Page 170 of The Sweetest Return

But the man beside me already knew he had arrived. He hung my coat in a closet large enough to embarrass the storage unit I once paid for in New York, then touched the small of my back like bringing me into this part of his life did not require ceremony.

“This is where you live all the time?” I asked.

“Most days.”

“Most days?”

“I travel.”

“Do not be intentionally dry with me, Andre.”

His laugh followed me into the kitchen.

A woman in a black chef’s coat stood at the stove transferring something into a ceramic serving dish. She was pretty, brown-skinned, with locs pinned high and the easy composure of somebody who had probably watched wealthy people behave strangely in kitchens long enough to become immune.

“Dinner is ready whenever you are,” she said.

“Appreciate you, Tasha.”

Her eyes came to me, warm and professional. “Good evening.”

“Hi.”

Tasha disappeared through a side doorway, and Dre caught whatever had crossed my face.

“She comes a couple times a week,” he said. “Before you make a face.”

“I did not make a face.”

“You made at least three.”

“I am simply receiving new information.”

“She meal preps. Sometimes dinner if I know I’ll be home.”

“And here I was thinking you invited me over to impress me with your air fryer.”

“I have one.”

“Of course you do.”

“And it works hard.”

My laugh came before I could stop it, and his smile told me the sound had been exactly what he wanted.

“You want to shower before we eat?”

The question shouldn't have felt intimate after everything we'd already done, yet being inside his home changed it. The Nocturne had belonged to Crown Weekend, old hunger, memory, and emotions neither one of us had known how to contain. This was his actual life. His kitchen. His art. His Monday night. Tasha had left dinner warm because he had planned for me to be here before he even knew whether I would call.

“I should.”

“Come on.”

His bedroom sat at the end of a hallway behind double doors, and I stopped after walking inside.

Dre kept going before he realized I was no longer beside him. “What?”

I looked from the massive bed to the fireplace, windows, and half-open closet glowing softly beyond another door. “This is excessive.”