Page 30
Chapter thirty
Simon
S imon couldn’t remember the last time he felt as satisfied as he did that afternoon, seeing Nora and Tilly eat and talk with him. He’d cooked almost every meal for his hated mistress, but never once did she thank him the way they both did. He smiled to himself as he stood in the kitchen. And it was just pancakes.
He organized the cupboards the way he remembered liking them, feeling a sense of contentment that only routine and familiarity could give. Tilly came in and out of the kitchen while he worked, putting a doll on the counter to watch him while Nora kept washing the laundry outside from when they were sick. The house buzzed with activity and progress and it felt . . . right.
The drone, he could feel, was just out of sight but still in the vicinity. Still spying. He held his tongue, and his connection, as the drone had followed him the entire morning into town when he went to gather ingredients. It pressed a connection, which he grudgingly allowed, offering him a map of what information they had of the town and where he should go.
A peace offering, in a way. He was thankful for the assistance but also bristled at the paltry help, noting that by giving the map to him they were justifying their surveillance. Yet, it was easier to navigate the town with the framework and was worth accepting to get back faster to Nora.
As he stood at the kitchen, fixing a steak for dinner, he thought of the anxiety on Nora’s face when he got back. It warmed his processors. He chuckled to himself. She cared where I was. He replayed her reaction again. She really cared. Her expression tugged at his senses as he wiped the counters. I’ll tell her about the drone, and Mars, a bit later tonight, once we all slow down and can focus better.
Tilly brought her chalkboard next to him and was drawing a picture of Nora, her hair a long scribble. She held it up for him to see. “Does it look like Mama?”
Simon suppressed a chuckle, forcing a serious expression on his face. “Exactly. I like how big you made the eyes.”
“Yeah. They’re great.” Tilly traced the large circles again. Then she drew even more hair in wild directions, pushing down hard on the chalk.
He tapped on it with one finger once she sat up again. “Perfect. Looks just like her.”
Tilly ran outside to show Nora a second later. Simon watched her go before chuckling. The picture was crazily drawn, but the important part was that Nora had a smile underneath the scribble of hair.
Despite the revelations of the night before with the drone, his spirits were high. He felt good today. Very good. No longer was Nora showing him her life—he was participating in their life. It was a distinct difference he relished.
Almost as much as he relished feeling her reactions to him continuing, even stronger now that she was no longer sick. He leaned into the feeling, the yearning that he had come to enjoy. The fact that he knew Nora was reacting to him that way filled him with a satisfaction he had never felt before.
And what am I going to do there ? Simon put a bit of cooking oil in the frying pan. It was a strange turn of events that he was even considering holding, considering loving Nora. That I would even want . . . He closed his eyes. Do I?
That image of his hated mistress came into his mind. His body stiffened. That woman will not keep me from Nora. She will not haunt me in death. If anything, he would overwrite those memories. He flipped the steak over in the skillet. I’ll make my intentions to Nora clearer soon. The thought that perhaps he had misread her interest in return made him nervous, on top of being nervous for a whole other host of reasons that he could not quite measure or calculate. But he was not scared of Nora. He began washing the pan in a tub of filtered water, a smile coming over his features. No. I’m not at all scared of her.
It was with soft eyes that he watched Nora walk in and out, carrying an armful of laundry as she went. She shook her head at him over the dirty towels. “I told Tilly to draw you next.”
Simon’s gaze lingered on her as Nora walked back outside without waiting for an answer. He paused in his cooking a minute with the kitchen to himself before Tilly came back in, a picture of him on the chalkboard. It was almost identical to Nora’s except he only had a small scribble of hair on the top. “You like it?”
Simon snorted. “Yes, Tilly.”
Tilly beamed and then erased it before drawing the cat, humming the tunes Simon had taught her the day before.
And Simon went through his memory banks, reorganizing them in order of priority and his own personal feelings, while he watched.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
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- Page 21
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- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30 (Reading here)
- Page 31
- Page 32
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- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
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- Page 52
- Page 53