It’s the sweetest gesture and one that fills me with so much joy I can’t even explain it. For a second, I forget the fact I want to jump his delectable bones. I smile over at him as he seasons the steaks. They’re huge. I’m not sure what cut of meat it is or why he thinks I could ever eat a steak that size, but I refuse to analyze it.
“You want a beer? Glass of wine?”
“Sure. Wine sounds nice.”
He bends down to open the door of a wine refrigerator that he’s got installed under the counter. “What’s your preference? Sweet, dry?”
“Dry, white, if you’ve got it.”
He pulls out a bottle of Chardonnay and pours me a glass. He reaches back into the big fridge getting a beer for himself. Holding up his bottle, he smiles. “Toast.”
I lift my glass to touch his beer bottle.
“To first dates.”
“To first dates,” I mimic. Our glasses tinkle as they touch. We both sip, staring into each other’s eyes.
He holds his beer out again. “To many more.”
I swallow like there’s a cotton ball stuck in my throat. “To many more.” I touch his bottle with my glass and smile. That moment was sort of serious. I sense that he meant it. I return to making salad as he takes out a fresh head of cauliflower. He cleans it and chops it up into chunks. “What’re you making with the cauliflower?”
“Mashed potatoes.”
“Huh?” I chuckle. “Don’t you need potatoes for that?”
Setting down his knife, he turns to me slowly with the most serious expression I’ve seen yet. “You’ve never had mashed cauliflower potatoes?”
“No? I thought you were joking.”
“Oh, babe,” he says, stalking toward me. “You’re going to love these. All of the goodness of mashed potatoes without the starch.”
“You eat low carb?”
He pats his stomach. “I try, but I can’t stop myself from eating bread, so I do stuff like this,” he points at the white vegetable, “to balance it out.”
“Makes sense.”
This time he doesn’t kiss my head, he leans down and kisses my lips. “I love seeing you in my kitchen, Lainie.”
“Oh, yeah?” I love being in his kitchen.
“Yeah.”
And that’s it. He gets back to work starting a pan of water to boil on his high-tech stove while I continue to chop veggies. We work well together in his state-of-the-art kitchen. “How do you like your steak, Lainie?”
“Medium is fine.”
Arching his brow, he pauses before saying, “I don’t want your steak to be just ‘fine,’ honey. Is that really how you like it?”
I look over at him. Lewis used to order my steak medium, never asking me how I preferred it. He liked it medium. “Well, I like it more on the rare side. Medium rare?”
“Got it.”
While he fires up the grill, I’m tasked to prep some Italian bread to toast on the grill. It’s a lot of food. I’m used to only eating the salad portion of this meal. When everything’s ready, Keeton leads me to a small table off the kitchen. He’s got a candle burning as he dims the lights slightly. Romantic.
He serves me a plate with a small portion of my larger steak, some of the cauliflower mashed potatoes, bread, and a bowl of salad. I wait for him to sit down before I dig in. When he does, his plate mirrors mine. “This looks delicious, Keeton. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Eat up. Plenty more in the kitchen.”
