Not what she expected from a bachelor.
Astra pulled into his driveway and stopped to stare. His house wasn’t ugly, but the color choice of light grey paint with black trim was certainly different from the rest of the houses on his block. His yard was neat and well-landscaped like all the others, too.
Astra put the car in park and turned it off without taking her eyes from the house. The color scheme was throwing her off and she wasn’t sure why.
Contemplating this, she climbed out of the car, purse and bag of groceries in hand. As soon as her foot hit the bottom step of the porch, the front door opened to reveal Rune. His grey shirt was open at the throat, untucked over a pair of beat-up jeans, and his feet were bare. The color of his shirt was only a few shades darker than his eyes and emphasized them.
His hair was a mess as though he’d been running his hands through it and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. He also looked distracted.
“Astra?” He sounded confused. “Don’t tell me I forgot you were coming over.”
She smiled as she came up the steps. “You didn’t. I wanted to surprise you.” She lifted the grocery bag. “I’m not a chef or anything, but I am a decent cook.”
His grey eyes lit up. “You’re going to make me dinner?”
Astra laughed. “That was the plan.”
He hesitated and she guessed what the issue was.
“Are you in the middle of work?” she asked.
Rune nodded, his expression sheepish. “I’m on a roll and I haven’t quite hit my word count for the day. But I don’t want to be rude—”
She lifted her other hand. “It’s not rude. I sprang this on you unexpectedly. We can do it tomorrow if you prefer or I can cook while you work, and you can have a hot meal when you’re done.”
A grin spread across his face. “I choose option two if I’m deciding.”
“Okay, then,” she said, brushing by him into the house. “It’ll take me about an hour start to finish. Will that be enough time?”
“Sure, sure. Thank you, Astra. My only plans for dinner tonight were a frozen pizza and maybe a beer.”
She vaguely heard his words but didn’t comprehend them because she was staring in shock at the continued color scheme of black and grey throughout the living room and what little she could see of the dining nook and kitchen.
It struck her why he might like that scheme when she saw the silvery grey football helmets sitting on a shelf in the dining nook.
He was a Raiders fan. But, holy shit, he’d taken it about a thousand steps too far.
“You okay?” Rune asked, breaking her out of her trance.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah. I’m fine,” she muttered. “Go ahead and get back to work. I’ll just, uh, get started in the kitchen.”
“Make yourself at home,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be in the back of the house in my office, okay?”
“Okay,” she answered faintly.
After he vanished down the hallway, she stared at the walls of the living room and dining room. Slowly, she walked past the couch, then the dining table, and into the kitchen. Black tile, grey trim. Oh, God.
She opened the cabinet above the coffee maker and found a mix of black and white coffee mugs, several with the Raiders logo on them. She moved through the kitchen, relieved when she realized that his pots and pans weren’t all silver and black. He had a blue enameled cast iron Dutch oven and several non-stick pans in various colors. Maybe he wasn’t completely married to that color scheme.
Shaking her head, Astra had to smile. His interior decorating tastes might be questionable, but all his kitchen appliances and cookware were in excellent shape and top quality. It was clear that he spent time in the kitchen using them.
Astra put thoughts of his obsessive decorating scheme out of her mind and got to work. She wasn’t planning anything fancy, just a simple stir fry and some dumplings to go with it, but there was still a lot to do. She mixed up a marinade, diced the chicken, and mixed it all together in a gallon plastic bag. The chicken went into the fridge, and she washed the knife and stuck the plastic cutting board into the dishwasher.
Twenty minutes later, she had a pile of chopped vegetables and two skillets heating on the stove, a thin sheet of oil in the bottom of each. Once she began, it only took fifteen minutes to cook everything. Once it was done, she set the table with the black dishes from his cabinet, which made her smile and shake her head when she saw them. The dumplings went on one of the plates and she found a wide, shallow bowl that she used to spread the rice on the bottom and poured the stir fry on top.
The entire time, she didn’t hear a peep from Rune. With everything ready to go on the table, including the bottle of white wine she’d brought, she walked down the hall toward his office. As she drew closer, she could hear the quiet click of the keyboard, but it was inhumanly fast. She wondered if he went through keyboards as quickly as he typed.
He didn’t turn when she stuck her head through the door, his eyes steady on his screen and an expression of intense concentration on his face. Noise cancelling headphones sat over his ears, which explained why he didn’t hear her approach.
