Page 11 of My Ogre Husband
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That afternoon, we decide to go out to the store together to buy things I might want to have around the house while Egorr’s at work. He pushes the rather large cart, and I dart up and down the aisles, finding all sorts of snacks I’ve never even seen before.
“Egorr!” I say, bounding over with a box of sandwich cookies. “These have lemon filling. Can you believe that?”
He chuckles. “You want them?”
“Um, yes!” My mouth is watering just looking at the big illustration on the box.
“Then add them to the cart.” Even the frozen food aisle is incredible to me. It’s like they have every option on the planet and then some.
“What did you eat at New Eden?” Egorr asks as I grab a box of frozen jalapeño poppers and add it to the growing pile in the cart.
“Oh, you know. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Salad. Pizza, sometimes.” In the cafeteria, we usually had three options for each meal. Here… the options are limitless. Speaking of which, we’ve just stopped in the frozen food aisle, in front of a huge freezer completely full of pizza.
“Holy shit.” I can hear angels singing. “This is incredible.”
“You know, delivery is probably better—” Egorr begins, but I’m already choosing the best-looking pepperoni pizza they have. He doesn’t object when I add it to the pile.
“Wow.” I gaze down row after row of food options. “The grocery store is amazing.” And I get to choose from all of it.
“Ready to check out?” Egorr asks when we’ve explored all the way from one end of the store to the other. I’m breathless.
“Yes. Yes, I think so.” I turn to him. “We’re definitely coming back here.”
Egorr gets a big grin on his face. “We can come to the store whenever you want.”
We get in line at check-out behind what appears to be nothing but a skeleton dressed in a long, black cloak. It turns around briefly to look at us, and the bare holes in its skull make me squeak in alarm. I reflexively grab Egorr’s arm, and I can’t tell what the skeleton is thinking because, well, it doesn’t have a face. It turns away and starts loading goods onto the conveyor belt, shaking its head.
“Sorry,” I say to Egorr, letting go of him. He tilts his head down.
“This must all be pretty new for you, huh?” The skeleton steps forward to check out, and Egorr puts a divider on the conveyor belt between our groceries and theirs. “I can’t imagine what it’s like living on the preserve your whole life.”
“I’ve definitely never seen that before,” I say quietly, gesturing at the skeleton. I wonder if skeletons ever apply for human companions. It might be hard without lips. Or… you know.
“You said you did another trial marriage, right?” Egorr asks. He rests a hand on my lower back. “The one that didn’t work out. Did you never go to the grocery store?”
I swallow. “Yeah. Though he didn’t eat anything at all, and he just brought home the bare minimum. We didn’t even go to a restaurant once.”
“Well, we can go out all you want.” Egorr puts yet another box of cookies on the conveyor belt. “Or stay in, if that’s your thing.”
“I’m not sure what my ‘thing’ is, to be honest,” I say, helping with the fruit and vegetables.
“I guess we’ll find out then, won’t we?”
Egorr grins. Am I imagining the slightly filthy lilt to his voice when he says it?
Once the cart is empty, he talks to the cashier—a basilisk in a pair of sunglasses, her tail curled up around her to fit into the checkout stand. She rings everything up, filling all the bags Egorr brought along and a few extras because we bought so many things.
Oops.
Then we’ve loaded it all in the car and we’re heading home.
“I liked that,” I say. “Maybe my ‘thing’ is going to the grocery store.”
Egorr’s laugh fills up the whole car.
ChapterFive
