32 | Dinner Is Served
TESS
Monday
His apartment was exactly what I expected and nothing like what I expected at the same time.
High-rise building in a neighborhood where I couldn’t afford the coffee, an elevator with a mirror that showed me exactly how tired I looked after a full shift, and then the door opened and I walked in and just—stopped.
High ceilings. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the city that at this hour looked like something alive. Dark wood and leather and plants I hadn’t expected from a man who’d never mentioned plants, and books—a lot of books, on shelves that were built into the wall like they’d always been there.
“Say something,” Theo said behind me.
“I’m processing.”
I turned slowly. Took in the kitchen—clean lines, expensive appliances, the kind of counter space that made my studio feel like a closet. The dining table that seated eight. The couch that probably cost more than my rent.
“You’re rich,” I said.
“I do okay.”
“Theo.” I gestured at the window. “That’s the whole city.”
“It’s a nice view.”
“It’s a ridiculous view.” I walked to the glass and looked out, and the city spread below us in every direction, lit up and restless. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen it like this.”
“Now you can see it whenever you want,” he said simply.
I looked at him over my shoulder. He was leaning against the kitchen doorway watching me with that quiet expression—not waiting for any reaction.
“Show me the books,” I said.
He smiled. “After dinner.”
He made pasta. Simple—sun-dried tomatoes, chilli, prosciutto and parmesan.
We ate at the dining table with the city behind us and talked about nothing in particular—a difficult dog I’d seen that afternoon, a client call that had gone sideways, the specific injustice of rush hour traffic on a Monday morning.
It was easy. It kept being easy, which I kept noticing and then telling myself to stop noticing.
After dinner he cleared the plates and I stayed at the table with my wine—expensive, because of course it was—and watched him move around the kitchen.
“I should go,” I said more to myself and then didn’t move at all.
There was something hypnotic about watching him clean—the unhurried way he rinsed things, the domesticity of it.
His forearms flexing when he was taking dishes away.
The fabric of his t-shirt stretched across his back.
“Okay.”
He kept rinsing dishes.
“I have work tomorrow.”
“I know.” He glanced over his shoulder, smiled. “More wine?”
“Yes.” The answer came out before my brain caught up. I felt my face warm. “I mean—”
“Good.” He refilled my glass without comment, the corner of his mouth doing something I chose not to examine.
“It’s already seven-thirty,” I said.
“Mm.”
I didn’t move.
He dried his hands on a dish towel and turned around, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed, watching me with something that was definitely amusement now.
“I’m coming.” I picked up my wine glass. Set it back down. “In a minute.”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped slightly. “You are.”
He pushed off the counter. Walked toward me—not fast, not urgent and stopped behind my chair.
His hands settled on my shoulders first—warm, unhurried. Then he turned me slowly, swiveling the chair until I was facing away from the table. Facing him.
“Theo—”
“Stand up.”
Something in his voice made me stand without thinking about it. His hand settled at my lower back, warm and certain, guiding me the two steps to the kitchen counter.
“Put your hands on the counter,” he said quietly.
I put them there.
His body pressed against mine from behind—solid, close—and his mouth found the side of my neck. I exhaled before I could stop myself.
The counter.
The city spread out in the window in front of me like a backdrop for something I hadn’t known I was walking into. His hands settled on my hips, warm through the fabric of my dress, and I felt him breathe against my hair.
Just that. Just standing there for a moment.
Then his lips moved along my neck—slow—and his hands slid to the hem of my dress. He gathered it upward, unhurried, giving me every opportunity to say something.
I didn’t say anything.
The cool air hit my skin. His fingers traced the lace at my hip—once, twice—and my grip tightened on the counter.
“Still want to leave?” he murmured against my skin.
“No.” The word came out breathless. “Absolutely not.”
His laugh was low and warm against my neck. Then his hands moved and I stopped thinking about leaving entirely.
He took his time. That was the thing I hadn’t expected—not urgency but its opposite. A deliberate, unhurried attention that felt like being read. His fingers slid beneath the lace, tracing slowly inward, and I exhaled sharply.
“Okay?” he asked against my ear.
“Yes.” Unsteady.
His fingers found me and I bit down on a sound, my knuckles whitening on the counter’s edge.
He was patient about it—learning, adjusting, returning to the things that made my breath catch until I was pressing back against him without meaning to and he made a low sound against my neck that meant he’d noticed.
“Theo—”
“I know, I can feel you.” Rough now, the careful control fraying at the edges. “I’ve got you.”
His fingers moved deeper, the heel of his hand pressing exactly where it needed to, and I stopped trying to stay quiet.
The city glittered ahead of me and I watched it without seeing it, my breath fogging the glass slightly, his mouth moving along my shoulder while his hand worked me steadily higher.
I was already shaking when he finally pushed the fabric aside and pressed into me—slow, one long stroke—and his arm came around my waist pulling me back against him while his other hand stayed exactly where it was, and I thought: he remembered, and then I stopped thinking altogether.
He moved with the same unhurried certainty he did everything—deep, his mouth at my neck and his hand between my thighs, both at once, until I was gripping the counter for balance and the sounds I was making had stopped being something I controlled.
“Theo—I’m going to—”
His arm tightened around my waist. “Let go.”
I did.
The orgasm hit hard, my whole body clenching, his name breaking apart somewhere in my chest before it reached my mouth.
He held me through it—both arms now, his mouth pressed to my shoulder, his hips still moving in slow deep strokes until the last wave passed and I was hanging from the counter more than gripping it.
He stilled. Pressed his lips to the back of my neck.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment.
Then I laughed—breathless, wrecked. “I don’t think my legs work.”
“Convenient.”
“Very convenient.” I turned in his arms. Looked at him. His hair was slightly messed, his expression softer than usual, and there was something in his eyes that made my chest tighten in a way I was getting used to now. “You remembered.”
“I told you I would.”
“I know.” I reached up and touched his jaw. “I just didn’t think you’d—” I stopped.
He watched me not finish the sentence. Didn’t push.
Just pulled me closer and pressed his mouth to my temple, and I stood there in his kitchen with the city behind me and his arms around me.
“Stay for the night,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
I looked at him for a long moment, then I kissed him.
Tuesday
I left my work calendar at his place.
I didn’t realize until I was already on the subway home, and I sat there for three stops trying to decide if I actually needed it tonight or if I was constructing a reason to go back, and then I got off at the next stop and took the train in the other direction.
He buzzed me up without asking why.
“I left something,” I said when he opened the door.
“I know. I found it on the table.” He stepped back to let me in. “I was going to drop it off later today.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.” He was already walking to the kitchen. “Have you eaten?”
“I was going to pick something up—”
“Sit down.”
I sat.
He made eggs. Efficient, unhurried, moving around the kitchen with the same ease as the night before, and I watched him and tried to remember the last time I left like this.
I couldn't.
He set a plate in front of me and sat down across from me.
I took a bite. Said nothing.
He let me be quiet, which was its own kind of answer to something I hadn’t asked.
After dinner I told him I should really go home this time, that I didn’t even have a toothbrush, and he looked at me with a perfectly neutral expression and said:
“Check the bathroom.”
I checked the bathroom.
The toothbrush was on the shelf next to his—still in the packaging, my favourite shade of orange—but that wasn’t what stopped me.
Next to it was a small basket I hadn’t noticed before.
Neat, deliberate. Face wash. Moisturizer—the right kind, not the cheapest kind, the one that smelled like something clean. Shampoo. Dry shampoo. Tampons.
I stood there looking at it for a long moment.
Then I picked up the moisturizer and turned it over and put it back and stood there a little longer.
The thing was—it was organized. Not thrown together. Someone had thought about what a person might need and gone and gotten it, and that was either very thoughtful or very—
I went back to the kitchen.
“There’s a basket,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“With things in it.”
“Yeah.”
I looked at him. “Do you just—have that? For—” I gestured vaguely, aware that I was asking something I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to.
He looked at me for a second, reading the question I hadn’t finished.
“I bought it today,” he said. “For you.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you might want some things here.” A pause.
“You assumed I’d keep coming back.”
“I hoped,” he said, smiling now. The same word as before, the same quiet certainty underneath it.
I looked at him standing there in his kitchen in the soft light of his expensive apartment, completely calm, like buying a woman a basket of toiletries on a Tuesday was the most natural thing in the world.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“I’ll stay.”
Something in his expression shifted—small, quick, gone before I could name it. But I’d seen it.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll make tea.”
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