He was pulling down glossy black plates from a cupboard as he answered, “Asked my favorite color, that was it. Then she bought everything.”
“Let me guess, you told her your favorite color was black.”
His eyes came to me and his lips twitched.
Again!
“No, I said it was red.”
I stared at him.
Then it was me who burst out laughing.
Through my laughter I asked, “Seriously?”
“No f**kin’ joke,” he put the plates on the bar and opened a drawer as I moved to open and close two before I found and grabbed two black, cloth placemats. “Jacked. I was away on business, came back, this is what I got. Not a hint of red in the place. Not a hint of anything.”
I set the placemats by the stools on the other side of the bar and asked, “Did she do your bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t like satin sheets?”
His eyes came to me, there was something in them that made me go still but he answered, “Took one look at them, nearly lost my mind. Luckily, she wasn’t around. Slept on ‘em one night, would never sleep on anything else. Not at home.”
“So they’re nice,” I whispered.
“Fuck yeah,” he whispered back.
We stared at each other a beat as I felt his two words hit me in a very secret place.
Then Knight’s eyes moved over my face before they caught mine and he said quietly, “Think it’s a good idea we quit talkin’ about my sheets.”
I nodded because I agreed.
Definitely.
He put cutlery on the counter and ordered, “Arrange that shit and park your ass on a stool, babe. I’ll serve this up.”
I grabbed the cutlery, shifted around the other side and arranged it on the placemats as Knight worked in the kitchen. Then I parked my ass on a stool, sipped wine and watched.
He was cutting open steaming baked potatoes when I noted, “You explained the car. How do you know my last name?”
“What?” he asked, buttering the potatoes.
“The doorman knew my last name. I can only assume you told him.”
His glanced at me then went back to the potatoes, now grinding pepper over them. “Nick told me.”
I felt my brow furrow. “Nick knows my last name?”
He put the pepper aside and grabbed some maldon salt out of a small black bowl and tossed it on the spuds. “Day after I ripped him a new ass**le about the party, he asked who I took home. I told him your first name then he said, ‘Anya Gage?’ and since you’re probably the only Anya in Denver and definitely the only Anya at that party, I guessed. So, yeah, Nick told me.”
“How did Nick know?” I asked.
“No clue,” he muttered, moving to the fridge.
I didn’t like that.