14. New Menu #2
A few minutes later, Selena came out of the kitchen carrying a plate and a small container. She set both down in front of me.
"Garlic parmesan tenders and buffalo ranch dip." She winked at me, then walked away.
I looked at the plate. Then I looked at Knox.
"What's this?"
"What does it look like?"
"But The Lantern doesn't serve tenders."
"They do now." He leaned back in the booth. "I told Selena you've been looking for that specific combination for a long time, and she decided to give it a try."
I looked down at the plate again. Golden, crispy, the parmesan baked into the breading. The dip was orange-pink, thick, with flecks of spice sitting on the surface. It looked exactly like what I used to order on Friday nights when my mom didn't feel like cooking.
"I tried them," Knox said. "But I have no idea if they taste anything like what you're looking for. So I told Selena I'd bring you over and let you be the judge."
I picked one up. It was warm in my hand. I dipped it, brought it to my mouth, and bit in.
The crunch was right. The garlic hit first, then the parmesan, then the ranch underneath with the slow burn of buffalo at the back of my throat.
It wasn't exact. The breading was a little thicker, and the ranch had more heat.
But it was close. It was so close that for a second I was sixteen years old again, sitting in a vinyl booth with my parents and my brother, fighting Ian for the last tender on the plate while my dad pretended he wasn't going to order another round.
My eyes burned.
"Nora?"
Knox put his hand over mine.
"Is it close?"
I nodded. My voice came out thick. "It's close."
I put the tender down, wiped my fingers on a napkin, turned to him, and kissed him.
I kissed him harder than I meant to, my hand finding the front of his shirt and pulling him toward me.
He made a low sound against my mouth and his hand came up to my jaw, tilting my face so he could kiss me deeper.
His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone while his mouth opened against mine, and I felt the heat of it all the way down to my stomach.
When I pulled back, I was breathing harder than I wanted to admit. His hand was still on my face. His eyes were dark.
"You really asked Selena to add tenders to the menu for me?"
"It's not hard. The crew's been coming to this bar for years. Selena takes our requests seriously."
I kissed him again. His fingers slid into my hair and I pressed closer, my hand moving from his shirt to the back of his neck. I felt him smile against my mouth, and then the smile was gone because I bit his lower lip and his grip in my hair tightened.
"So Selena passed?" he murmured against my mouth.
"Yeah." I kissed him again, and his free hand found my thigh under the table. His palm was warm through the fabric and his fingers pressed into the muscle just above my knee. I felt my pulse everywhere.
It was the only way I knew to tell him what he'd done.
That he'd taken a story I told him over dinner and turned it into something real.
That nobody had ever listened to me like that, heard what I missed, and then quietly gone and put it back in front of me without asking for a single thing in return.
Knox pulled back. His forehead rested against mine, both of us breathing hard. His hand was still in my hair. Mine was still on the back of his neck.
"We should go," he said.
I nodded.
The drive to Knox's apartment was quiet. His hand was on my thigh the entire time. My fingers rested over his. The streetlights passed through the windshield in slow intervals, and every time his thumb moved against my leg, my breath caught.
His apartment was dark and clean. I didn't see much of it. He closed the door behind us and I turned to him, and then his mouth was on mine and nothing else in the room mattered.
He kissed me like he'd been holding back at The Lantern.
His hands were in my hair, then on my waist, then sliding down my hips, pulling me against him.
I felt the length of his body pressed into mine and my back met the wall.
He pinned me there gently, one hand braced beside my head, the other tracing the line of my waist under my shirt.
His fingers on my bare skin made me shiver.
"Is this okay?" His voice was low, rough at the edges.
"Yes."
He pulled my shirt over my head. I pulled at his.
He helped, tugging it off with one hand behind his neck, and when his chest was bare I pressed my palms flat against it.
Warm skin, hard muscle underneath, the steady hammer of his heartbeat against my hand.
I traced the scar on his neck with my fingertip.
The one I held together in a parking lot two years ago.
He went still under my touch. I leaned in and pressed my mouth to it.
Something in him broke open. He lifted me, and my legs wrapped around him. He carried me through the dark apartment and set me down on the edge of his bed. He stood over me, breathing hard, looking at me like he was making sure this was real.
I reached for his belt.
He knelt over me on the bed, his mouth finding my throat, my collarbone, the space between my breasts.
His hands followed, unhooking, sliding, peeling away everything between us until there was nothing left.
Every place he touched burned slow, and he took his time.
He learned me with his hands and his mouth, patient and deliberate, and I let him.
I let him see every part of me I'd never shown anyone.
When his mouth traveled lower, my fingers tightened in his hair and my back arched off the bed. My breathing came apart. He stayed there until I couldn't think, until the only word I had left was his name.
"Knox." It came out ragged. "Please."
He came back up to me. His face was close to mine in the dark. I could feel his breath, unsteady, mixing with mine.
"Are you sure?"
I pulled him down to me and kissed him. "I'm sure."
When we came together, the sound I made was quiet and involuntary, and his forehead dropped against mine. He held still, letting me adjust, his arms trembling on either side of me. Then he moved, slow at first, his hips finding a pace that made everything in my body tighten and build.
I held onto his shoulders. His mouth found mine in the dark and we breathed into each other, and I could feel every place our bodies met, every shift, every sound he made against my neck when I moved with him.
The pleasure built in waves, each one pulling tighter than the last, until I couldn't hold it anymore.
He felt me let go. He shuddered and followed me, his face pressed into my neck, my name on his mouth.
We lay there afterward. His arm was around me, my head on his chest, our breathing slowing together in the quiet of his apartment. His fingers traced a line up and down my spine. I could hear his heartbeat under my ear, settling back to something steady.
"Knox?"
"Yes?"
"The tenders were really good."
He laughed. It moved through his chest and into mine.
I closed my eyes and let myself be held.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't carrying anything.
Not Ian, not work, not the weight of every decision I'd made since I was twenty years old.
I was just here, in the dark, with someone who'd taken the worst night of my week and turned it into the best one.