Fantastical

Chapter Twenty Crash into Me

We were on our way to my parents’ house, Tor driving.

Yes, Tor driving.

Earlier that day, when we went out to my car (which had not disappeared but had enough pop cans, chip and candy wrappers in it to water and feed an army – taking them all in, and thinking of all the takeout cartons I tossed out the day before, I was thinking the other Cora was no longer skinnier than me), Tor flatly refused to sit in the passenger seat, demanded a lesson and refused to believe that he’d need more than one lesson and practice (much less an actual license) to drive around in a city. With no choice (he didn’t give me one), I showed him around the console, explained the basics, he started up the car and away we went.

No joke.

He was a natural. He even figured out the road signs and traffic signals and only asked what a few of them meant.

I was not freaked out that I was sitting in a car with a beginner from another world behind the wheel.

No, I was freaked out about the fact that I decided to tell my parents the truth hoping, since they were hippies and had open minds, that they wouldn’t think I’d gone around the bend.

And I was also trying not to think about my day with Tor.

Which had been, even in my gray, dreary, colorless world, what only Tor could give me.

Magic.

I woke that morning in my bed to a mild headache, a few aches and pains and to hear my shower going.

The shower meant Tor hadn’t been flung back to his world sometime in the night.

I rolled to my side, glanced at his pillow and saw the dent.

I knew Tor, after watching television late into the night, had carried me to my room. When he put me on my feet by the bed, still exhausted and half asleep, I disrobed, found a clean nightie, yanked it over my head, then collapsed into bed, falling back to sleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

And seeing the dent, it was apparent Tor slept with me.

Oh well, whatever.

I decided since the ibuprofen had eventually worked the day before and I now had coffee that I would head to my pill stash in the kitchen which was a room that fortunately also housed the coffeemaker. So this was what I did.

Tor came in after I set the coffee to brewing and he was wearing nothing but one of my forest green towels (they weren’t girlie, which sucked, I liked girlie, but they were the only thing (as well as the rust accent colors I used) that didn’t look putrid against my bathroom suite).

As I stared at his chest coming my way, he greeted, “Morning, wife.”

My body jolted to alert but not in time. I was swept up in one of his arms and his head was descending. He gave me a hard, warm, close-mouthed kiss then broke his mouth from mine.

As I tried to get my head together, he glanced at the filling coffeepot, opened the cupboard over it and pulled down two mugs, not loosening his arm while saying, “I like these indoor waterfalls you have.”

“What?” I asked dazedly and his light blue eyes came back to mine.

“Your indoor waterfalls. These, and your front room, the color of your sheets and the night garments you wear, so far, are the only things I like in your world.”

“Um… you mean shower,” I told him.

His brows went up. “Shower?”

“Yes, like a rain shower except it’s a bathroom shower.”

“Ah,” he murmured, his lips twitching, “clever play on words.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that but it was true.

“Tor –”

“I need food,” he announced, moving to the refrigerator, opening it and he did this taking me with him with his arm still around me.

“I’ll make you breakfast. Now, Tor –”

He was digging through the fridge (which held milk, Diet Coke, regular Coke, bologna, American cheese, condiments and nothing else) and he didn’t even look at me when he interrupted, “I’ll need new clothing. I do not want to wear the other me’s garments.”

“We’ll go to the mall. Now, Tor –”

He looked down at me and he was grinning and looking weirdly happy so I snapped my mouth shut because it was a good look.

“So, you’re going to cook for me?”

“Uh… sure.”

“Do you have eggs in your world?”

“We do, but I don’t have eggs in my apartment. I’ll have to run to the corner market.”

He let me go and turned to the door, stating, “I’ll go.”

I stared at his muscled back. Then I cried, “Tor!” and followed him. When I hit the living room, he was crouched by the open TV cabinet and reaching in. “What are you doing?”

His head tipped back so he could look at me. “I assume in your world, like my world, vendors expect payment?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then I need coin,” he said, pulling out a wad of fifties and looking at it. “Paper. Unusual,” he muttered and looked at me while straightening out of his crouch. “King Baldur prints paper funds. It’s worthless. It’s printed at vast amounts beyond the gold and silver in his reserve. He expects tax payment in coin and trading in paper. This way does not work and his people are becoming restless.”

That was fascinating but I was more focused on him using Cora’s money.

“Um… maybe we should leave that money where it is. I’ve got a twenty in my wallet. I’ll give you that,” I told him and started to my purse.

“You will not,” he stated firmly, I stopped and blinked at him.

“So, what are you going to use? You can’t get a job at a fast food joint and make enough to buy us breakfast in time for said breakfast.”

“Cora’s money is our money. We’ll use that,” he told me.

“No, actually, I think we should figure out what’s going on with it and not use it. It isn’t ours.”

“She owes us,” he declared.

“How?” I asked, confused.

“I don’t know. I just know she does.”

“What?”

He walked to me. “Cora, whatever is happening, to you, to me, is her doing. I know it. This blue mist, this is at her command or her request. I don’t know if she has the situation under her control or if it has started controlling her. Unless you study under an apprentice for years and pass exams, it’s against the law in my world to practice magic. It’s against the law because it’s very dangerous. I know that Cora has not done this. What I also know is that, whatever is happening, she’s behind it. So, if she has earned this money, through nefarious means or not, she owes it to us. And furthermore, you, as my wife, do not pay for your keep, except…” he paused and grinned, “with a kiss.”

“Tor –” I started to remind him I actually wasn’t his wife and to ask about this apprenticing magic business (I knew they had wizards or something in his world!) but stopped when he bent in and brushed his mouth to mine.

When he lifted up, he started to my bedroom.

“Tor!” I snapped.

“I’ll dress, go to this store and be back in a minute.”

“Tor!” I repeated, my voice rising and I stomped to the bedroom doorway.

Tor had his back to me and was whipping off the towel. I saw his sculpted, fine ass and decided, what the fuck? He wanted to use Cora’s money? I’d let him.

Then I ran to the kitchen.

When Tor got back from the market, he brought with him eggs and a packet of bacon.

However, considering he carried three bags in each hand, I knew he bought much more.

“Jeez, did you buy everything in the store?” I asked as I followed him to the kitchen.

“This store is curious. Everything is wrapped. You cannot see the wares you’re buying except, in some cases, through little windows. How do you know all is as it should be?” he asked, pulling out a box of donuts then a bag of chips then out came a gargantuan candy bar.

“You just do,” I told him. “If it isn’t, it’s against the law, I think. False advertising or something.”

He turned his head to look at me.

“Curious,” he muttered, pulling out a stick of beef jerky.

Oh boy.

“I’m taking a shower,” I announced.

At my words, slowly, his head turned to me, his eyes unfocused and directed at my body, then they lifted to mine and he smiled.

It was wicked.

I ran to the bathroom and when I got there, I locked the door.

After breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast and donuts), I took Tor to the mall.

This was a bizarre experience.

I had figured it would be fascinating to him and he’d be looking around, wide-eyed and amazed.

But like everything else, he took it in stride and acted just like a man. He strolled through the corridors with his arm around my shoulders and followed me through the stores intent on one thing: getting his clothes and getting the fuck out of there.

I guessed Tor wasn’t into shopping.

He took wads of the other Cora’s cash with him and we bought him jeans, tees, shirts, underwear, socks, pajama bottoms, boots and running shoes. We also bought him a money clip, a comb, a brush and an electric razor (the last being the only thing he showed even the slightest bit of interest in).

We were loaded down with bags, him carrying the heavier ones, and headed back to the car when I noticed something strange.

People were staring at us.

If they were simply staring at Tor, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He was a big guy, he had a scar, not to mention, he was hot. But they weren’t just looking at him (well, some of the women were). They were looking at us.

I was trying to figure out why when Tor spoke.

“Your clothing yesterday, love, I must say, was not to my taste. But today, what you’re wearing…” I tipped my head to look up at him to see he was looking down at me. “Your hair,” he went on, “what you’ve done with your face. I like it.”

I quickly looked away.

I’d gone all out telling myself it was because I missed my stuff and anyway, we were going to my folks for dinner that night so I had to look nice. The truth of it was, I had planted myself firmly in denial to the fact that I’d dressed for Tor.

I was wearing a cute little lilac dress with a tiered, full skirt that hit me at the knees, a low, square neckline and cap sleeves, over it a thin, dusty blue cardigan and a pair of spike-heeled, very strappy purple sandals. I’d blown out my hair and put on light makeup.

Then he capped it by muttering, “You’re by far the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in this world.” My step stuttered, his arm tightened around my shoulders to steady me and he murmured, “All right?”

“Yes,” I lied.

But I was not.

We were at a mall and there were a number of hot babes there, including several who’d waited on him in stores, practically pushing each other out of the way, I might add, even with me standing right there. Not to mention the fact that he’d been out all day yesterday and clearly seen a number of people.

Knowing that, it was the nicest compliment anyone had ever given me.

Then he said, as if to himself, his eyes taking in the eyes of the other patrons taking us in, “This makes me wonder…” He trailed off and didn’t continue.

“What?” I asked.

“Mm?” he asked back.

“What makes you wonder?”

He squeezed my shoulders and said distractedly, “Nothing, my sweet.”

I watched his face and saw he looked as distracted as he sounded.

I let it go, we made it to the car, loaded it up and went to the grocery store.

Tor had far more interest in the grocery store and we perused every aisle, Tor picking up stuff, studying it, reading labels, turning it in his hands and tossing it into the cart if it held any interest to him at all.

I knew Tor liked his food. When we were at the castle, the meals were sumptuous, there was always dessert and his portions were manly.

But when our cart in the grocery store was filled to the point we needed another one, I felt the need to intervene.

“Tor, this is a lot of food.”

“Indeed,” he said, studying a bag of spiral pasta.

“We have no way of knowing how long you’re going to be in this world and it’ll take me a year to eat all of this,” I pointed out and his eyes sliced to me.

“If I go back, you’ll be coming with me,” he declared.

“We don’t know that,” I replied.

“If I go back, you’ll be coming with me,” he repeated, more firmly this time and with his face set hard.

I didn’t want to have an incident in the grocery store, which, by the set look on his face, I was pretty sure we would have if I told him that firstly, he couldn’t know that and secondly, I didn’t want to go back with him, not anymore.

So instead, I said, “Okay.”

He scowled at me then threw the pasta in the cart.

I rushed to get another one.

We loaded the car full to bursting with our grocery purchases and on the way home, my cell rang. The display said, “Noc.”

“Excellent, your gadget is sounding,” Tor noted.

“Not excellent, Tor!” I cried, holding it out to show him the display, thankful we were stopped at a red light. “It’s Noc!”

His eyes slid to the display then to me. “Noc?”

“The other you!” I exclaimed.

“Is it necessary for you to answer it?” he asked logically.

“Uh… no.”

“Then don’t answer it.”

Good advice.

It quit ringing but binged a few seconds later, telling me I had a voicemail.

I flipped it open in order to listen to the voicemail.

“What are you doing?” Tor asked, executing a perfect left hand turn.

“Listening to voicemail,” I told him.

“To what?”

“Sh!” I hissed. “He’s left a message.”

“Cory,” Noc said in my ear, “I’m standing in your apartment and you’re not here. What the fuck is goin’ on? I got shit to do. I’ll be back tonight. You get this, call me.” The last was growled.

Noc was not happy.

Oh dear.

And I’d forgotten about him having a key.

“What was his message?” Tor enquired.

“He’s at the apartment. He has a key. He says he’s leaving but coming back tonight. Tonight! What do we do?”

“First, we deal with his access. How do we do that?”

“Uh… get my landlord to change the lock. But he’s lazy and returns phone calls about a millennium after you leave a message. He’ll never do it by tonight.”

“Why does he have to do it?”

“Because I don’t know how and he owns the building.”

“We can’t wait a millennium,” Tor pointed out.

“I know, Tor!” I cried.

“Calm down, sweets, how difficult is this lock changing?”

“I don’t know that either, I don’t know how to do it.”

“In this world, there are vendors who sell everything. In fact, outside of houses and places to eat, that’s practically all there is in this world. Is there a place where we can purchase what we require?”

Jeez, it sucked that Tor was the sensible and logical one, even in my world.

“Yes, the hardware store,” I informed him.

“Tell me how to get there, we’ll acquire what we need and I’ll change your lock. He won’t have access, one problem solved.”

Yep, it sucked that Tor was the sensible and logical one, even in my world.

“Turn right at the second light,” I replied.

He turned right at the second light then into the silence he called, “Cora?”

“Yes,” I answered the side window.

I felt his strong fingers give my thigh a firm squeeze and he murmured, “My love, everything will be all right.”

He couldn’t know that either.

But I didn’t tell him that.

I stayed silent and directed him to the hardware store.

Tor refused to allow me to carry the bags up to the apartment (two flights!), informing me, “Men do manual labor. Women do not unless they’re servants or common.”

I glared at him then let him do it. He wanted to lug a gazillion shopping bags and a million pounds of groceries up two flights of stairs? That was okay by me.

I turned on music and got out the toolbox my father bought me when I moved out of my parents’ house. I’d used the hammer and a couple screwdrivers but other than that, the set of tools in it were nearly new.

After Tor brought up the stuff, I handed him the toolbox, he perused it with some interest and I put all his clothes and the groceries away while he inspected the lock and then, like all things Tor, changed it without any ado.

He was testing it when I wandered to my answering machine because I saw it blinking. The numerical display said I had two messages. I stood by the box, hit the button and Noc’s (in other words, Tor’s) voice filled the room and I watched Tor still as he listened to it.

“Cory? Hope you’re feelin’ better, babe. On my way over. See you in five.”

“Is that me?” Tor asked.

“No,” I answered and his eyes went from the answering machine to me.

“No, sweets, I mean the other me,” he explained.

“Then, yes,” I replied and the next message came on.

It was my friend Selena.

“Got your message and just wanna say, don’t call back ‘cause I got your other message loud and clear. I can’t believe you have the balls to call me after you did what you did. Don’t call back, Cora, ever.”

I stood frozen to the spot, staring at my machine.

“Cora?” Tor called.

I didn’t move.

I felt his hand on my back. “Cora, who was that?”

“My…” My nose started stinging, oh shit, I was going to cry again! Damn the other Cora! “My friend, Selena.”

“Love –”

“What’d she do?” I whispered, staring at the answering machine.

“Sweets –”

I looked up at him, tears swimming in my eyes and whispered again, “What’d she do?”

Then a tear fell, then another because I could tell my parents (maybe) that I’d been in another world but I couldn’t tell my friends. They’d never believe me, they’d think I was insane or making crazy excuses for whatever the other Cora did.

And whatever Cora did, it sounded bad and I knew from experience Cora’s bad was the worst that bad could be.

Tor pulled me to the couch, sat down in it with me and gathered me in his arms. I pressed into his chest and held onto him while the tears fell silently.

“I hope I never meet her,” I whispered after awhile.

“I hope you don’t either, love, it’s rarely a pleasant experience.”

After he spoke, for some reason, I just sat there, cradled by Tor and thought about the fact that none of my other friends had bothered to call back, knowing now what that meant. Then I tried to think of how to rectify whatever happened. Then I realized I was right back where I started in Bellebryn when Tor first took me there. But this time, it wasn’t a bunch of people I didn’t know who hated me, it was a bunch of people I cared about. A lot.

I sighed into Tor’s chest.

Tor murmured, “This musician is a poet,” and I lifted my head and looked at him.

“What?” I asked.

His eyes came to my face then his hand came to my face and he used his thumb to wipe away the wetness as he answered quietly, “That song that was just coming from your box,” he tipped his head to my stereo, “the musician is a poet.”

I tilted my head to the side because I’d been so deep in thought I hadn’t heard what was playing. Then I twisted and reached for my stereo remote in the side table drawer. I used it to go back to the song before the one playing and the guitar strums of The Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash into Me” started.

I looked up at Tor who was studying the remote, he felt my eyes, his came to mine and I smiled.

“I love this song,” I told him.

His eyes dropped to my mouth then without a word he slid the remote out of my hands and tucked my face back to his chest.

Held by Prince Noctorno Hawthorne on my sofa, in my world I listened to a beautiful, sexy song.

When it was over, almost immediately the guitar strums sounded again (clearly Tor had mastered the stereo remote) and we listened yet again, the words washing over me and I heard them not for the first time but I heard their meaning for the first time – they were words full of yearning, passion, admiration and a love that sounded like worship.

And again, when it was over, the guitar strums came back but when they did this time, Tor dropped the remote on the side table, pulled me out of the couch, put his hands to my hips and slid them around so he could fit me into his arms.

I tensed, thinking he was going to try to start something, maybe kiss me.

But he didn’t, he pressed his jaw to the side of my head and his hips started swaying, his hands at the small of my back moving me with him.

Holy crap, he was dancing with me in my living room.

I didn’t even wait a second before I closed my eyes and moved, telling myself, just this moment, just this time, just this five minutes with Tor and The Dave Matthews Band and a freaking fantastic song.

Just these five minutes.

So I bent my neck and rested my forehead to his shoulder. He took my hand, laced our fingers together, held them to his chest, his other hand pushing into the small of my back, fitting my hips snug to his. I slid my other arm around his shoulders and turned my head so my forehead was against his neck. At this, he bent his neck and rested his lips against mine.

And we swayed. Even when the tempo of the song increased, Tor kept our movements slow, fluid and in my little, colorful living room, the rain beating outside, the day gray, the streets grimy, with the help of The Dave Matthews Band, Tor created magic. I felt it with every strum of the guitars, every longing word, every sway of our hips, the hardness of Tor’s body pressed to mine, the warmth of his hand at the small of my back, his strong fingers holding mine tight.

It was the most astonishingly beautiful moment in my life, unbearably sexy, and even though I’d spent nearly two months in a glittering fairytale world, in that moment’s enchanting simplicity, it was by far and away the most magical.

And when the song faded away, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to snatch the notes back. I didn’t want five minutes, I wanted ten, I wanted an hour.

I wanted a lifetime.

Tor’s hips stopped moving and his hand pressed mine flat to his chest before it came to my chin, lifted my face up to his and I could see, clear in his eyes, he’d felt everything I’d felt and that exquisite pain I felt last night again slashed through me.

Then he declared quietly, “The man who wrote the words in that song has given half his soul to his woman. There is destiny you cannot control but this man, he found the woman who completed him and he gave his soul at his liberty.”

And he said this like he knew it from experience.

And he said it looking at me.

Then he bent his head and touched his lips tenderly to each of my eyes in turn, both of them closing and staying closed even after he let me go and I heard his boots beat on my floors and then I heard the electric razor coming through the bedroom from the bathroom.

I realized my chest was rising and falling deeply, my eyes slowly opened and I stared at my wall as I allowed myself one more thing.

I allowed myself to feel that exquisite pain at the same time the shadow of the touch of Tor’s lips on my eyes lingered.

Then I went to my bathroom to share the basin with Tor as I fixed my makeup and decided not to share with him that “Crash into Me” had hints of voyeurism at the same time I decided, forever and always, that song would mean to me exactly what it meant to Tor.

And now we were in my car, heading to my parents’ house and I was, again, freaking out.

And I was tired of freaking out.

So damned tired of it.

Tor’s hand came to mine and his fingers laced through while he noted softly, “I like this transport.” I turned to look at him and watched him lift my hand and brush his lips against my knuckles.

Damn. There it was, that exquisite pain was back.

He dropped our hands to his thigh and without taking his eyes from the road, he continued, “But I prefer Salem. In your car, you’re too far away.” My breath caught. “On Salem, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

I closed my eyes, looked away then sighed deeply.

I wished he’d quit saying (and doing) things like that at the same time I wished he’d never stop.

Damn.

My folks’ house came into sight and I whispered to Tor, pointing with my hand not held in his, “It’s that one, right there. You can park in front.”

With ease, Tor guided my car to the curb.

I stared out the window at my parents’ house, trying to force myself toward calm.

I felt Tor squeeze my fingers and my head swung to him.

“It’ll be all right, my love,” he assured me quietly.

“Right,” I whispered, not believing him.

His hand brought mine to his chest as his other hand came out, hooked me around the neck and pulled me to him.

“If it isn’t, I’ll make it so,” he declared. “That’s a vow.”

I held my breath. Tor smiled at me.

And, damn and blast, looking at his smile and the ease behind his eyes, I found calm.