Page 86 of Fool Me Twice

Ez, who apparently wants Roma just as much as Roma wants her. She swallows hard. “This is complicated for me. You get that, right?”

Ez looks away, her expression closing off. “Yeah. I get that. A lifetime of brainwashing is hard to forget.”

There’s the barest hint of an edge to Ez’s voice, and instinctive defensiveness jolts through Roma. Taking a deep breath, she forces it down. This conversation probably feelsjust as fragile to Ez as it does to Roma. “It is hard to forget,” she admits quietly, and Ez’s eyes snap back to her, startled. “I think‍—I think I can call it what it was now. Brainwashing. And between everything Naomi said and everything I’veseenthe Sanctum do, it’s‍—‍” She shakes her head. “It’s just a lot.”

“But not enough to defect over.”

Pain scrapes through Roma’s chest. “I don’t know yet, Ez. I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and think about it. Haven’t had a chance to reallybreatheyet.”

She expects Ez to be derisive or scathing, but to her surprise, Ez just nods. “Because it’s familiar, and familiar feels safe‍—no matter what the actual reality is. JJ was the same way at first.”

JJ.Nausea licks up Roma’s throat at the sheer thought of what she was supposed to do to him, at the sheer thought of dragging him back to the Sanctum and letting them hurt him. “How’d he get over it?” she whispers.

Ez’s eyes soften. “He’s still working on it, I think. But it helps that he has support, you know? Helps that he has Cass and Desi, especially. They take care of him, and they keep him grounded, and‍—and they show him how to value himself. Like he was never taught to value himself in the Sanctum.”

Roma looks away. “And JJ has a home with Cass,” she adds haltingly. “He had a place to runtowards,not just a place to run away from. I don’t have anything on the outside.”

Ez frowns. “Of course you do. Obie has plenty of apartments he could set up for you, or alternatively…” She sweeps an arm around the room. “Like what you see?”

Roma’s heart flutters. “I mean, it’s a nice bedroom,” she says, peering around. It’s fairly dark, only the glow of the streetlamps and the moon shining through the window now, but she can still see the tiny details: the jewel-toned walls, the shelves full of spell books and worn paperbacks, the little knickknacks on the nightstand. “I presume it’s attached to an equally nice house?”

Ez’s lips twitch. “I like to think so, yeah.”

Roma’s throat feels dry. And for just a moment, just a split second, just the barest sliver of time‍?—

Just for now, she lets herself believe she can have this. “Tell me, then,” she says, meeting Ez’s gaze. “If I left the Sanctum and‍—and stayed here with you. What would our lives be like?”

A grin jumps onto Ez’s face.“Well,”she says, trailing her fingertips over Roma’s side, “there would be plenty of repeat performances of this evening, of course. I really like those noises you make when I touch youjustright.”

Heat spikes low past Roma’s belly. With a great effort of will, she ignores it. “The sex is definitely a contributing factor,” she says diplomatically, and Ez snorts. “What else?”

Decisively, Ez pushes herself up to sitting. “Well,” she repeats, and she snaps her fingers. In a flash, Roma’s and Ez’s clothes reappear on their bodies, perfectly clean and unwrinkled after being thrown in every direction. “I know that you humans need to sleep, so we’d have our quiet hours at night. You could sleep, and maybe I could sleep with you, or maybe I could read a book while you rest. I could tell you all about it over breakfast in the morning.”

Roma can’t fight back a smile. “Breakfast?”

“Obviously. I do know how to cook, after all,” Ez says, and she grabs Roma’s hand, pulling her out of the bedroom. A quick walk down the hallway, and then Roma is stepping into a spacious kitchen, large enough for a few people to work side by side. “I’m partial to bacon, personally, but we could make whatever you like. I’ll stock the fridge and the pantry so we can experiment.”

“Could you teach me?” Roma asks. “How to cook, I mean?”

Ez smiles. “Sure,” she says, and she tugs Roma towards the kitchen table. “We could sit right here while we eat, and we could catch up on the news from overnight. After that, we’d have theentire morning to ourselves.” She raises her eyebrows. “What doyoulike to do?”

“I…” In all of Roma’s years, she’s never really thought about that. She knows what she’s good at, of course, knows what shehasto do. But what shelikesto do? “I like training‍—you know, sparring and weapons training. And I like spellcasting, but I think you already know that.”

Ez’s lips curve up. “We could set up a punching bag for you right there,” she says, gesturing to a corner of the living room just past the kitchen. “Cass has a similar setup for JJ in their house, too. And maybe we could train together, yeah? Spar together?”

Roma grins. “Sure. I’ve seen you fight‍—you’d be a great sparring partner.”

“Oh, lackey, you don’t know the half of it.” Ez pulls Roma over to the couch and sits down, but before Roma can take a seat on the cushion next to her, Ez drags Roma directly into her lap. “And we could study magic together, too. Right on this couch.”

Roma wriggles around until she’s sprawled sideways across Ez’s lap, her feet resting on the other cushion and one arm looped around the back of Ez’s neck. “In this exact position? Seems a bit complicated for reading purposes.”

“Well, that’s just a piss-poor attitude to have about the subject,” Ez says, and Roma snorts out a laugh. “We could read in this position, or in another position, or…” Her fingertips skim up Roma’s thigh. “We could do a lot of other things in a lot of other positions on this couch, too.”

Roma fights back a smile. “That’s quite a bit to do before lunch.”

“Right. Lunch. You’ll have to remind me about all of your stupid human eating hours,” Ez says, and she unceremoniously shoves Roma to the side so she can stand up. Grinning, Roma follows her. “So we can head back to the kitchen for that, Isuppose. Cass might be a heathen who lets JJ and Desi eat on the couch, but that just seems barbaric to me. We’ll eat at the table like civilized people.”

“What about the bedroom?” Roma asks. “Like, what if I want to make you breakfast in bed?”

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