Fable
— · —
He appears the next morning with groceries.
Not just any groceries, groceries sorted by category, organized in matching reusable bags that look like they’ve never been used before, arranged with the kind of precision that suggests either military training or a very intense relationship with organization.
“You need protein,” Orion says, setting the bags on my kitchen counter with careful deliberation. “And vegetables that aren’t potato chips.”
I’m standing in the doorway between my tiny kitchen and my slightly-less-tiny living room, wearing yesterday’s sweatpants and a t-shirt that says I Like Big Books And I Cannot Lie, and I’m trying to figure out if I’m still dreaming or if a stranger actually just showed up at my apartment at eight in the morning with color-coded groceries.
“Chips are a vegetable,” I say, because apparently that’s the hill I’m choosing to die on today.
“They’re fried starch.”
“Fried vegetable starch. Potatoes are vegetables. Therefore chips are vegetables. It’s basic logic.”
He pauses mid-unpack, a carton of eggs in one hand and something aggressively green in the other. Looks at me. His eyes are completely serious, storm-cloud gray, but there’s something at the corners of his mouth that might be amusement.
“That’s not how nutrition works.”
“That’s exactly how nutrition works. I’m a bookstore owner. I read things. I’m very well-informed about the vegetable status of potatoes.”
“You read romance novels.”
“Romance novels are things. My point stands.”
We stare at each other for a long moment. Neither of us blinks. It feels like a contest, except I don’t know what we’re competing for or how to win.
This is a hostage situation. A very well-fed hostage situation. He’s holding me captive with eggs and leafy greens.
“Fine,” I say finally, because my head is still pounding and I don’t have the energy for a nutrition debate before coffee. “Put the vegetables in the fridge. But I’m not promising to eat them.”
“I’ll cook them for you.”
“You’ll what?”
“Cook them.” He says it like it’s obvious, like showing up at a stranger’s apartment to prepare meals is just something people do. “You have a concussion. You shouldn’t be standing over a hot stove.”
“I wasn’t planning to stand over a hot stove. I was planning to eat Pop-Tarts and feel sorry for myself.”
“That’s not a meal.”
“It’s a breakfast food. Breakfast is a meal. Ergo, Pop-Tarts are a meal.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, the almost-smile I’m starting to recognize, the one that means he’s amused but too controlled to actually show it. “Your logic is creative.”
“Thank you. I work very hard at it.”
He finishes unpacking the groceries while I watch, cataloging the contents with a kind of horrified fascination.
Eggs, sorted by size. Bacon, arranged in neat parallel rows.
Something that might be kale or might be the physical manifestation of my anxiety, I can’t tell.
Bread, actual bread, the kind that probably doesn’t have enough preservatives to survive a nuclear apocalypse.
Butter. Cheese. A container of soup that looks homemade.
Did he make me soup? Did this man I met yesterday make me homemade soup?
“You brought soup,” I say.
“Chicken noodle. Good for recovery.”
“You made me soup.”
“It wasn’t difficult.”
“You made me soup.”
He turns to look at me, and his expression is one I can’t quite read, one that might be concern or might be patience or might be the quiet satisfaction of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
“You don’t like soup?”
“I love soup. Soup is great. I’m just…” I wave my hand vaguely, trying to encompass the whole situation. “This is a lot. The groceries. The soup. The showing up. It’s a lot.”
“Too much?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“I’m not used to people taking care of me,” I admit, and the words come out smaller than I intended. “I’m usually the one who… I don’t know. Handles things. Figures it out. Makes my own soup.”
Orion is quiet for a moment, studying me with those steady gray eyes. Then he nods, once, like I’ve confirmed something he already suspected.
“I’ll try to be less overwhelming.”
“You don’t have to…”
“But I’m still cooking you breakfast.”
He cooks me breakfast.
It’s infuriating how good it is, scrambled eggs that are somehow fluffy and seasoned and nothing like the rubbery disasters I produce when I attempt to feed myself. Bacon that’s crispy but not blackened. Toast with butter that he spreads to the exact edges, no gaps, no excess.
Who butters toast this precisely? Who has the time? Who has the mental bandwidth?
“That’s a lot of attention for toast,” he says.
“Your buttering technique is very thorough.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“It’s an observation. I’ve never seen anyone butter toast with that level of commitment.”
He doesn’t respond, but I catch that almost-smile again, and warmth unfurls in my chest that I aggressively ignore.
After breakfast, he informs me that we’re opening the bookstore.
“We’re not opening anything,” I protest, following him down the stairs to Fable Tales. “I’m opening my bookstore. You’re going home to your mountain and your cat who hates you.”
“You have a concussion.”
“A mild concussion. Debra said so. I’m fine.”
“You almost fell over reaching for a coffee cup.”
“That was a spatial awareness issue, not a concussion issue. I’ve always had questionable spatial awareness.”
He ignores me, which is becoming a pattern. Just walks through my bookstore like he owns the place, flipping on lights, checking the thermostat, running his fingers along the spines of books like he’s greeting old friends.
“You’re not allowed to work the register,” he says over his shoulder. “Or climb ladders. Or lift anything heavier than a paperback.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m fine.”
“You’re on stool duty.”
“I’m on what?”
He produces a stool from behind the counter, my stool, the one I use when my feet hurt from standing all day, and places it next to the register with the air of someone issuing a royal decree.
“Stool duty. You sit here. You answer questions. You point at things. I handle everything else.”
“You can’t just…”
“Sit, Fable.”
I sit.
I don’t know why I sit. I don’t know why I’m listening to him. He’s not my boss. He’s not my doctor. He’s a stranger who showed up at my hospital bed because I can’t write numbers correctly.
But I sit, and he smiles, a real one this time, not the restrained near-miss he usually allows himself, and something in my chest does a complicated flip that I’m going to pretend didn’t happen.
The first customer of the day is Mrs. Patterson, because of course it is.
She takes one look at Orion, standing behind my counter like he belongs there, shelving romance novels with mechanical precision, and her eyes go wide with a delight that makes me immediately nervous.
“Oh, my,” she says, clutching her purse. “And who is this?”
“He’s nobody,” I say, from my stool. “He’s just…”
“Orion Halloran.” He extends a hand, smooth and polite. “I’m helping out while Fable recovers.”
“Recovers from what?”
“Car accident,” I say quickly. “Mild concussion. I’m fine.”
“She’s not fine,” Orion corrects. “She’s on stool duty.”
Mrs. Patterson looks between us with an expression I recognize from every matchmaking grandmother in every romance novel I’ve ever sold. It’s the look that says I’m about to meddle aggressively in your love life.
“How wonderful that you have someone to take care of you, dear.”
“He’s not taking care of me. He’s…”
“She needs a book,” Orion interrupts, turning to Mrs. Patterson with that patient attention he seems to have in endless supply. “What are you looking for?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Mrs. Patterson flutters her hand vaguely. “Something with… passion. And a happy ending. And maybe a duke?”
“Have you read The Duke’s Inconvenient Bride?”
I choke on nothing.
Mrs. Patterson blinks. “I don’t think so?”
“Historical romance. Strong heroine. Excellent emotional pacing.” He says it with a completely straight face, like recommending steamy romance novels to elderly women is something he does every day. “Third shelf from the left, second row down. The one with the shirtless man on the cover.”
“They all have shirtless men on the covers, dear.”
“This one has particularly well-defined abdominals.”
I’m dying. I’m actually dying. My concussion has taken a fatal turn because Orion Halloran is standing in my bookstore discussing the abdominal definition of romance novel cover models with a seventy-three-year-old woman who definitely shouldn’t be reading books that spicy.
Mrs. Patterson toddles off to find the book, and I grab Orion’s arm before I can think better of it.
“You can’t recommend that book to Mrs. Patterson.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s… it has…” I lower my voice. “There’s a scene in a carriage that’s very… athletic.”
“Good.” His expression doesn’t change. “She seemed like she could use some excitement.”
“She’s seventy-three.”
“And?”
“And…” I sputter, searching for an argument. “That’s… you can’t just…”
“The book has excellent emotional pacing,” he repeats, as if that settles the matter. “I read it last night.”
“You read…”
“You had a lot of copies on your recommended shelf. I was curious.”
He read a romance novel. He read one of my recommended romance novels. He read about carriage sex and emotional pacing and apparently retained enough information to recommend it to customers with a straight face.
I don’t know what to do with this information. I file it away in the folder that’s rapidly expanding from “things about Orion Halloran that don’t add up” to “things about Orion Halloran that are destroying my ability to function as a person.”
Mrs. Patterson returns with the book, looking delighted.
“He has excellent taste,” she tells me, patting Orion on the arm like he’s a particularly well-behaved grandson. “Where did you find him, dear?”
In my hospital room. Like a very handsome fungus.
“Wrong number,” I say weakly.
By day three, I’ve accepted that Orion Halloran has invaded my life and shows no signs of leaving.