King doesn’t knock, he just walks in. I’ve been home twenty minutes and I knew it wouldn’t take long before King was right behind me.
“Thought I told you to stay at Buck’s.”
“I got bored.”
He shakes his head.
Getting off the couch, I walk toward him. “You brought me food?” I ask, noting what’s in his hand.
“Chinese,” he corrects, holding out the white plastic bag.
His face is blank and serious. He’s mad at me, but not that mad. I’m cautious.
“You brought me Chinese,” I amend, looking at his face, then looking at the bag. I’m a little surprised. “You’re not mad at me?”
He gives me a look, dark and dangerous. “Oh, I’m mad.”
“How mad.”
“Mad mad.” He growls, eyes narrowed on me.
Walking around me and into the kitchen, I watch King set down the bag and dig through it. Pulling out the goods and putting them on the counter, there’s at least nine white to-go boxes. It smells heavenly. Spicy. Tangy. Sweet. Garlicy. My mouth waters, and it’s not just because the food smells like heaven. It’s the man holding the bag and boxes.
“But you bought me Chinese?” I repeat, walking up next to him and peeking inside one of the boxes. Noodles, my kryptonite. A second on the lips ends up a lifetime on the hips and all that bullshit.
“You don’t like it?” he asks, stopping his task and looking at me, his eyebrow raised, waiting for a response.
“I like it.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
He shakes his head. “Because dinner was fucked earlier. Figured you were hungry. So?”
“So?”
“You hungry?”
Nodding, I open another box. House fried rice. Special house fried rice. The rice I order every time I get Chinese. Specifically, the Chinese from Ocean Kingdom. “How’d you know?” I ask him, tearing my chopsticks from their paper pouch and digging into the steaming deliciousness.
King just shrugs, smirking. “Good guess.”
“A really good guess.”
I grab the rice. Whether it’s for me or not is unimportant because I’m eating it. I walk into the living room. “Floor picnic.”
“The fuck’s a floor picnic?”
“A picnic on the floor,” I tell him slowly, laughing at his frown. “You know, you eat on the floor.”
“Could eat at the table or the island. Hell, even the fucking couch. But the floor?”
“We’re eatin’ on the floor.”
“I guess we’re eatin’ on the floor,” he grumbles, grabbing the boxes and sitting down next to me. He doesn’t look happy about it.
Backs leaning against the couch, we dig in, swapping boxes and stuffing our faces. King flips on the TV and finds a movie, some horror flick. Gruesome and bloody.
“How’d you know about the fried rice?” I ask him when the man on the TV slices the other with a giant knife.
King looks odd sitting on the floor. Big and bulking, he makes my couch look little. He makes everything look little.
Wearing a pair of old blue jeans and gray T-shirt, he’s very much the man’s man he’s always been. But his scary badassness has nothing to do with his clothes and everything to do with his attitude, his size, and the look on his hard face. King’s a scary man, and here he is, having a floor picnic with me.
“Heard you talkin’ about how good it was while you were eatin’ it a while back.”
His words shock me. King, the man’s man. The asshole in leather. The tattooed, bike riding crazy man. The love ’em and leave ’em man. The angry man. That man that remembered something I ate and liked a while ago. A while ago being over a year, since before this time I hadn’t seen him in a long time.
He remembered.
“Yeah?” I ask, looking at it out of the corner of my eye.
“Yeah, about three years ago. Your hair was different. Darker. You were sittin’ at the bar with El, eatin’ and talkin’. Heard you say it was your favorite.”
“And you remembered?” I’m touched. Shocked, but touched. He remembered. He listened and he remembered the food I ate and liked. Remembered my damn hair color. Utterly fucking shocked.
He lifts that big, tattooed shoulder.
“You think about me,” I tease, leaning into him.
“Always tryin’ to get me to tell you how much I think about you, yeah?”
I might be. “Maybe.”
King just shakes his head and reaches for his phone when it rings. “Yeah,” he answers, getting off the floor and pacing toward the kitchen. “Okay,” I hear him say. “No shit,” he adds, looking back over at me, his eyes narrowed.
Uh-oh.
“Thanks, brother.” He ends his call and walks into the living room. He doesn’t look happy.
“No girl’s night.”
“Excuse me?”
“No girl’s night. Not after yesterday.”
Our floor picnic ruined, I get up, leaving the food on the floor, and head toward my stairs.
“I’m going.”