“Guess you could say that.” A tiny grin played around the corners of Susanne’s mouth.

Anja regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You’re planning something.”

“Me? Nah. Not a thing.”

“Uh-huh.” By now, Anja knew her well enough that Susanne’s poker face couldn’t fool her. She resisted the urge to reach over and nudge her only because Susanne was driving.

Soon, they pulled into the parking garage beneath Susanne’s apartment building.

“Want me to wait here while you go get changed?” Anja asked.

“No. Come on in.” Susanne walked around the car and opened the door for her.

Anja smiled. She liked this feeling of being courted. Next time, she would do the same for Susanne.

When they entered the apartment, the first thing Anja noticed was the heavenly scent drifting through the hall from the kitchen. Then, as she walked closer, she discovered a table and two chairs that hadn’t been here at her last visit.

She whirled around to Susanne, who stood with her hands in her pockets, almost as if she were uncertain or embarrassed. “You…you did all of this? Today?”

“Yeah. All the restaurants I called didn’t have any free tables, so it was either this or taking you to a fast-food place for a Yufka.”

“I would have been fine with Yufka, but…wow.” Anja walked into the dining room and slid her palms over the backrest of one chair. “How did you get the table and the chairs so fast?”

“Good old bribery.” Susanne grinned. “That and some elbow grease. I assembled them myself.”

“Wow,” Anja said again because her brain failed to find the words to express her feelings. No one had ever done something like this for her. “Thank you for going to all this trouble.”

“My pleasure. Can you keep an eye on the lasagna while I go take a quick shower and change?”

“Ooh, lasagna! Sure. But you’d better hurry, or I can’t guarantee that there’ll be any left over for you.”

Susanne smiled. “So I picked the right thing to cook?”

“Absolutely. It’s one of my top five dishes—as long as it’s a veggie one.”

“Of course it is,” Susanne said, sounding almost insulted. “I’ll hurry.” She disappeared into the bathroom, and Anja tried not to imagine her stripping out of her clothes and stepping beneath the warm spray of the shower, soapy suds running down the planes of her belly.

Admittedly, her attempt to not picture it was a complete failure, so to distract herself, she peeked into the oven.

The lasagna sizzling away in a large pan looked ready to be served, so she turned down the temperature on the oven. She opened the cabinets until she found plates and glasses. Susanne had already done all of the work, so the least she could do was set the table.