Chapter Sixteen
She tried not to think too much about the falling for him thing.
Especially in light of everything he’d told her.
He was apparently bound in some kind of soulmate immortal love pact, with his own personal fairy-tale heroine.
The last thing he needed was her mooning over him.
But of course, the problem was: mooning over him felt far too easy to do, when he did things like abruptly start making her something to eat.
She didn’t even know what he was doing at first.
He got up somewhere in the middle of her trying to sketch a rough picture of what she thought Hell looked like—and where exactly it might be—so he could confirm or deny.
Tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, nose scrunched underneath her glasses, half sure she had it and then scribbling it out.
And then he just got up. He went to the refrigerator and began collecting things from it.
And she noticed, when he did, that none of them were things he liked to eat.
He liked sweet stuff. In fact, it seemed probable now that sweet stuff was some kind of demon diet requirement.
Or his supernatural taste buds were only attuned to sugary things.
And yet everything he got out was not sugary at all.
It was a carton of eggs and a packet of cold cuts and a bunch of peppers and onions and cheese.
Good cheese, too. The kind of stuff that came from the farmers market, all wrapped in paper and already smelling divine.
In fact, everything was like that.
The bread he got out of the breadbasket immediately filled the kitchen with a warm, yeasty scent.
It made her mouth water. It made her realize how hungry she was.
And most important: it told her that he had prepared very carefully for just such an eventuality.
That he was prepared for it all the time, that he got fresh things in constantly, or maybe somehow kept them in suspended animation, or just something, anything, so he could feed his little human companion if he needed to.
He even seemed to consult one of the romance novels she’d given him every now and then. As if he wanted to make absolutely sure that this was the correct thing to give a human woman.
But that wasn’t even the best thing she noticed.
Now her eyes were on his breadbasket. His big green basket, of the kind you could get in a pretty good home decor kind of place. Innocuous, normal, helpful to whoever was in the kitchen. Nothing, really.
Then she let her gaze wander over other items on the counters, and it sank in as she did.
Everything in his kitchen looked exactly like it.
It all matched, right down to each thing being labeled.
The toaster had TOASTER emblazoned across the front.
The paper towel holder had PAPER TOWELS on the circular stand at the bottom.
The knife block had it, the cookie jar had it, the sugar bowl had it.
Though it was two particular items that really got her. Because the other things, sure, maybe some store sold them all in that green metal with the raised lettering. But the microwave ?
The vase on the windowsill, full of flowers?
Oh, it was so the kind of thing someone worried about seeming human would seize on.
I guess this is just what humans do , she imagined him thinking to himself while standing helplessly in the middle of Crate it had cracked the door to the magic in her.
Now it was all here.
The fairy lights that he didn’t understand were only for Christmas.
The rabbit ears on the television that he shouldn’t have needed, but had probably seen in some show.
Heck, even his wrecked couch was probably wrecked because that seemed lived on by humans, to him.
She leaned back to peer at it through the swinging doors into his kitchen, just to confirm this idea.
But now she saw it while wide awake.
And she recognized it this time. She knew why it was familiar.
It was the goddamn couch from the TV show Roseanne .
In fact, the swinging doors—weren’t they from it, too?
She wasn’t sure, she couldn’t remember enough about it.
It was the iconic look of that one piece of furniture that really twigged her.
But once she’d seen that, she knew there were other things.
She tried to think of movies and shows with cabins in them like this one.
Though as soon as she did, she almost laughed.
You clocked it as like something from Evil Dead because it is, her mind said.
He made this mishmash of nonsense from the only sources he had .
Then suddenly she was picturing it: him crawling out of some hellhole.
Ancient in real years but young in his mind.
And almost completely empty of any real knowledge of how to live as a human.
Then buying a television.
Or more likely making one.
Sitting in front of it with a glow on his upturned face, taking in a cavalcade of conflicting information.
Trying to choose what he thought was best, always gravitating toward things he liked even if they were wrong.
Muddling through, until finally here he was.
Cooking for her, as well as he could. “Okay, look, I’ve practiced certain human foods, like omelettes, and I think what I do resembles one, but just bear in mind that I’ve never actually tested it on anyone.
So there is around a sixty percent chance this thing I’m gonna make will haunt your nightmares and your taste buds,” he said casually, over his shoulder.
While her heart tried to tear itself in two.
Don’t , she told herself. But she had to. She had to.
“Maybe I could break this pact somehow. With magic. I mean, if you’re worried about it, and it’s dangerous for everyone involved, and it could make bad things happen. I could stop it,” she said. Quickly, before she could convince herself it was rotten to talk him out of being with someone else.
But then he said:
“Lord, I wish that were possible.”
And oh, the way her heart lifted.
“You do?”
“Of course I do.”
“So you don’t… I mean, do you actually…”
Okay, definitely stop now , she thought. He’s not going to give you the answer you want. He’s already told you she’s the best person ever, and that there’s no one above her. He’s not about to change his mind because you were nice to him or you have some kind of slight lusty connection. So be cool.
Though she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t seem to be.
His back was turned, but she could see he stopped what he was in the middle of doing.
She could see every muscle in his shoulders tensing through that thin robe.
Something on the stove started to catch, and he didn’t do a thing about it.
In fact it took him a full minute before he replied, in this halting kind of way.
“I just want what’s best. And right now, that’s not it.
If any attempt was made to break it, yes, I would be free of it.
But she probably wouldn’t be. You wouldn’t be, honey.
Bad things would happen to you afterward, and I’m not confident right now that I could keep protecting you from them in those particular circumstances.
Or that you could protect yourself from them, if it came to it. ”
“I already did, though. I did something.”
“Not enough for my liking. Now eat your food.”
He set a plate down in front of her on the end of the sentence.
Like a piece of punctuation that said end of discussion .
And it was firm enough that she almost caved.
But then she processed what he was saying—again, so much like he didn’t want to be in this.
Like he was only staying in it because people were in danger.
And she did not like that.
That was not the same as simply letting someone be free.
“What if I just practice? If I try to get better at protecting myself? I mean, I’m going to have to anyway,” she tried, and that seemed to get him a little.
He paused, forkful of cake halfway to his lips.
Then he eyed her over the top of it. Considering, considering, considering, in a way that made her cross her fingers under the table.
Come on, just give me this , she thought at him.
“All right,” he said, finally. “Let’s see what you got.”
A test, she knew. But she couldn’t help being eager to do it anyway. She fumbled that notepad from her pocket, and the pen, and clicked the button on it. Then just let the tip hover over the paper. One eye on him, like maybe he’d give her a sign if she was about to accidentally blow things up.
But he just folded his hands together over his plate of cake.
He waited, and watched her, for whatever she could come up with.
And it kind of made her want to show him. Once Jack is free, keep everyone safe from harm , she scribbled, all in a hot rush. Most of her feeling good about it when she did. But Christ , the second she got to the end of the sentence.
A sound just blared out abruptly, loud enough to fill the kitchen.
Like the buzzer in a quiz when you got something wrong.
“Oh my god, are you serious? Where did that come from?” she asked, her heart still racing from the sheer rude suddenness of it. Then she looked at him, and his expression was purest I told you so .
“From you, honey. That’s you telling you that you made the wrong choice.”