Page 13 of Battered & Broken
I had a date to get ready for.
The restaurant was a mixed bag of modern decor and high prices with smoky tables where you cooked your own food.
“I love Korean barbecue, but I’ve never been to a place this nice before.”
Ozzie held my hand as we waited to be seated. “I’ve brought clients here before, and it’s a whole experience.”
When we got to our booth, I expected Ozzie to sit down across from me. But he didn’t. He just scooted onto the bench beside me. There was plenty of room for two, but I stayed in the middle so I had an excuse to be pressed up against his side.
“This looks great.” A grill was built into the table that the server lit up before handing over our menus. He gave us a quick rundown on how the fixed menu worked, but Ozzie didn’t even bother to look at it.
“We’ll be ordering from the Platinum menu.” He turned to me. “What would you like to drink, sweetheart?”
Every time I heard him call me that, my belly fluttered and I grinned like a madman. “Maybe a cocktail?” I shrugged and turned to the server. “What’s good?”
The server cocked his head and thought about it. “If you like ginger beer, the Korean Mule. If you prefer something a little fruity, then go with the Soju Highball.”
He glanced at me and grinned. “I’ll go with the highball.”
“Then bring me the Korean Mule. We can swap if he doesn’t like his.” Ozzie was even hotter when he was taking charge.
But when he dropped his straw onto the grill and it lit up in flames, I burst out laughing. "Smooth."
"I never claimed to be smooth." He used his chopsticks to remove the straw and drop it into his water glass. “Hope that’s not a dealbreaker."
I leaned across from him and puckered up for a kiss. "I think I can live with it. As long as you don’t set the apartment on fire next time you make me dinner."
"I’ll keep my straws away from all open flames, I promise."
A few minutes later, a row of condiments and seasonings were lined up across the table and plates of meat began to appear. It was a lot, but we quickly got the hang of chopping up pieces of meat with scissors. Ozzie loaded the grate with short ribs and lamb and wagyu with the same focused look he wore when he was fixing the lock on my door.
Like whatever was in front of him deserved his full attention.
He must have felt me staring because he turned to me and did a double take. "What?"
"Nothing." I picked up my chopsticks and took a tiny bite of the kimchi. "I just like watching you."
"Watch the meat, not me. You don’t want it to burn."
“I can do both.” I tended the grill but kept my eyes on my man. We talked through the whole meal like we'd been doing all week, but it was different now. Less superficial chitchat, like I wanted him to know everything about me. And I wanted to knoweverything about him. A part of me kept waiting for us to run out of things to say, but we never did.
At some point, he asked me what my favorite food was.
“Galbi.” I pointed at the plate in front of us. “It’s my new favorite."
He grabbed a bite of the short ribs with his chopsticks and fed it to me. “Okay, before tonight, what was your favorite food? Like, the thing you'd eat if nobody was watching.”
I thought about it for exactly two seconds. "Ding Dongs."
He put his chopsticks down and chuckled. "Like the snack cakes? They look like hockey pucks."
"Exactly." I picked up a piece of the wagyu that was perfectly medium rare. "I keep them in the pantry for emergencies."
He stared at me in disbelief. "You have a shelf for Ding Dong emergencies?"
"I do… But it's more of a system, really." I paused to let that sink in, knowing he’d have questions, and he did not disappoint.
“Where?” He took a sip of his drink. "I’ve been in that apartment every day for two weeks. How could I have missed that?"
