“Please.”
I made to release him as he reached for the bottle, but he didn’t let me. One hand held my wrists against his stomach, as the other effortlessly poured me a crystal goblet.
“That feels nice,” he murmured.
It took me a second to realize that he meant the feeling of being wrapped in my arms.
It was strange, no? Surely he’d been in that position half a million times before?
He leaned back without seeming to think about it, closing his eyes ever so briefly to savor the sensation. Then he released my wrists to hand me the glass of wine.
“You like cassoulet?”
I peeked over his shoulder, my face wafting up with the steam.
“I’ve never tried it.”
With a little grin, he scooped up a spoonful and held it to my lips. Trying to be as lady-like as possible, I stretched up on my tiptoes and took a little sip. A second later, I took a much larger sip. I second after that—I grabbed the spoon myself and dipped it back in for more.
“Holy hell!” I exclaimed. “Nick—that’s incredible!”
His lips curved up in a smug little grin as he stepped around behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. A matching smile flitted across both of our faces at the same time, as he bent down and rested his chin lightly on my shoulder.
“Well you’re in luck, that’s only the first course...”
Chapter 11
AS MANY DINNERS AS Nick and I had shared over the last two years, there had never been one quite like this. And I don’t just mean the taste—although I was sure I’d never tried anything so unspeakably delicious in my entire life. I don’t just mean the circumstances—the two of us had broken bread in most every country, in most every situation you could imagine.
It was so much more than that...
To start, we ate it barefoot in his living room—our legs entwining shyly beneath the table as we passed things back and forth. Two, thick candles had been pulled out of a drawer and lit for the occasion. Candles that were tall when we started the meal, and pools of melted wax by the time we finished. We shared only a single bottle of wine. Hardly enough to get anything more than a mild buzz—just a natural pairing with the flavors of French cuisine.
It was a natural conversational lubricant too—not that we needed it. From the second we took those first few bites—it was off to the races.
No subject was too random or obscure for an in-depth analysis. No topic was off-limits for an increasingly lively debate. Every detail was picked apart and hilariously digressed. Stories were tossed back and forth—the characters growing wilder with each pass. The dialogue growing more and more unbelievable.
Five hours later, there had yet to be a single pause.
“Well,” I finally leaned back in my chair, watching as Nick put out a small table fire sparked by the last of the candles, “I take it back. You can cook after all.”
He chuckled softly, waving a lazy hand to waft the spiraling trails of smoke away from the detector on the ceiling. “I told you. That summer in France wasn’t for nothing.”
An image of him dancing around a kitchen in nothing but an apron, flashed through my mind. In the background, I now added a trio of exasperated, white-haired Frenchmen.
“I’m sure they loved you.”
He shrugged casually.
“They asked me back...”
Yeah. And that probably had nothing to do with the fact, that if he and just a few friends pooled their money, they could probably buy France. Or the fact that he had a standing tennis date with the current president.
But there was so much more to him than that. So much more than even I had known, and I’d spent the last two years chasing him around the four corners of the globe.
The man liked to cook. He did so looking glorious in his underwear. He knew the name of the homeless man who lived in the park across the street—each weekend, the two of them would share
a baguette and debate eastern philosophy. He padded around his house, barefoot, humming old Sinatra songs under his breath. He cuddled with pillows in his sleep.