Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

Age-gap couples may be all the rage onscreen, but the pair that really have people giggling and kicking their feet are Meryl Streep (75) and Martin Short (74). The septuagenarian actors, who play love interests in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, sparked dating rumors earlier this year when they looked cozy at the 2024 Golden Globes. This came just a few months after the revelation that Streep had quietly split with her husband of 40 years, Don Gummer, six years prior, meaning the doyenne of American cinema was single. (Short’s wife, Nancy Dolman, passed away in 2010.)

Well, an exciting update has arrived for the M&M shippers: Last week, Streep and Short were pictured walking into celebrity hot spot Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica. (In case this rings a bell, it’s the same Italian restaurant where Bennifer celebrated their first wedding anniversary.) An ever-so-gentlemanly Short ushered Streep into the premises with his hand on her lower back. They then drove off in Streep’s white sedan; Short played passenger princess.

Reps for the two have previously insisted they are just friends. Short denied the rumors on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast in January: “We’re not a couple. We are just very close friends.” But since then, the two have been spotted attending Broadway shows together and even holding hands at the season-four premiere of Only Murders in the Building. They are constantly pictured cracking each other up. Stirring the pot, OMITB’s Steve Martin posted an Instagram of the three of them over the weekend with no caption and his own face canceled out by an emoji. John Hoffman, the creator of the show, told Decider that the pair “delighted in each other on-screen, off screen, in every way.” Oh? In light of this all, it so wrong to imagine them canoodling over gourmet spaghetti, Lady and the Tramp style?