Chapter 49
Angel went into the living room to get his coat. He was tempted to follow Cordelia but there was nothing in her fleeing that made him believe that she was running to hide from him. So he stayed downstairs, wondering what caused Cordelia to dash upstairs, but willing to wait until she returned.
Angel gave a slight smile when, in less than a minute, Cordelia came bounding back down the stairs.
“Ready,” she said, still smiling.
“Let’s go.” He put his hands on her shoulders and steered her out the side door.
” Okay, so where are we going?”
Angel stalled in the middle of the atrium, turning her towards him. “I don’t know. Wherever there are fresh tomatoes.”
Cordy laughed. “At this time of year? No way. Even I know that.” She switched their positions and took the lead, pulling him to the Plymouth. “But I think I can get you a reasonable facsimile.”
#
Angel was frozen still, not even bothering to hide his irritation. Cordelia refused to listen to him; worse yet, she physically pushed him away from the register so she could pay for the cartload of food.
“Cordy.” He put his hand on her wrist, trying again to make her put her money away.
“Pfft,” Cordelia smiled. “I’m paying. Don’t argue.” She pushed the bills towards the store clerk.
The pimply-faced fifteen-year-old cleared his throat.
“Well?” Cordelia raised her brows as the teenager blushed.
The boy glanced from her to Angel. “Um, maybe I should get a manager?”
Cordy, determined to get her way, pulled out the oldest ploy in the book. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Um—”
“You go to Sunnydale High. A freshman, right? Cecil, right?”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Um, yes, I mean no, I’m a sophomore–and my name is Eugene,” the clerk squeaked.
“Ooh, sorry. Well, I’m Cor–“
“–Delia Chase. I know.” His Adam apple bobbed as he stuttered out her name.
“Of course you do.” She shot him a winning smile. “I know you from…third lunch period?”
“Gosh, no. I’m in the band,” he said, as if that explained it.
” Hmm.” Cordelia let her smile widen. “Well, band does have second lunch. Anyway, here.” She shoved her money into his hand. “You’re awesome on the drums.”
“Trumpet,” he timidly corrected.
“Like I said. Awesome.” She kept smiling as the boy stared down at the bills. “My receipt?”
“Um sure, okay.” He fumbled for change.
“Thanks, Cecil.”
“Eugene,” the boy stuttered.
Cordelia tilted her head. “Oh well, you should know. See you around…Gene.” Cordelia shortened his name intimately, and then waved at him as she pocketed the change and picked up one of the bags. “Angel?” Cordelia pointed to the two other bags on the counter.
Angel put his money back in his pocket and scowled at the clerk as he picked them up. “I was paying.” He glared at the boy.
Eugene swallowed so hard his shirt moved over his Adam’s apple. “B-but that was Cordelia Chase,” he said in a dazed voiced. “She knew me.”
“No she didn’t,” Angel scowl deepened. “Cecil.”
As they exited the store, Angel glanced over at Cordelia. “You shouldn’t have paid.”
“It’s only fair. You wouldn’t have to cook for Miss Twittle if it wasn’t for me,” Cordelia reasoned.
“I asked her to dinner, remember? I believe you said it was my idea, my fault, my problem.” He cocked his head at her.
Cordelia’s brow wrinkled as she processed his words. “Shoot. It *was* your fault. You should have paid.”
” I tried.” Angel shrugged.
Finally her face cleared. “Well, since I paid, then I don’t owe you for the food you bought at the drug store. That would be fair.”
“Except it cost more,” Angel countered, keeping his irritation at her display with the pimply clerk at bay. He had no intention of taking money from Cordelia for any reason—but it was so easy to tease her.
“But I didn’t ask you to buy all that stuff and everybody knows that you don’t grocery shop at a drug store,” Cordelia retorted. “Your idea, your fault.” Cordelia shot him a crooked smile.
Angel raised a brow towards her. “And how exactly would that work?”
Cordelia tapped her forefinger on her chin as she studied him. “Well, I didn’t ask you to buy all that stuff at the drug store, which you have acknowledged. Therefore it was a gift, and I can’t pay you back for a gift–that would be rude. And I was fine with the canned sauce that you had already given me as a gift, but you insisted on getting something better for Miss Twittle. Obviously this incident should classify as your own culinary issue, which is strange, especially considering your diet. But whatever. The bottom line is, you owe me.”
Cordelia nodded like an efficient bank teller, a nod that was as teasing as it was sharp. Angel wanted to laugh or tell her that her make-believe tally sheet was unnecessary until he realized what she was really saying.
Cordelia, rich bitch of Sunnydale and arguably the most spoiled, didn’t expect anything handed to her.
Where was the teenage girl that thought she was entitled to everything? Was this a change of personality because of her parents’ abandonment–or was he seeing the real Cordelia?
Either way it didn’t matter. There was no way he was taking money from her, for food or for anything. He’d only let her pay before because it would’ve counter-productive to his plan for him to forcibly bundle her and the groceries up and pay.
As they walked from the garden to the side door, Angel breathed in the air around him, taking in the lingering smell of the flowers and Cordy’s own, distinct scent.
A wave of want shuddered through him. She was *his*. And nothing–not even Cordelia’s independence–would change that.
Making her want him would be so easy.
But he fought the instinct to overpower her. He’d have to make their coupling look like her idea, lest he be left with a woman who was nothing more than a spiritless, if beautiful shell.
Chapter 50
Angel frowned as he listened to Cordelia’s footsteps along the hallway. Once again, she had darted upstairs without an explanation, just a smile and a quick ‘be back’. Angel pushed the grocery bags in his hands onto the counter.
Like before, he didn’t believe that she was running away from him, but he was beginning to believe that she was hiding something from him. A deep grumble began to vibrate in his chest as he mechanically unloaded the foodstuff from the bags. Cordelia having secrets from him was unacceptable. She belonged to him and that meant nothing about her could be hidden.
Pulpy liquid seeping through his fist brought his attention back to the groceries. He grabbed at a paper towel, using it to wipe away the remains of the tomato that had been his hand.
He studied the row of whole bright red tomatoes on the counter. Cordelia had been wrong – there were fresh tomatoes this time of year – hothouse organically grown ones- but still, in his mind, better than the cans she had pulled him towards.
As he stared at the line of tomatoes on the counter, a long-ago memory intensified and engulfed him. The marble of the counter became the cheap orange formica of a diner. The smell of coffee, grease, nicotine, and spices swirled around him. The low static blur of the customer’s excitement of the recent return of the Yankees to their greatness, rose above the vibrant music of Buddy Holly playing on the jukebox.
The loudest and most strident voice belonged to a rail thin woman with brassy blonde hair piled on the top of her head, the bouffant adding almost foot to her height.
She reigned over the room from behind the cheap counter, eyeing her court once then twice and then going back into the kitchen. Her cigarette remained dangling from her painted lips with long learned expertise as she cough out her words, ^ This was the only good thing that I got from being married to that ‘fat bastard wop and his even fatter mother’^ She waved her hand towards the row of meatballs on the counter and the bubbling tomato sauce in the large pan on the stove. “^The family recipe ^, this puts the ^special^ in the ^Meatballs and Spaghetti Night^, youngster”.” Angel saw himself listening to her from shadow of the kitchen’s doorway.
The memory shifted to focus on the ingredients on the counter and the actions of the woman.
Angel leaned up, the vivid memory gone, as hot water splashed on his hand. The last tomato was bobbing in boiling water, along with the others that had been on the marble counter.
He rubbed the dishtowel in between his hand as he looked at the newly bought ingredients that he had lined up on the counter while under the influence of the memory. Angel gave a sharp nod, his ability to recall had ensured that he had replicated Madge’s ^family recipe^.
His ability to recall all memories was usually a bane in his life as the majority of his memories consisted of blood, fear, and death, causing his ‘now’ soul’s conscience to quake with regret and guilt, but in this instant he could push aside the those never-ending feelings and concentrate on a moment that not only didn’t give him pain but was useful.
Angel looked up as Cordelia came back into the kitchen. Her presence brought his focus back to the where and now.
“Are you really supposed to boil the tomatoes whole?” She asked, as she came up beside him to peer into the large pot.
“No, you dice them, but you have to peel them first.” Angel turned off the stove and nudged Cordelia back with his hip as he picked up the pot.
“And this is going to do that?” She asked as Angel drained out the boiling water in the sink and covered the tomatoes with a stream of water from the faucet.
Angel shrugged. “This is how Madge did it.”
Cordelia moved to the stool, sitting and resting her elbows on the kitchen island. “Madge?”
Leaving the cooling tomatoes in the sink, Angel went to the counter and started to quickly chop the onions and peppers, placing the diced vegetables on their own paper plate. “This was Madge’s secret ‘family recipe’. She was waitress, cook, and owner of the diner,” he said over his shoulder.
“Oh. Wait,” Cordelia sat up. “If she was the cook, what were you?”
Angel heisted a moment before answering, “dishwasher.” Angel frowned at the choking noise coming from Cordelia. It sounded as if she couldn’t decide between a gasp of disbelief or a hysterical laugh.
“Sorry,” she coughed. “It’s just that it was hard enough to imagine YOU working in a diner –but stuck in the back washing dishes…. It’s just…. Well – bizarre. What did you do with your leather coat? Oh, nevermind,” she waved away her question. “No wonder you didn’t tell Buffy. Talk about image ‘kill’.”
“It was honest work,” Angel retorted.
“Sure.” Cordelia nodded, still smiling, “Guess you weren’t diamond ‘shopping’ at the opera anymore.”
Angel narrowed his eyes at her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, stop with the glare. You know I’m just teasing.”
Angel gave a small smile in response.
“Still, ” Cordelia continued once he had acknowledge her statement, “You did have the diamonds, so why did you work? “
“Angel?”
Angel still remained silent as he concentrated on kneading the ground pork and beef, flour, Parmesan cheese, eggs, Italian breadcrumbs, minced onions and garlic into a large blended clump.
“Angel?”
Angel’s head rose at the repeated inquiry. He focused on taking portions of the meaty clump and rolling them into small balls, while he thought about his answer. “The diamonds were Angelus’.”
“Which is you and you still have them, so?”
Angel dropped the last meatball onto a sheet of wax paper and turned around focusing his narrowed gaze at her. “Why are you so interested?”
Angel couldn’t help but be impressed; Cordelia met his glare head on and answered him without hesitation or any sign of nervousness.
“Because it’s interesting, you’re interesting. Think about it, Angel, to me you were either Buffy’s lapdog or evil, not much interesting there, but here- now — while being at times severely weird, you’ve also been really nice and great towards me, have a horde of diamonds that you don’t spend, a cool car that you don’t drive, can cook but don’t eat, worked as a dishwasher when you could’ve used vampire stuff to be rich, and have recently smiled more than twice – you’re a lot more interesting than you let on. Now my question is whether you make yourself darkly dull on purpose or are you just really dull with moments of coolness,” Cordelia asked.
Angel pondered her words, wondering whether to be offended or flattered, when Cordelia jumped up from her stool and screeched, “It’s erupting.” She pointed to the stove.
Angel jerked towards the stove. The peeled diced tomatoes and other ingredients that he had put together as he and Cordelia had been talking, had turned into a bubbling, spurting sauce which was at that moment was trying to escape the confines of the large deep pot.
“It’s okay,” Angel fumbled for the heat dial, lowering the gas flame under the pot as he used a wooden spoon to stir the thickening volatile sauce into something tamer.
“Angel.” Cordelia shouted again pointing to the stove. “The meatballs are making strange noises — they aren’t going to blow up, are they?” She squeaked, stepping back to the kitchen doorway.
Angel gripped at the frying pan taking it away from the flame; he winced at the sizzling and smoking meatballs. “It’s okay.” He said again, as he moved the pan around so that meatballs would turn.
“You keep saying that.” Cordelia took a step back into the kitchen, placing her hands on her hips. “Are you cooking anything else? I mean – is the oven going to explode or something?”
“Cordelia.” Angel scowled.
“What?” She raised her brows at him.
“It’s okay, we just need to watch it.” He gave one last look to the simmering pot and pan before sitting on the stool, beckoning her to sit across from him.
Angel chuckled as Cordelia warily eyed the gas range stove, “Okie dokie,” she finally said as she sat. “I think you owe me some stories.” She straightened and nodded affirmatively at Angel.
“I do?”
“Hey, stories are a small price to pay for subjecting me to the dangers of exploding spaghetti sauce”
Angel rolled his eyes. “Any decade in particular you had in mind?”
“Well,” Cordelia furrowed her brow,” to start with – how about why this diner you worked at had a ‘gourmet’ spaghetti night,” she jerked her head towards the remaining ingredients on the counter. “You’ve just poured half a bottle of red wine into the sauce, along with oodles of fresh stuff. Things, that I can’t see a diner wasting their time with.”
“I told you,” Angel crossed his arms across his chest, “Madge took her ‘special sauce’ very seriously, the rest of the menu, well,” he shrugged.
“Oh.” Cordelia raised her brows. “Really?”
Angel nodded. “Yeah, it worked too. On ‘Spaghetti Night’ the diner was filled with the rich and the poor.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“Happened?”
“Well, you aren’t still working there, so something must’ve happened.” Cordelia scrunched up her brow in a show of disapproval, “you didn’t boink a blond and kill everybody did you?”
“No.” Angel snapped, jerking up from his stool.
“Geez, don’t get your boxers or whatever in a bunch, just asking.”
“Cordelia,” Angel sighed, checking the stove once more before sitting back down.
Chapter 51
Angel couldn’t help it. There was no way to force his eyes anywhere other than directly on the delicate slopes of the angles of Cordy’s face.
She was cuddled in the corner of the couch, her lids drooping heavily over her hazel eyes as she murmured soft sounds at the pauses in his speech. He had an instinctive need to shock her eyes wide open, to see them stare up at him.
The only thing that stopped him was his indecision on how to accomplish it. Should he interrupt his story with the exclamation that he wanted her under his control and body or should he just interject a bloody paragraph to the story he had been telling.
“You stopped.” Cordelia peered up at Angel. “You can’t stop there. Did Frank Santra and Sammy, Jr. really get into a fist fight?”
Angel chuckled, hiding his pleasure as Cordy’s hazel eyes opened up into his face. “Yeah, it was over a….”
“Oh, don’t tell me — a blonde, that you stole away.” She leaned back on the couch, closing her eyes.
“Um,” Angel leaned in, fingering her chin causing her to move closer to him, staring into her widened gaze. “Actually, it was a red-haired show girl that finally figured out that she had screwed up royally by trying to play them against each other. After some posturing and more drinks, both Frank and Sammy realized that that there were much easier girls to get, the red-head in question, of course, ignored me because I wasn’t even in any stretch of the imagination a member of the “Brat Pack” merely a party crasher. I’m pretty sure she left alone. Well, sorta pretty sure. I had been drinking – alot.”
“So, who did you leave with – if not the red-head?”
“I didn’t — I don’t remember.” Angel scooted back as Cordelia pushed at his chest.
“You can’t do that. Oh my god, did you kill all of Las Vegas afterwards?”
“What?” Angel moved away further from her accusation.
“You had sex, Angelus, duh. Keep it in your pants, why don’t ya'”
Angel dropped his hand on her shoulders, keeping her still. “The curse doesn’t work that way.”
Angel wasn’t sure that he liked the way that Cordelia’s brows reached her wrinkled forehead. “Oh.” She said finally, her gaze focusing for a long moment on her hands that rested on his chest. “So, its only Buffy, then,” she said, pulling her hands away.
” Well that’s good to know, granted bummer for you but good to know,” she said drawing in her sigh as she stood. “I’m tired. ‘ Night.” She wavered for a second then kissed Angel on the cheek. “You’ve been really great. Thanks.” Cordelia shot a quick smile over her shoulder as she darted up the stairs
Angel’s hand shot up to his cheek. Cordelia’s kiss left a burning sensation along his skin. The last two hours, his telling his stories of the decades before Sunnydale and Cordelia giggling in response, had been surreal. It was amazing in and of itself that he continued with stories and hadn’t retreated into himself.
Yet, the most extraordinary feeling wasn’t that, but the unprecedented feelings of contentment and satisfaction that he had felt when Cordelia smiled at an anecdote or giggled at a joke. He had never felt such ease with anybody before. Cordelia’s level of expectation of him was straightforward and honest.
She wanted entertaining stories and expected him to give them to her.
He frowned, staring up the stairs she ascended. He was now feeling loss and anger. He wanted her and the feelings she brought back.