Chapter 12 #2
“Ah.” He seems to consider it. “… thank you.”
Smiling up at him, I squeeze past him and up the stairs. As I lead the way up the narrow staircase, I look back at him over my shoulder and say, “Unfortunately, you snore.” and I race up the stairs as he laughs and gives chase.
Flint puts the grocery bags in the kitchen whilst I get started on sorting and putting things away. Funny — I don’t remember buying a bag of slutty smut books or a bag of baked goods.
“Where’d you…”
“Betsy.” we say together. I don’t even bother unpacking the books, instead deciding to see what treats she’s sent home with Flint.
The woman is convinced I’ll either light the apartment on fire trying to cook or that I’ll just starve to death with my tendency to forget to eat.
Unlike a lot of the older women, however, she doesn’t skinny shame me, which I appreciate.
I hardly do it on purpose — I just don’t always realize that I’m hungry until I’m hangry and then I can be everyone’s problem.
While I’m searching for a fresh bagel (my current fixation food), Flint rummages through the bag of books. “Are you going to write?” he asks, studying a particularly thick romance book with mostly naked people on the cover. “Are books like this popular? Sex books, I mean.”
“Yes. I mean — yes, I’m going to write, but also yes, ‘sex books’ are pretty popular. There are a lot of different tiny categories under the banner of ‘sex books’, though. More tiny categories within those categories.”
“Really?” He doesn’t seem convinced. “How many ways can there be to write sex?”
I’m just going to choose what to answer and hope he doesn’t notice.
“Really. There’s monster romance, hockey romance, why choose adventures, single dads, billionaires, sapphic, sentient objects, mafia, cowboy.
The list goes on and on. And within those categories, there are even more: fake marriage, one bed, forced proximity, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, age gap.
That doesn’t even touch on the trigger warnings. ”
He finally focuses on me instead of the smut he’s holding. He has great hands. Wide palms, long fingers. Calluses run along the top of his palm, a testament to the time he has spent swinging a sword and working out doors. No soft, pampered hands here.
“What?” I ask. I completely missed what he said. I was too busy fantasizing about his hands and how they felt on my face. Wondering how they’d feel in other locations.
“I asked, what’s a trigger warning?”
Nope. I’m not going there. I can’t even imagine trying to explain something like ‘praise kink’ to this man. No thanks.
“We’ll save trigger warnings for another time.” Gods that sounds dirty and slightly ominous.
“If you say so. If you’re going to write, can I borrow one of these?”
I try not to wince. Do I want to be responsible for answering any questions that these book recommendations of Betsy’s may bring up?
Not particularly, but maybe if he’s engaged in reading something, he won’t be as much of a distraction while I’m trying to puzzle this stupid story together.
I guess I can always make him ask Betsy since sending these books with him was her fault in the first place.
“Sure,” I take a bite of my bagel and talk around it. “Help yourself to the books, the shower — I can show you how it works — to any of the food in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what you or Calida would want, so I guessed. If you hate it all, we can go back to the store. Where is she, anyway?”
“Last I checked, she was making friends with Betsy and being doted on. Don’t worry, she knows her way back here. As for the food, I’m sure it’s fine. She eats rats and I’m not picky.”
Right. Betsy. Who I purposefully avoided today so I wouldn’t have to discuss Calida or Flint or this weird situation we’ve all found ourselves in. Oddly, “random roommates” was not on this year’s bingo card.
“Great,” I say, skirting around him and heading for my writing desk. “Then just let me know if you need anything.”
As my laptop boots up, I watch out of the corner of my eye as he finishes his perusal of the books and chooses one.
Unfortunately, due to the angle and his massive hands, I can’t tell what he picked.
I hope it’s a historical fiction novel about, I don’t know, something un-sexy, like the Civil War or putting up preserves.
But Betsy put that bag together so I know with zero doubt it absolutely fucking isn’t.
He sits to remove his boots and with a happy sigh, lays down with his head propped on a throw pillow, to begin his book.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I focus on the screen in front of me and try to lose myself in Goira.
The smell of smoke brings me back. My eyes are watering and who knows how long that’s been happening? On auto-pilot, I save my work and back it up before shoving away to see what the fuck is burning. Did I leave a candle unattended?
No. It’s Flint. In the kitchen. My kitchen. And smoke is billowing from the oven.
Running the few feet between, I jerk Flint away, slam the oven door closed and turn it off. I hurry to open all of the windows.
“What the actual fuck?”
Flint glares at the stove. “I’m generally a very good cook.”
“Clearly you would excel at smoking!”
He turns his glare to me and I swear his eyes glow. “This thing is defective!”
“Oddly, I’ve never had any trouble with it!” I shout back.
He looks surly.
I take a deep breath, smoke be damned, and try to center. Gesturing wildly with my arms, I ask, “What is this?”
"I was trying to make dinner. You’ve been lost in writing for hours, which is great.
I thought I could surprise you with dinner since you didn’t appear to be surfacing any time soon.
And you offered to share your home. Besides, when you’re working that hard, food is good for you. ,” he finishes, lamely.
Shit. He was trying to be considerate. Damn it! I can’t guilt a man for smoking us out of house and home when it was with good intentions.
I risk a glance at him and realize I’ve embarrassed him.
Double shit.
I take a good look around the kitchen. The steaks are prepared and are being kept warm, wrapped in aluminum foil. There’s a salad in the large bowl I usually only use for cake batter and making brownies. When the hell — did he make a salad? Shit shit shit. He was trying to be nice.
“What’s in the stove?” I ask.
“Potatoes,” he mutters.
My favorite.
“I was trying to bake potatoes but this thing doesn’t have any instructions. Cooking over an open fire doesn’t require a temperature or a timer so…” he looks so defeated.
Okay. This can be salvaged. The oven is clearly a dead loss. I’m not opening it again. Fuck that.
“That’s okay. We have other ways to bake potatoes.”
He still isn’t meeting my gaze. “We do?”
“We do.”
“…can you show me?”
I smile. Reaching out, I take his hand. “Sure. It’s actually way easier. Come on.”
Pulling him to the sink, I show him how to make a microwaved baked potato.
I keep my eyes trained on the book in front of me as Ash puts her music in her ears and effectively forgets I’m here.
I almost lost it earlier, watching her draw from the Earth as she smelled the flowers.
I had hoped, desperately, that she would open her eyes and I would see that veil lift and she would know me.
She would know all she has put away or that has gone missing, the way she went missing.
I had to bite my tongue when she mentioned the things she sees when her brain gets “overstimulated”.
I wanted, so badly, to ask what it is she’s seeing.
I may have gone so far as to throw propriety out the window and pried to see what was going on in her mind, but she did not appear to be seeing anything in the moment.
I tasted her surface emotions and felt the flowers calming her.
The way they used to when we were children.
I clench my jaw. It’s not time to think of that.
Thinking of the before is only going to lead to more complications.
More questions I won’t – can’t – answer.
It’s complicated enough with her asking questions about home, thinking it's something she’s manifested in her brain and doesn’t exist. If I didn’t know the strength of the bindings around her, I’d be tempted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.
Beg. For her, I’d even beg. To remember.
Me.
Us.
Goira.
Anything.
I’d beg her to remember, because I can’t fucking forget.
Just one more event for the Gods amusement, I suppose. I’ll never voice it but I think they’ve had enough of our strife and suffering to fuel their amusement for centuries to come.
I fight back a smile. Ash would kick my ass for thinking negatively about the Gods.
Hours later, she is still wrapped up in what she thinks is a story.
I can feel my stomach rumbling and Calida has made her presence known.
Despite eating numerous rats at the book shop, she’s whining in my head that she needs food.
Fuck. Ash probably needs food, too, although she is too wrapped up in what she’s doing to do anything about it.
I know damn well she’s had nothing but that bagel from earlier today and her ridiculous amounts of coffee.
Ash is nothing if not determined.
From my spot on the couch, I examine the kitchen.
I used to do the majority of the cooking and I can’t imagine things in this world are that different.
Heat and food — it can’t be that difficult, right?
I can probably make dinner for the three of us.
If I remember correctly, women of this world positively swoon over a man who knows his way around domestic tasks.