Lee Harker never really understood anniversaries. The whole concept of celebrating the passage of time seemed pointless to her — especially in her line of work, where time only ever meant more bodies, more unanswered questions, more nights spent awake with the weight of it all pressing down on her chest. What was so special about one year? People died after one year. Marriages collapsed after one year. Hearts broke after one year.

But then there was you. And somehow, you had made a year feel like something worth holding onto.

Which was why Lee now found herself in the kitchen at five-thirty in the morning, elbows deep in a war she was quickly losing against a carton of eggs.

The recipe claimed it was easy. “Romantic Anniversary Breakfast – 5 Simple Ingredients!” The glossy stock photo showed a picturesque plate of heart-shaped pancakes, fresh fruit, and eggs that didn’t look like they’d been scraped from the bottom of a frying pan. Lee was on her third attempt, and she was starting to take it personally.

The pancake batter was… wrong. Clumpy, off-white, and suspiciously resembling cement. She hadn’t even attempted the heart shapes yet — she’d already resigned herself to serving you amorphous blobs. The eggs weren’t much better. Overcooked on one side, raw on the other, and the bacon? Charred beyond recognition. The smoke detector had gone off twice already.

“Jesus Christ,” Lee muttered, aggressively scraping a piece of egg from the skillet. It fused to the spatula like rubber cement. Her jaw clenched. She considered throwing the whole pan out the window.

She didn’t hear you wake up. Still half-asleep, you stumbled into the kitchen in one of Lee’s old FBI shirts, rubbing your eyes. The smell hit you first — a potent combination of burnt meat, melting plastic, and something that could only be described as culinary homicide.