Page 69 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

Signy looked surprised by the question, and for a moment, she said nothing. “I’m used to working alone,” she answered.

Ah, Cora thought. She was being asked to leave. That didn’t quite mesh with the way they were currently arranged around each other, but . . . okay. If that’s how it was, then okay.

Steam began to rise from the kettle. “You can stay here, if you want,” Signy added. “Sleep in. Showers are down the hall. They’re decent, and they’re clean, and I’ve got more tokens than I need right now.”

Oh, Cora thought. She wasn’t being asked to leave. Or was she? Maybe Signy was just being nice. Maybe she offered her bed and a shower to everybody she brought home. “I should probably get back to Flytown,” Cora said, keeping her voice easy.

Signy nodded in acknowledgment. “Would you like something to eat, before you go?” She nodded again, this time toward the hot plate. “It’s just porridge, but—”

“That’s not just porridge,” Cora said, seeing the container waiting alongside a pair of bowls. “You’ve got Hometown Mill in Vanilla Sunrise. That’s the good stuff.”

Signy looked back at her again, disbelieving. “It’s porridge powder,” she said. “There’s nothing good about it.”

“Oh, come on,” Cora scoffed. “There are so many degrees of not good. Vanilla Sunrise is far and away the best choice.” She untangled herself and shifted into Signy’s line of sight. She made her hands flat and stacked them, one under the other, making a ladder. “Vanilla Sunrise. Peanut Power. Choco Chicory. Double Berry. Lemon Cupcake. And then unflavored, for people who hate themselves.”

Signy stared at Cora. “Choco Chicory is not better than Double Berry.”

“Double Berry is awful,” Cora countered. “It tastes like that stuff they put on your gums at the dentist.”

“It does not!” Signy laughed.

“Absolutely it does,” Cora said. “One hundred percent. It makes me feel like I’ve just had a tooth pulled.”

“Choco Chicory is . . .” Signy shook her head. “It simultaneously tastes like too much and nothing at all.”

“Yes,” Cora agreed. “And Double Berry is worse.”

“Okay, well, we have an accord on Lemon Cupcake, at least.”

“It’s the fucking worst.”

“It really is.”

“I don’t know why they make it.”

“For old people.”

“Well, then, old people’s taste in oatmeal is balls.”

Signy laughed again. It was a really good sound. “What can I get you to drink?” she asked as she reached for the whistling kettle. “I don’t have chicory, but I do have tea—”

Cora put up a palm. “Oh, I don’t want to take too much of your water,” she said. “Porridge is kind enough.”

Signy set the kettle back down. She turned and looked Cora in the eye. “I loved everything about last night,” she said. “I want to do that again, and I want to see more of you. Do you want the same?”

Cora blinked. “Yes,” she said, both because it was true and because she had no idea how else to respond.

Signy nodded. “In that case, until we decide we don’t want those things anymore, I’m not being kind. I’m making my lover a sad excuse for breakfast, and if she’d like tea, I’d like to make her a cup.”

Cora kissed her. They tasted of sleep and of each other, and when their eyes met afterward, their smiles twinned. “She’d love a cup,” Cora said. She still didn’t like tea, but god, did she ever like this.

Signy put her left hand on Cora’s knee as she leaned forward and got the kettle again. “I . . .” She twisted her mouth as she poured water into the bowls. “I suppose I could use some help with the shelves, unless you were just offering it to be nice. There are far better ways you could spend a day off, and it’d be a terrible way for me to say thank you.”

“Thank you for what?”

Signy pushed her hips back against Cora’s.

Cora laced her hands across the lowest part of Signy’s belly, and relished the quiet inhale that came in response. “I think we thanked each other plenty,” she said. She kissed Signy’s shoulder, then rested her cheek against it. “But what if I want to thank you for the water, by helping with the shelves?”