's version was a duffel bag on the floor and the quiet conviction that if he remembered socks and a toothbrush, natural selection would handle the rest.

  He was, surprisingly, calm about the whole thing.

  Actually calm, not the performance version he deployed in labs when Josh tried to convince him that "approximately boiling" was an acceptable temperature measurement. This was the real thing—the kind of calm that occurred when your brain had run all possible disaster scenarios, assigned probability values, and concluded that panicking wouldn't improve the statistical outcome.

  It was a trip. A family trip. A stepping-into-complicated-interpersonal-dynamics trip that would probably involve awkward silences and careful conversational navigation.

  But Rachel would be there. Which somehow made the prospect of spending a weekend in his family home feel less like walking into a minefield and more like... a thing they were doing together.

  Rachel was kneeling at the edge of his bed, glasses on, checking items off a list on her phone with the gravity of someone conducting a safety inspection on nuclear reactor components. Noah watched her for a moment—the way she squinted at the screen, the small furrow between her eyebrows that appeared when she was concentrating—and felt something warm settle in his chest.

  This was normal now. Her in his space. His things mixed with her things. Their plans woven together like it was obvious they'd be doing this.

  He bent to zip the duffel bag with decisive optimism.

  The zipper, sensing weakness, immediately jammed. Noah stared at it with the patience of someone who'd learned that inanimate objects could smell fear.

  "You good?" Rachel asked without looking up from her phone.

  "The bag is having an existential crisis," Noah reported. "But we're working through it."

  A small smile crossed Rachel's face.

  Noah convinced the zipper through a combination of gentle coaxing and the implicit threat of replacement, then straightened with the satisfaction of a man who'd won a small but meaningful victory.

  "Okay," Rachel declared, scanning the bed one final time. "Almost there."

  Noah surveyed the organized chaos that was her packing system and decided not to mention that she'd packed enough outfits to cover a week-long diplomatic summit. If it made her feel prepared, he wasn't going to point out the statistical improbability of needing seven shirt options for forty-eight hours.

  Rachel's gaze drifted to the nightstand—casual, almost absent—then to the drawer she'd half-opened earlier while looking for a phone charger.

  She paused.

  Then, with the deliberate calm of someone who'd just made a decision, she reached in and pulled out a small cardboard box.

  Noah's brain performed several rapid calculations and arrived at a conclusion it didn't know how to process.

  The box wasn't large. Wasn't particularly dramatic in appearance. It was, however, unmistakably recognizable as the kind of box that lived in bedside drawers for extremely specific practical purposes. Half-full. Containing flat, foil packages with a protruding circle that removed all ambiguity about categorization.

  Rachel held it at chest height, looking between Noah and the duffel bag with the assessing expression of someone solving a logistics problem.

  Her face stayed perfectly composed.

  Her eyes absolutely did not.

  Noah stared at the box.

  Rachel stared at Noah.

  The question she wasn't asking out loud hung in the air with the weight of a philosophy exam: Do we bring this?

  Or—if he was reading the exact shade of amusement in her eyes correctly—How many?

  Noah opened his mouth and discovered his tongue had apparently filed for emergency leave.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rachel's lips twitched.

  Then, with the unhurried confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was doing and was enjoying every second of it, Rachel reached into the box and extracted a single packet.

  Noah watched the motion like it was happening in slow motion, narrated by David Attenborough.

  Rachel held the packet delicately between two fingers, examined it with the thoughtful air of someone reviewing laboratory supplies, then looked up at him with an expression of professional neutrality that was absolutely calculated to destroy him.

  "This," she said calmly, "is not for the trip."

  Noah blinked. Found his voice hiding somewhere near his shoes. "It's not."

  Rachel shook her head with exaggerated solemnity. "No. This is for later."

  Noah's brain was still processing. His mouth, operating independently, asked: "Later when?"

  Rachel's expression brightened with poorly concealed delight. "Later when we successfully finish packing." She said it like this was the most natural motivational framework in the world. Like incentives for completing basic tasks was standard productivity theory. "A celebration of organizational achievement."

  Noah felt his face doing something it probably shouldn't be doing while having a conversation about luggage logistics.

  His mouth curved despite his better judgment. "That seems... reasonable."

  Rachel's eyes lit up like he'd just agreed to something significant.

  She set the packet on top of the nightstand with deliberate ceremony—visible, accessible, waiting like a promise—then returned to the box with a small satisfied tap of her fingertips against the cardboard.

  Noah was starting to suspect he'd been outmaneuvered.

  Rachel lifted the box again, angling it slightly toward the open duffel bag with the posture of someone preparing to make a compelling argument.

  Her eyes asked the question very clearly: And now—the travel supply situation?

  Noah's brain came back online with a jolt. "No."

  Rachel blinked with theatrical innocence. "No?"

  "No," Noah repeated, with the firmness of someone establishing a boundary that would definitely hold and not crumble immediately under pressure. "None."

  "Bold," Rachel observed, like she was complimenting a risky chess move.

  Noah felt heat crawling up the back of his neck with the inexorable determination of a tide coming in. "Not bold. Practical. It's a two-night trip."

  Rachel's smile widened by a fraction. "A two-night trip."

  Noah held her gaze with what he hoped was resolve and not the visible dissolution of his willpower. "We are going to be staying in someone else's house."

  Rachel nodded slowly, as if conceding a point in an academic debate. "That is true."

  "My mother's house," Noah added, because apparently he needed to remind both of them of the specific flavor of mortification they'd be risking.

  "Also true," Rachel agreed pleasantly.

  Noah reached for the box with careful determination. "I'm putting this back."

  Rachel didn't release it immediately. Her fingers stayed on the cardboard for a half-second longer than necessary, testing—what? His commitment to good decision-making? His ability to withstand those eyes looking at him like that?

  Noah's gaze narrowed. "Rachel."

  Rachel's expression softened into something that should be illegal. "What?" she asked with devastating innocence. "I'm just trying to be prepared."

  "You're trying to make me blush."

  Rachel's smile went absolutely triumphant. "It's working."

  Noah took the box—gently but firmly, like he was confiscating contraband—and slid it back into the drawer with a finality that suggested he was closing a chapter of his life titled "Questionable Decisions I Almost Made."

  Rachel watched him do it with undisguised amusement sparkling in her eyes.

  "You know," she said conversationally, "for someone who nearly made me late to work twice this week—"

  "Once," Noah corrected immediately, ears definitely burning. "And you started it."

  "—you're suddenly very committed to restraint."

  Noah turned to face her with as much dignity as he could assemble. "I'm committed to being able to make eye contact with my family and not becoming a holiday anecdote."

  Rachel laughed—bright and genuine—then leaned forward and kissed him. Quick and soft, not enough to derail anything but enough to make his chest go warm and his brain temporarily forget what they'd been arguing about.

  When she pulled back, she looked pleased with him in a way that was equal parts affectionate and dangerously mischievous.

  "Okay," Rachel conceded with theatrical grace. "None."

  Noah's shoulders dropped slightly, tension releasing.

  Rachel smoothed her hands down the front of her sweater like she was physically resetting herself into "responsible adult mode." Then her gaze drifted toward the drawer again and she added, almost casually, "Although, if you're that confident in your self-control—"

  Noah pointed at the duffel bag with the authority of someone who'd reached his limit. "Pack. Your socks."

  Rachel's mouth curved into something that could only be described as wicked. "Yes, sir."

  Noah's brain performed an emergency shutdown and reboot sequence.

  He stared at her—actually stared, because his higher cognitive functions had temporarily relocated—while several thoughts competed for dominance: That was intentional. I am in so much trouble. Also possibly dying. Is it possible to die from this? This might be how I die.

  Rachel's eyes glittered with absolute delight at his reaction. "Sorry," she said, radiating zero actual remorse. "Couldn't resist."

  Noah shook his head slowly, trying to reassemble his composure from scattered component parts. He was smiling despite himself—or maybe because of himself, because this was his life now apparently. Dating someone who could reduce him to useless static with two words and a tone of voice.

  Rachel leaned into his space like she belonged there—because she did, that was the whole problem and also the whole point—and Noah picked up the duffel bag again, feeling oddly steadier than he had any right to feel given recent events.

  Calm, even. Despite everything. Maybe because of everything.

  Rachel was grinning at him like she'd discovered the universe's most effective button and fully intended to keep pressing it at strategic moments for the foreseeable future.

  Noah zipped the bag with decisive finality.

  "We're leaving in twenty minutes," he said, aiming for authoritative and landing somewhere closer to fond.

  Rachel checked her phone. "Plenty of time."

  "For packing?" Noah clarified.

  Rachel looked up at him, eyes bright with laughter and something warmer. "Obviously."

  She grabbed a pair of socks from her organized pile and tucked them into her bag with exaggerated care.

  Noah watched her and thought—not for the first time, probably not for the last—that she was going to be the death of him. But if he had to go, at least it would be while smiling.

  "Nineteen minutes now," he observed.

  Rachel's grin went absolutely radiant.

  "Better hurry then," she said.

  Noah had the distinct impression they were no longer talking about packing.