In Chap­ter Twelve of the sto­ry, titled “Teal,” the nar­ra­tor describes an evening spent cook­ing with Bran­thor, high­light­ing the chal­lenges posed by his over­sized kitchen equip­ment. The cook­ing expe­ri­ence turns into a shared activ­i­ty as Bran­thor assists her, although their ban­ter reveals some under­ly­ing ten­sion regard­ing their arrange­ment. When she ques­tions why he lacks the spe­cial­ized uten­sils used by his sis­ters-in-law, they both acknowl­edge, in a light-heart­ed man­ner, that he doesn’t want a human bride.

Through­out the chap­ter, Teal reflects on per­son­al habits, such as the taboo of lick­ing spoons while cook­ing, which she ques­tions after observ­ing Bran­thor’s play­ful insis­tence on try­ing it. Their play­ful teas­ing esca­lates in the kitchen, and Teal finds her­self increas­ing­ly attract­ed to him, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he licks the spoon clean, trig­ger­ing unex­pect­ed desires.

They enjoy a roman­tic din­ner of spaghet­ti and meat­balls on the back porch, illu­mi­nat­ed by beau­ti­ful lights in the gar­den. While they share con­ver­sa­tions, Teal notices Bran­thor’s reluc­tance to embrace their poten­tial rela­tion­ship, despite their obvi­ous chem­istry and a DNA match that sug­gests com­pat­i­bil­i­ty.

As the evening pro­gress­es, Teal grows tired but feels hes­i­tant to retreat to her own bed­room, unwill­ing to face the next day’s real­i­ty at the Tem­ple where Bran­thor plans to deliv­er her. Instead, she takes a bold step by sneak­ing into his bed­room naked and snug­gling into his sheets, cre­at­ing a play­ful, inti­mate atmos­phere.

When Bran­thor finds her, a mix­ture of embar­rass­ment and attrac­tion fills the moment. Teal teas­es him about the com­fort­able bed, and their flir­ta­tion esca­lates as they dis­cuss a mys­te­ri­ous oil Bran­thor has. He explains that it assists brides and grooms with sig­nif­i­cant size dif­fer­ences, hint­ing at the phys­i­cal chal­lenges their rela­tion­ship may present. Teal express­es a desire to under­stand how it feels, and Bran­thor appears con­flict­ed yet unde­ni­ably drawn to her.

The chap­ter cap­tures a blend of humor­ous moments, bud­ding romance, and the ten­sion sur­round­ing their arranged mar­riage, cul­mi­nat­ing in Teal’s deter­mi­na­tion to act on her feel­ings, rein­forc­ing the emo­tion­al stakes in their rela­tion­ship.