Page 30 of Down Knot Out
His gray eyes meet mine with a directness that quickens my pulse. “Of course, I remember.” His voice drops lower, a rumble felt more than heard. “I remember you used to roll them up like tiny burritos and eat them in three bites. Never two, never four.”
A laugh bubbles up, surprised and a little embarrassed. “I didn’t count the bites.”
“You absolutely did. You’d frown if you took too big a bite and finished in only two.” He mimics my expression. “Like you’d somehow failed at the proper mu shu experience.”
I shake my head, but of course, he’s right. I’d forgotten that quirk until now, but hearing him describe it brings the memory flooding back with crystal clarity.
“I also want?—”
“Egg rolls with sweet and sour sauce on the side,” he says at the same time I do.
My hand moves to my hip, and I swat him with my fan of menus. “Are you a mind reader now?”
“No.” He pulls out his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. “I just remember what you like.”
Such a simple statement, yet it lands with the weight of everything unspoken between us. Iremember what you like. As if the years apart were nothing. As if he’s kept a catalog of my preferences filed away, waiting for the moment he could use them again.
“Is that okay?” he asks when I don’t respond. “The order, I mean.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
As he dials the restaurant, I study his profile—the strong line of his jaw now covered with stubble, the small scar above his right eyebrow that’s new, the way his black hair has grown so long. The familiar alongside the unknown. The Dominic I remember mixed with the man he’s become.
He places the order with easy confidence, repeating my preferences exactly, adding extra sauce without me having to ask. It’s disarming, this evidence of how I’ve lived in his memory all this time. That, while I was trying to forget him, he was committing me to memory in even greater detail.
How can he be so open about it? So comfortable showing me how he carried these pieces of me with him? It ties me in knots, this casual revelation of feelings I’ve spent years trying to forget.
When he hangs up, he winces and rubs his temple.
“The couch,” I command, remembering whyhe’s here in the first place. “You should be resting, not standing around looking at my things.”
I hurry to the couch and shove pillows aside to clear space for his larger frame. “Sit back, get comfortable. The doctor said you need to rest.”
Dominic sighs in exasperation. “I’m tired of resting. It’s been weeks of nothing but resting.”
“And you have weeks more to go.” I point to the cleared section of the couch. “Sit.”
He complies, lowering himself with a careful movement that betrays his pain despite his protests. Tension tightens the skin around his lips as he squints. He’s hurting more than he wants to admit.
Without thinking, I move to the lamp behind the couch, switching it on to its dimmest setting before turning off the ceiling light. The room transforms, bathed now in a warm glow that softens the angles of his face.
“Better?”
“Much.” He relaxes as the gentler light eases the strain on him.
It’s only after I finish adjusting the pillows behind him and draping a soft throw blanket across the back of the couch within easy reach if he gets cold that I realize what I’ve done. The dimmed lighting. The comfortable seating arrangement. Thequiet intimacy of my small living room with just the two of us waiting for food to arrive.
I’ve created the perfect setting for?—
My thoughts screech to a halt as heat crawls up my neck and into my cheeks.
“I’ll get you some water,” I blurt out, turning toward the kitchen before he sees my face. “I don’t have anything else to offer. No soda or juice or—” I cut myself off, aware I’m rambling. “Just water. Is water okay? Of course, it’s okay. Everyone drinks water, it’s not like you’re allergic to water, that’s not even possible, well maybe if you were a witch in The Wizard of Oz, but that’s fiction and?—”
I clasp my hand over my mouth, mortified by the nervous babble. This is what he does to me. Reduces me to a jittery, rambling mess just by sitting on my couch looking like he belongs.
“Water is perfect,” he calls from the living room, amusement in his tone.
I take a moment in the kitchen, stuffing the menus back in their drawer and pressing my cool palms to my heated cheeks, trying to compose myself. It’s just Dominic. Just my ex-boyfriend from years ago who’s now one of the Alphas courting me. In my apartment. On my couch. Surrounded by my pheromones and adding his own.
