“It’s not your fault,” I admitted on an exhale. “Sorry for blaming you. I know that I’m just….”
“Just what?” he prompted.
“Mom and I aren’t the world’s best communicators. We live in the same house and get along but that’s because we don’t spend much time actually together, you know? Not since my accident.”
“It always comes back to that doesn’t it?” Robin reached into his pocket and pulled out the little hourglass. “Are you ready for your next lesson?”
I popped the car door and climbed out. “I don’t recall having the first lesson.”
“The first lesson is that time is the one resource most will never get back. Yet is the one all mortals insist on squandering. How did you spend your extra hour?” He stepped in front of me to hold the old-fashioned glass door to the market, allowing me to enter.
“Thank you.” I snagged a buggy from the nested row of them and pointed it toward the produce section. “Well, after you abandoned me at your place, I picked up Darcy and we drove to the diner to spy on the…what did you call the earlier versions of us. Our echoes?”
He snapped and pointed at me. “Ah-ha. Exactly my point. I gave you a free trip back in time and you felt the need to verify that which was already verified. You’d seen the echoes on the hill and yet you demanded verification from a third party.”
I snagged a plastic bag and a head of green leaf lettuce. “I needed to talk to someone about it. Someone other than you. Because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that you’re real. Would you get a bag of carrots for me, please?”
He retrieved the carrots and placed them carefully in the bottom of the basket. “Of course, I’m real. And you know, you really shouldn’t be saying please and thank you to fae royalty. It could be interpreted as a sign that you feel indebted to them.”
How was he so handsome, even under the horrible fluorescent lights of the super market, it was easy to believe he was a fae prince. That would make his mother….
My cart crashed into a stand of apples and several Golden Delicious went rolling onto the floor. I bent down and started collecting the bruised fruit.
“Are you well?” Robin asked.
“Your mother is a fairy queen,” I breathed. He’d told me earlier that he was a fae prince, but I hadn’t believed him.
“What of it?” Robin crouched down next to me and collected a few of the apples. “I was just cautioning you, lamb, in case you ran across any more of my kind.”
“When would I?” I stood and replaced the apples back on the display pile. My heart thudded and I tried to calm myself even as I kept sneaking glances at my companion.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he perused the market shelves with interest. Picking up a jar he asked, “What is peanut butter?”
My mouth fell open. “You’ve never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“No.” He frowned and rolled the jar around in his hands. “When would I have?”
I guess the fae queen wasn’t big on brown-bagging it. I took the jar out of his hands and added it to my haul. “Grammy says peanut butter and strawberry jam is the way to go. Personally, I like the classic version. PB&J on worthless white bread. I’ll make one for you and you’ll love it.”
“You’re offering me gifts?” he asked quietly.
“It’s just a sandwich. Besides, you bought me lunch today. Fair’s fair.”
“Technically your lunch was on Rodney.”
I pawed through the baked goods, looking for a loaf of Italian bread that could pass for fresh. “Which reminds me, I have to go back over there and tip the waitress you stiffed.”
“Why? After what she pulled?”
“Because she brought us food and it’s what decent people do when they dine out.”
“So she took your job and tried to steal your companion and yet you still feel the need to dip into your meager reserves and gift her with currency?” The intense way he was staring at me as though trying to figure out what made me tick was unsettling. I refocused on my shopping and our earlier conversation.
“So the first lesson is that mortals always squander time even though we will never get it back. What’s the second lesson?”
“That the mortal mind will explain away whatever it can not comprehend.” He snapped his fingers and all the items on the shelf we were facing