Chapter 14 #2
And when I took her to bed, because that was where this night was headed if neither of us lied, I wanted it to feel like we had chosen it with our whole selves.
Chef Elijah Ware owed me a favor, and more important than that, he knew how to move through my kitchen without turning the whole thing into some corporate-performance version of intimacy.
Three courses. Something rich but not fussy.
Enough care in it for her to feel it without the food trying to do too much.
When I called, he picked up on the second ring, listened, laughed once under his breath, and told me he had the perfect menu.
That was all I needed.
Then I texted her.
Be ready at 7:30. Dress comfortable. I’m taking you back to my place for dinner.
Her answer came back with one little smirk in emoji form.
Talia:
I laughed and left a reaction on it.
That tiny response did more to me than it should have.
It sat low in my body through the rest of the workday, right alongside the memory of her in that truck, the sound she made when she came on my fingers, and the quiet way she had looked at me after, like she knew exactly how close we had come to letting the whole night tip over.
By five-thirty, I was back at the condo, showered, dressed, and moving through the place getting it ready for her.
Not in some trying-too-hard way.
Just the kind of small, deliberate things a man did when a woman mattered enough for him to want the room right before she stepped into it.
The candles were already burning.
Ciara had brought them over a few months back, talking shit about how my place always smelled too crisp, too orderly, too much like expensive hand soap and discipline.
“Your condo smell like a man who drinks water and minds his business,” she’d said, dropping the box on my counter. “Not like a man who ever plans on getting a woman comfortable in here.”
The one I lit tonight was Harlem Candle Company’s Speakeasy. Dark rum, tobacco leaf, vanilla, a little warmth under the smoke.
Better.
The playlist had been coming together since the week I met Talia, though I had not admitted that to myself at first. One song turned into three, then ten, then a whole quiet set built around what felt like her.
Raheem DeVaughn. Joe. Amel Larrieux. D’Angelo. A little Floetry. A little Janet for softness and edge.
Grown ass music. Late-night music.
The kind that knew how to stay in the background until the room needed it to do more.
When Raheem’s “Never Never Land” slid into the queue, I thought about her laugh going low in her throat, about the way she looked when she was listening for real, like music had to get past her mind before it earned the rest of her.
That song had yearning in it.
Promise too.
It sounded like the space between where we had been and where I wanted the night to go.
I had changed the sheets too.
That part mattered.
Fresh white cotton. The better duvet turned down.
Extra pillows. In the bathroom, I left what she might need without making it feel like I had stocked a guest suite for some woman I barely knew.
A new toothbrush still in the box. Fresh washcloth.
Bath sheet folded on the shelf. Gentle Dove soap at the sink and in the shower.
Little things.
Necessary things.
The kind that said if she stayed, she would not have to make do.
I took one last look around to make sure the place felt the way I wanted the night to feel.
Grown. Warm. Intentional.
Like I had made space for her on purpose.
By six-thirty, my security app lit up.
Front entry: Elijah Ware requesting access.
I buzzed him in, then called toward the foyer as I came out of my room buttoning my cuff.
“You get through rush hour all right?”
Chef Elijah stepped inside with two insulated cases and the calm expression of a man who had cooked for richer people than me and liked most of them less.
“I’m here, ain’t I?”
That got a laugh out of me.
“Kitchen’s yours,” I said. “Just don’t embarrass me.”
He looked me over once. “That depends. You trying to feed her or seduce her?”
“Yes.”
That pulled the smallest hint of a smile from him before he moved deeper into the condo and started setting up.
After that, the place changed.
Not loudly. Not all at once. But the condo started gathering itself around the night.
City dimming outside the windows. A chef moving easy through my kitchen.
Candles warming the air. Music waiting its turn.
The table set. The bed made. Every part of the room leaning toward her before she even arrived.
And maybe that should have made me feel exposed.
It did, a little.
Because I could have done less. Ordered food. Taken her somewhere. Kept the night easy to explain if I needed to explain it later.
Instead, I had built space for her.
That was the part I kept coming back to.
Not just how much I wanted her, though that had not left me alone for one minute since last night.
It was wanting her here. In my place. Around my things.
Wanting to hear her laugh in my kitchen and watch her sit at my table like she belonged in the room I came home to when the rest of the world had taken enough from me.
Chef Elijah called from the kitchen asking where I kept the serving platters, and I answered automatically, but my mind was already halfway to seven o’clock.
I checked the time again and felt that pull in my chest and gut at once.
Damn, I wanted her.