She nodded, testing out that sense once more.
“Dinner?” He shoved his phone in his pocket and did a talk-show style pose to illustrate the pasta was ready.
“Thank you. Yes.” Her stomach was definitely twitchy with the scents of garlic and pasta that invaded her home. She rubbed her cheeks, stood and moved to the pantry, where she pulled out two Hershey bars, handing one to Knox. “I’ve been waiting all day for this, so I’m thinking dessert before dinner? My reward is your reward tonight.”
The plastic packaging peeled away easily so she could break off a chunk from her bar. She let it settle on her tongue and melt there, closing her eyes to experience the full effect of cocoa bean and milk and sugar against her taste buds.
She opened her eyelids, slowly. Letting the experience or the ritual be what it should be. One did not just eat chocolate, it was a full sensory experience, as far as she was concerned.
“I didn’t think you liked chocolate.” Knox’s words were gentle and felt sort of…intimate.
He plated up dinner instead of diving right into his candy.
“I love chocolate. It’s my favorite.” Her second favorite being peaches and cream, and her third favorite being salted caramel with vanilla.
“Then why are we having strawberry shortcake at the big par-tay?” he asked, sliding her plate across the counter to her.
Look at Knox being domestic, he’d even added a fork.
She set aside the rest of the chocolate bar to save for real after-dinner dessert and rolled the linguine onto the tines of her fork. Why were they having shortcake? “I figured shortcake made more sense for a rock star wedding.”
He grimaced. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“I did my research. It was Hendrix’s favorite.”
“Good for him, but I don’t really like strawberry shortcake.” He pulled a face.
“When I asked you, you said it was”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“fine.”
He fixed his own plate, ignored her air quotes. “I saidthatbecause I thoughtyouliked strawberry shortcake.”
Eh. She shook her head. “It’s tolerable. I thoughtyouliked it.”
“The strawberry cake costs thousands of dollars and neither of us even likes it?” He gave her a look like she was a bat shy of a baseball game.
“At least it’s gorgeous and a work of art, even if it doesn’t taste good.” Maybe at her second wedding she’d get a cake that tasted as good as it looked. This wasn’t that. This was about appearances and she’d accepted it.
“Can’t we switch it to chocolate?” he asked, sort of like a guy trying to get into a popular nightclub, but worried he was out of his league. Which was silly, because she’d totally rather have chocolate, appearances be damned.
“If I make chocolate happen, can we keep the outside the same? You good with that?” She seriously liked the idea of the way they would intertwine the buttercream roses with real roses and strawberries.
“Huh.” His eyebrows drew together as he noshed on his noodles.
“Huh, what?” she asked, before lifting her fork to her mouth.
“Just that it’s good to know when my fiancée gets sleepy, she’s easier to negotiate with.” The way he said this, with the deep rumble he rarely used, made it sort of sound dirty. Which was bananas, and the way her body kept responding to him had to stop because they didn’t have that kind of marriage coming to them.
“Your fiancée just really loves chocolate.”
“And she wants to make me happy.”
“Well, that too.” She smiled, lifted her fork to her mouth, and that’s when the world quit spinning. Because what the hell had he done to this pasta? Her taste buds were full-on Hallelujah chorusing over this sauce.
“It’s good, yeah?” Knox asked, clearly pleased with himself.
She took a second bite. Then a third. “It’s from a jar but it doesn’t taste like a jar. What did you do?”
“I don’t like jar sauce.” He pursed his lips. “So I fixed it.”
