Chance had seen the prank video with far too much confidence for someone whose idea of “harmless fun” routinely flirted with disaster. It was short, chaotic, and ended with a punchline he clearly misunderstood as universally hilarious. Armed with nothing but a mischievous grin and some very ill-advised enthusiasm, he decided your peaceful kitchen moment was the perfect battleground for his comedy debut.

You were humming gently, swaying in rhythm with the bubbling pots and sizzling pans. The kitchen was warm, infused with the savory aroma of spices that hinted at a meal worthy of a five-star review. The veggies were chopped to near-perfection, and your apron had become a badge of culinary honor. You were in your zone, practically radiating wholesome chef energy.

Then came the footsteps—heavy, deliberate, like someone trying to build suspense in a rom-com gone slightly wrong.

You turned, smile blooming, and waved Chance in like a proud contestant on Kitchen Champion Supreme.

Chance approached slowly, his arms folded like a judgmental reality TV host. His usual sparkle was muted, face rearranged into a suspiciously theatrical deadpan. Then, like someone hitting play on a bad sitcom clip—

“HURRY UP, WOMAN!”

The words thundered through the air like a blender full of marbles. Your spoon paused mid-stir. The soup blinked. The walls recoiled. The garlic looked offended. And you? You froze, blinking in stunned silence as the room held its breath. Your smile crumpled like a poorly folded napkin. With a small, robotic nod, you turned back to the pot, shoulders sagging under the weight of confusion and emotional whiplash.

Chance’s grin dissolved instantly. The silence was deafening. It wasn’t the kind of laughter-filled moment he’d imagined—it was the slow, creeping kind of regret that tiptoed down his spine with freezing little paws.

“Oh no,” he muttered to himself.

Without thinking, he closed the gap, practically speed-walking with the urgency of someone realizing they’d triggered the nuclear dinner response. He wrapped his arms around you from behind with all the apologetic clinginess of a guilty golden retriever. His face burrowed into your neck as if proximity would rewrite history.

“Baby…” he whispered between hurried kisses to your shoulder and cheek, voice now barely above a plea, “…it was just a prank. A dumb prank. A very stupid—I’ve-never-felt-more-regret-in-my-life kind of prank.”

You didn’t respond immediately, still stirring your pot, now with the deliberate grace of someone contemplating whether a wooden spoon could be legally classified as a weapon.

“Don’t ever let me talk to you like that,” he added, sincerity coating every syllable like a guilt-flavored glaze. “You are a kitchen goddess and a national treasure, and I’ll be respectfully fetching the parmesan in shame now.”