Porridge #2
“Further, I have the firm belief that partners should not have common hobbies. Things they enjoy doing together, certainly. But I do not want to live on top of you, and I do not want you to live on top of me. I want you to have your own pursuits and interests. I want you to have your own life outside mine, and even outside the duties you’ll have to the crown.
Furthermore, I grew up here.” He swung an arm out.
“With precisely three other beings around, and no one remotely my age, I’m used to being alone and doing things by myself.
I’m okay with that because I like it and will want to continue to have those times, just for me.
We’re going to be sharing a lot of years together, raising children together, and it would drive me mad to spend every waking moment doing what you do, or having you do what I do. ”
It was official.
He had an answer for everything.
And they were all good ones.
“How do you feel about Sigil?” he asked, and if I wasn’t wrong, he was watching me closer than he had been before.
“Feel about it?” I asked back in order to stall, because I was going to have to lie and it was going to have to be a great lie, meaning one I could actually pull off.
Sure, it was cold as all farg and ridiculously secluded, but it was awesome.
There was no noise. The sky was so dark at night and the stars twinkled brighter. The vistas any time of day, I was noticing, were insanely beautiful.
And honestly, I hadn’t had such a good night’s sleep in a long time, and I wasn’t a bad sleeper.
“Do you like it here?” he queried.
Think of a lie, Catla, think of a lie!
“It’s cold,” I said lamely.
“It is that.”
“Even in the castle.”
“It reminds me of home, to bundle up when I’m here. But when I start on the refurbishments, I can have the heating upgraded.”
That would mean I couldn’t cozy up under a throw by the fire unless I turned the heat down.
“Catla?” he prompted again.
“Oh, all right!” I snapped loudly. “I like it here. Whatever.”
Oh yes.
That was definitely a lip twitch, and there was nothing micro about it.
It was also hot.
For Beelzebub’s sake.
Deliver me.
“Did you bring something to do if I go to the lynx pen?” he asked.
I wanted to go to the lynx pen, but the only footwear I brought without a heel was a pair of slippers.
I made a face and went back to my porridge. “Sure.”
“We’re not close to anything, but I can have a pair of appropriate footgear delivered for you, if you’d like to go with me,” he offered.
I really wanted to see the lynx, but I didn’t want him to know I wanted to see the lynx.
Gah.
“Not hiking boots,” I allowed.
“You can pick,” he stated immediately. “But they have to be warm and have good tread.”
No, I would not want to slip, for many reasons.
He sent one of his tablets sliding toward me and ordered, “Make your choice, and I’ll contact Jorda.”
The tablet was already engaged, so I went to a pane of an exclusive department store in Abyssinia and started tapping while eating my oatmeal.
“Oo, cute,” I said to a pair of white fake calfskin, lace-up ankle boots with white tread and fake rabbit fur around the tops.
“Send it here,” Tanyn ordered.
I kept tapping, sliding and eating while saying, “I haven’t finished looking yet.”
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
My head snapped up and I educated him, “Do not ever interrupt or hurry a female while she’s shopping.”
“I can’t commandeer a soni-route for walking boots,” he pointed out. “It’ll take a few hours for them to get here.”
“Do we have anything else on our pressing agenda for the day?”
Like me being very bad at sex.
“No.”
“So you can wait until I make sure I’m getting what I want,” I declared.
He sighed, sat back and reached to his other tablet.
I returned to mine.
There were some cute suede ones with fake sheepskin accents and a rubber sole, but I went back to the first ones I picked and slid the tablet back to him.
“Those,” I ordered.
“At your service,” he muttered, reaching for the tablet.
“You know,” I told him as it was now him who was tapping on the tablet, “it’s kind of annoying how not annoying you find me.”
His head came up. “Are you trying to be annoying?”
Actually, I wasn’t.
I was just being me.
“No,” I said truthfully.
He went back to tapping, asking, “Then why would I find you annoying?”
“We have nothing in common.”
“We both ski,” he muttered to the tablet. “And Hurley likes both of us.”
“Hurley’s a friendly dog. He probably likes everybody.”
He finished with the tablet and set it aside so he could concentrate again on me.
“I sense you won’t find it distressing to know you are not the first female of mine he’s met,” he declared.
Now that he mentioned it, I did find that distressing.
Totally.
Why did I find that distressing?
He was an adult male.
I was an adult female.
We were both of an age we’d spent time with the opposite sex.
He thought I was his, but I didn’t think he was mine.
But yes, I couldn’t deny it was distressing.
Actually, more than a little.
I didn’t admit that.
“Go on,” I urged.
“He’s never liked any of them.”
I felt my lips part in shock.
I looked down at Hurley, who was lying by my chair.
He felt my attention, turned to his back and exposed his belly.
This meant, of course, I had to reach down and give it a rub.
A deep, attractive chuckle sounded from the other end of the table.
My head shot up, but alas, it was over before I could witness it other than auditorily.
But…