“Seriously?”
“No fucking way, pardon my language,” he said while grabbing my hand.
He stopped for a second, looking around for something, and when he spotted an elevator, he pulled me that way.
“Should I be concerned?”
“Nope. All the chatty chicks in my class said the restaurant here is the place to go, so I figured we’d try it.”
As we waited for the elevator, he explained. “I had Rudy, the doorman, call for me. Apparently, he can get reservations anywhere. Mrs. Flugel in the penthouse introduces him to all the right people on the phone, and he manages her reservations.”
“Is that so? Has she been to my Bangladeshi place?”
Crap. As soon as I mentioned it, I remembered I hadn’t showered and changed since serving lunch. “Ugh, look at me. I forgot I was in jeans and flip-flops. You think I can go in?”
“Stop it, you look great. This city’s also weird with all the fancy dressing up, and for what? Just to eat?”
The elevator dinged, and the door opened to the most eclectic restaurant I’d ever seen. Mismatched chairs, funky glass chandeliers, potted plants lining the walls, and glass tables.
“I’m going to bring Mrs. Flugel out for lunch this week,” Price told me as we waited for the hostess.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, I never back down from a dare.”
“Hi, can I help you?” A peppy redhead, wearing the shortest black shorts I’d ever seen and some sort of crop top, interrupted our moment.
“Reservation for Barnes,” Price told her, only bothering to take his eyes away from me for a beat or two.
Yeah, I’m here with him.
“Right this way, Mr. Barnes,” Little Miss Hot Shorts said, her tone a bit cooler this time.
I decided to enjoy myself. I’d never had the attention or passion of someone like Price, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to savor it.
Price
“Tell me, if you could buy one thing in this store, what would it be?”
We sat at the railing on an upper level, Emerson sipping a coffee while I enjoyed a bourbon on the rocks. The furniture store sprawled out below us was definitely the weirdest concept I’d seen in New York yet, but the food had been good. And Em seemed to be enjoying herself.
“Me? I don’t think there’s room in my apartment for anything from here.”
“Come on, one thing. What’s the point of eating here if you can’t pick out something? You know what? It should be a like a Happy Meal. They should let everyone who orders an entrée take a souvenir home.”
This made Emerson laugh, her chin tipped up, her hair spilling down her back. She’d had it in a messy bun when I first picked her up, but she’d quickly tugged it out, allowing it to hang loose in long dark waves. It was an inky mess like the lake at night, rippling with invitation, beckoning me to come closer. My hand itched to run through it, pull her next to me, and kiss her softly.
Emerson was like an after-dinner drink—you tasted her slowly, enjoyed every last morsel, and yearned for another long after you were finished. It was hard not to roll my own eyes at the cheesiness of my own thoughts, but they were what they were.
“Okay, I’ll play,” she said, jarring me from my daydreams. “I would take that armoire.”
She pointed toward a distressed white cabinet, small drawers down one side, a cabinet running the length of the other. The paint was chipped in a perfect pattern because it had been manufactured to look that way. At home, we had plenty of pieces like that—except they were worn from actual use and making memories.
“That?” I pointed toward the piece on display.
“That. Sorry to disappoint. Did you think I’d pick that oversized bed with furry throws and pillows all over it?”
This time, it was my turn to laugh out loud. I couldn’t help myself. “In your dreams,” I told Emerson, but to be honest, I did hope she’d pick a bed, preferably with me in it.
