making both our heads turn guiltily.
My lips pressed together to keep a smile in as he flipped open the binder I had put back on his deck, reading over my list.
If he had any feelings about the items listed, he showed no signs of it.
"The warden is back," Alexander grumbled, pushing the plate of cookies away.
"Okay, frappe," Cora said, coming back in. "I didn't forget," she added, though she clearly had for a moment. "Oh, Christopher. You're home. Would you like a frappe? Miss Miller was telling us you made her one with chocolate."
That got his attention.
His head rose, and if I wasn't mistaken, he looked almost a little bashful.
"She wanted one," he said simply. "But no, Cora, thank you. I have some arrangements to make," he added, snapping the binder shut, making it clear what those arrangements were.
"What was in the binder?" Alexander asked when my smile broke out once he was gone.
"Your brother offered to get me anything I wanted while being in pris—" I started, cutting off when I looked at Cora's back as she poured milk into glasses. "While I am staying here," I corrected. "I got rather... inventive," I told him, sharing a smile with him.
"You're going to be a bad influence, aren't you?" he asked.
"Wait, where are you going?" Cora asked as he took his frappe from her.
"I have a list to write," he said, eyes twinkling.
"I think he likes having you here," Cora concluded as he left.
"He just likes that I give him ideas to torment his brother."
"He has had no women in his life," she said, voice sad.
"What are you talking about? He has you," I reminded her, shaking my head. "You're a fantastic mother figure."
"You're very sweet. But I am no mother. Grandmother, maybe. He needs a mother."
"He's almost grown."
"A child always needs a mother. Even if they're forty."
I couldn't agree or disagree with that, never having had one myself.
"Alexander has turned out very well, Cora. You and Mr. Adamos have done a good job."
"We've tried our best," she told me, giving me a small smile. "Would you like to learn a new dish?" she asked, motioning to the space beside her.
"Sure," I agreed, finding an unexpected bolstering in my confidence in learning to master this skill that had always eluded me.
"You know," she told me as we both started chopping food, "this is Christopher's favorite meal."
Of course it was.
If I wasn't completely mistaken, Cora had her heart set on me getting together with Christopher, becoming a mother figure to Alexander.
Which was sweet, if kind of ridiculous.
Did a part of me—even a large part of me—want to take a tour of his bedsheets?
Hell yes.
Did I want to move into his cave house, become a makeshift mother, cook him meals, and birth him babies?
The answer to that should have been simple: Hell no.
But all I felt was a sort of mild interest mixed with a bone-deep certainty that I was already starting to lose my mind a little bit.
Maybe I should set up an appointment with a shrink as soon as I got home instead of waiting for Quin to insist upon it.
SEVEN
Christopher
She settled in.
A little begrudgingly at first, then more easily. So much so that I was surprised. Especially considering that everything about Miller suggested she would go toe-to-toe with me every moment of every day in the hopes that I would cave. I wouldn't, of course, but it was pleasant not to have to fight about it.
It had been four days since Alexander came home. And aside from the rebellious act of creating the world's most ostentatious list—and then giving my brother the idea to create one as well—she had simply made herself at home.
She slept in late, something everyone seemed to work their schedules around. Yes, even me. I found I waited to go into the kitchen for my coffee until after I heard her moving around. Cora pushed breakfast later. Alexander got up earlier so they could banter over breakfast.
After breakfast, she and Alexander retreated to the sitting room to watch action movies, then she annoyed him by debunking many of the scenes for being so unrealistic, further proving her life had been very colorful, very dangerous.
In the afternoons, she could be found in the kitchen with Cora, an eager student who clearly thrived on the praise she got from the mother figure she'd claimed she'd never had.
In the evenings, Cora insisted we take our dinner in the dining room, a room that had been entirely ornamental until