same blissful, starstruck moment, and she fell to his chest and into his embrace. It was in that moment that he realized he was lying to himself.
He did not love her. That part of him was gone, never to return. He couldn’t.
But, oh, how he wished he could.
Cora was smiling to herself as she stood over the stove. She was baking a pie. She had found all the ingredients to make one. It was pumpkin, and last she checked it was still April, but fuck it, the Inversion didn’t have months or seasons, so pumpkin pie it was. Chances were she had already missed out on a few fall seasons while they were trapped in the weird nether-realm, anyway.
She was due some pumpkin-fucking-pie.
And besides, it was apparently “potluck dinner movie night” with everyone. Simon was sitting in a chair at her kitchenette, loudly complaining about having to attend. She was largely ignoring him, until he tried to steal some of the graham cracker crust from the bowl. At that point, she smacked his hand with her spoon. He grumbled, waved his fingers, and took the box of crackers to sit back down and munch on.
“I don’t know why you want to go,” he started up again.
“You wanted me to make friends. Here I am, making friends.”
“Fine. I’ll correct my statement. I don’t know why you want me to go.” He was still talking through the graham crackers in his mouth.
“Because I want to spend time with you. And I want to spend time with them. And proving to me that there’s a world where I get to do both is a good way to convince me that I need to”—she paused as she struggled to say it—“y’know.”
“Commit brutal murder and usurp the throne of Harrow Faire?”
“Yes. That.” With a grumble, she added, “I’m not sitting on a throne.”
“Why not? I think it’d suit you. A throne of snark. All hail Queen Cora.” He chuckled. She whipped a dishtowel at him, and his chuckle turned into a laugh. “But fine. I concede your point. I’ll attend, even if I think watching The Count of Monte Cristo for the six-thousandth time might make me want to take that wooden spoon of yours and see how far I can jam it into my eye socket before I die.”
She chuckled at his melodrama. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it before. I like old movies, but that one never made the list.”
“Well, you can listen to Anastasia rail and moan about how she almost made the role of Mercedes, but ‘that whore-mouthed waif Landi snatched it from me with sexual favors to the entire production team.’” He flapped his hand like a pair of lips in the air as he ranted. It was really a good impression of the Diva. She figured he’d had time to practice it.
She laughed and stirred the egg, pumpkin, and cream custard in the pot. It had to simmer for a few more minutes before she could pour it into the crust and bake it. She loved pumpkin pie. She knew it was silly, and made her such a stereotypical New Englander, but it really did make her happy.
She never used canned pumpkin. Roasting her own sugar pumpkins was the way to go. She had been shocked to find one sitting in her pantry, but then again…she wasn’t. Harrow Faire wanted her to be happy, and it just knew the only thing she took enough pride in bring to a potluck was her pumpkin pie.
She also realized it knew exactly what Netflix was. And The Sims. Because it was inside her head. She realized Clown-as-Harrow-Faire got every single one of her references and was just playing dumb to be funny. She sighed and shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Suit yourself.” He let out a quiet grunt and went fishing around in her fridge for some milk. That many graham crackers at once were bound to require milk, after all. “Very well. I’ll attend. For the pie. And you. But mostly the pie.”
She laughed. “And what’re you going to bring?”
“The pie. And you. But mostly the pie.”
That time he got two dish towels thrown at him. But she was laughing too hard, and so was he. He was grinning at her like the fiend that he was. But there was real joy in his black-red-white eyes. She made him happy. Really happy. It wasn’t requited love, but it might be as close as she was ever going to get.
And that