“What makes you say that?” she asks.
Wanting to lighten the mood, I say, “Don’t play poker—you have tells.” I take a big drink of beer, draining almost half the glass.
“I do not.” Her chin lifts, her look indignant.
“Fine, then. Strip poker later,” I tease.
“No, I am not playing any kind of poker with you. I’m not interested in taking your money or your clothes.”
A woman not interested in my money or my clothes—now that’s a new one. Oh right, she thinks I’m a lobster fisherman, not a CEO. I need to straighten her out on that. But I do kind of like her not knowing. Conversation has been easy between us, no stress, no awkward moments, but that can change on a dime once a woman discovers I’m a multi-millionaire.
Not that I ever bring it up. I’m not a complete asshole, and I don’t want to come off as some boastful jerk. But in this situation, I should broach the subject at some point tonight.
But just now, I wiggle my brow. “Ooh, braver words have never been spoken.”
She lifts her chin. “Words I can back up, mind you.”
I do love a woman with confidence. I smile at her, realizing I’m having a good time. I haven’t dated in so long that I’d forgotten what it was like. Not that we’re dating. I’m not trying to start anything personal with her. “It’s on.”
She takes a sip of wine. “You were warned.”
I laugh. “Listen, about what I do—”
She lifts her hand to stop me. “Can we please not talk about work? I rather talk about anything else. Why don’t you tell me about your family, how long you’ve been fishing?”
“I’ve been fishing my entire life,” I say honestly. “I think I had a rod in my hand before a spoon. We all did.”
“We?”
“I have three older brothers.”
That wistfulness comes over her again. “That sounds wonderful. I would have killed for a brother or sister.”
“You have a houseful now, or did you forget? You might come to regret it, though. Speaking of killed, I’m lucky to have made it out of childhood alive.”
She’d picked up her glass to take another drink, but it stills inches from her mouth. “What?”
“Being the youngest in a house of boys was not fun. Brutal, actually.”
She chuckles uneasily. “What did they do to you?”
I press my palm to my forehead and shake my head. “You don’t want to know.”
She leans toward me a little. “Oh, but I do.”
“Where do I begin? Okay, well, they used to love to play hide and seek with me.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“That one wasn’t dangerous. I used to hide and cover my mouth to stifle my giggles because I was sure I was so damn good at it. Or at least that’s what my brothers always told me.” I give a humorless laugh. “When I finally came out of my hiding place, I’d find them downstairs playing video games. They told me I was so good they had to give up. It took me a while to figure out they were ditching me.”
She laughs. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. That was mean.”
“We used to play king and guard, too. Have you heard of it?” She shakes her head no. “Of course not. They made it up.” She eyes me, waiting for me to explain. “My brothers would take turns being kings and order me around. Mainly I was doing their chores for them.” Kira covers her smile with her wineglass and takes a small sip. “Go ahead and laugh,” I say, and she does. It’s contagious, and I can’t help but laugh with her.
“Here’s one they had fun with.” I lean toward her. “We’d all get ten chicken nuggets, right? They were our favorite, and we’d eat out once a week. My brothers would take turns playing the chicken nugget game.”
“Oh no, do I want to hear this?” She tugs her lip between her teeth, and my gaze falls to it for a brief second.
“Hey, you opened this can of worms.”
“Oh, please tell me there weren’t worms.”
I laugh. “No worms, but what they’d do is challenge me to see who could eat ten nuggets first. I would go up against a different brother each week, and I’d always win.”
“Really?”
“Sure, because one of the others would point out that if they helped me eat five, then I only had to eat five against the brother eating ten. So every week, one of my brothers got fifteen nuggets, and I only ever got five.”
“Oh, Nate,” she says chuckling. “Your brothers were horrible.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Jenny brings our food, and Kira and I go silent for a moment as we take our first bites. I dig into my lobster macaroni and savor the flavor.
“How’s yours?” I ask.
She dips her spoon in again, blows on the chowder, and slides the utensil into her mouth. My cock twitches as her lips part, and when she makes a sexy bedroom noise, I shift uneasily.
Down boy.
“Sooo good,” she practically moans, and for a second, I visualize her saying that to me while I have her in my bed.
Think of something else, Nate.
“There was a game called Best Bad Chef, where I had to eat things they made and vote one the worst, but the worst was when they took up boxing. Can you guess who became the punching bag?”
Her hand slides across the table and closes over mine. “Oh, no.”
“I learned how to take a punch, that’s for sure, and I learned how to give one.”
“They could have killed you.”
“That might have been the plan.”
Spoon halfway to her mouth she asks, “Where the heck were your parents?”
“Dad was rarely around, but things changed for me when my mother, who was his third wife, finally came from her room, caught on to what her stepsons were doing, and tried to put a stop to it. Tried being the key word here.” But by that time, she was sad and lonely with Dad on the road so much and spent most of her time locked away in her bedroom.
“Third wife?”
Fuck, why am I telling her all this? I’m considering my answer, not wanting to go into the details, when Jenny pops back to see how our first bites were.
“Fantastic, as usual,” I say.
“Best chowder I ever had,” Kira says, and Jenny smiles.
“I’ll be sure to let the chef know.” She spins and heads to the kitchen.