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.
