Kate raised her eyebrows. “You sure drive a hard bargain. In exchange for giving me what I want, you’re going to force me to eat pizza? You must be brutal at the negotiation table. Are you going to make me have dessert, too?”
“Smart-ass. Is that a yes?”
“You’ve talked me into it.”
If he had his way, this wouldn’t be the only thing he talked Kate Meredith into.
“I’ve still got homework to finish,” Jacob said once they’d polished off two pizzas. “Is it okay if I take my Oreos into my room?”
“Sure,” Ian said. After Jacob left he told Kate, “We can have our cookies out on the terrace, if you like.”
“You have a terrace?”
Kate might not be susceptible to his usual moves, but it was a rare New Yorker who could fail to be impressed by an apartment with a balcony.
He grinned at her. “See? My soulless palace of luxury has a few advantages.”
She rolled her eyes and followed him into his study, where French doors led out to a brick-walled terrace.
“Okay, it’s nice,” she acknowledged, looking around at the lush ivy, the potted shrubs, and the rosebushes in wooden planters. As she set her glass of milk on the wrought-iron table and took a seat on one of the cushioned chairs, Ian flipped a switch that turned on fairy lights entwined with the ivy.
“Okay, it’s beautiful.”
“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked as he lit the votives in the center of the table.
She shook her head. “I think I’ll stick with milk. It’s the perfect pairing with Oreos.”
“Very true.”
As he sat down in the chair beside hers, she dipped a cookie into her milk and took a bite.
“The setting is perfect,” she said after a moment. “A beautiful terrace, candlelight, and Oreos. The time has come for Scheherazade to tell a story.”
“Am I Scheherazade in this scenario?”
“Yep.”
“So that would make you the sultan.”
She crossed her legs and waved a cookie in the air like a royal scepter. “I await my nightly entertainment.”
He finished his last Oreo, cleared his throat dramatically, and began.
“Once upon a time, there was a young man who lived in Brooklyn with his mother and sister. When he was in eighth grade, he discovered Dungeons & Dragons.”
Kate nodded. “That’s when my brother got into the game, too.”
“Did you ever play?”
“A little . . . but I got sucked into computer and video games pretty early. That’s where I spent my time.”
“I never got into those. It was just Dungeons & Dragons for me until high school.”
“I still have a hard time visualizing that. D&D is hard-core geeky.”
“You have to bear in mind that young Ian Hart was very different from the handsome, sexy, powerful man you see before you now.”
Kate snorted.
“At thirteen, he was as nerdy as they come—tall and skinny, with braces and acne, and so wrapped up in his fantasy role-playing game, he could have been one of those cautionary tales about kids who lose their grip on reality.”
“So what changed?”
“One day at recess, the school’s basketball coach spotted him shooting hoops and recognized some latent talent for the game. Or it might have been the fact that Ian was tall and the JV team needed a center. Whatever the reason, the coach encouraged Ian to try out for the team, and he made it.”
“A turning point in our plot.”
“Not only was Ian good at sports, but he actually enjoyed them. This discovery coincided with the braces coming off his teeth, his skin clearing up, and his muscular development finally catching up with his height. In short, our hero suddenly had access to a coolness factor previously unattainable—just in time for his freshman year of high school, when his family left Brooklyn and moved to the Bronx.”
“Did he turn his back on his nerdy past?”
“He was fourteen years old and dating his first girlfriend, so we would need a word stronger than yes to answer that question.”
“That sounds like the happy ending to your story, but there’s obviously more. When do the tattoos come in?”
Ian hesitated. It had been easier telling Kate about his youth than he would have guessed, but he’d had enough for one night.
“Didn’t Scheherazade keep her head by drawing out her stories? She’d end on a cliffhanger so the sultan would allow her to live one more night.”
Kate put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Hmm. So you’re saying you’re going to make me wait to hear the rest of the story? I have to admit, it’s a good technique. I’m already wondering when I’ll get to hear it.”