He chewed, swallowed and grinned. “That’s amusing?”
“My Dad’s a hippie in my world.”
Something shifted on his face, like a shutter closing but not completely. “A hippie?”
“A love child. A child of mother earth. He’s kind of a loon. He’s liberal. Like, way liberal. He smokes weed. He gets down to Grateful Dead albums. He wears tie-dye, kid you not, to this day and he’s fifty-five years old.”
“Sweets, you know I only understood half of those words but I didn’t understand the meaning of any of them.”
I grinned at him, leaned my elbow on the table so I was closer to him and took a bite of bread. After I chewed, I swallowed but in that time, I hadn’t come up with any answers.
“I haven’t been in your world long enough to make a like comparison.”
That shutter closed further, he looked to his stew and muttered, “Right.”
“Tor?” I called, he took a spoonful of stew and looked at me while he chewed, brows up. “Is everything okay?” I went on.
He swallowed then without hesitation he cut me to the quick and pulled the rug right out from under me, I landed flat on my back, winded and wounded.
“It would be, if this was Cora sitting across from me, having learned to be a decent person. It isn’t because you’re playing your bloody game, you’re good at it and I’m annoyed that I’m half enjoying it.”
Uh.
Wow.
Ouch.
“Tor –” I whispered.
“Cameras, pollution and hippies. Yes, love, you’re good. I should just let go and allow myself to fully enjoy it. Hell, who knows how far you’ll take it. You might eventually give me something I’ll really enjoy, like a bloody heir.” I felt my breath stall and he went on. “And you might play it so well, I’ll enjoy creating that heir. But, gods curse me, I can’t let myself enjoy it because I know it’s all a game to get your way and, as hard as I try, I can’t stop it from annoying the bloody hell out of me.”
I felt tears sting my eyes because for once in this cursed (literally) world (at least since the very beginning with Rosa and Aggie) I was enjoying myself and he just reminded me that I could not and why.
To hide my tears, I looked away.
“Crocodile tears, even better,” he muttered.
Great. They had the saying crocodile tears here. Perfect.
I sucked in breath through my nose, focused my attention on my stew and ate it.
It didn’t taste as good as I remembered it being not five minutes ago.
I emptied my bowl and was picking at (but not eating) my bread when I plucked up the courage to call, “Tor?”
“Yes, love.”
I took another breath and my eyes slid to him.
“Can I ask one thing without giving you a kiss for it?”
“You can ask it but that doesn’t mean I’ll give it.”
Of course.
I nodded. Then I asked it.
“Can you please not call me ‘love’ or ‘my love’ when you obviously hate me so much?”