HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 105

Lilith ordered for the both of them, and when their food arrived, Coriolanus stared at her in disbelief.

Before him was the expected iced latte and circular, golden-brown waffle topped with an immaculate sphere of cookie dough ice cream and a miniature ceramic jug of maple syrup. Lilith's waffle was buried underneath her two scoops of ice cream, a huge swirl of whipped cream, and a generous portion of strawberries. Beside her serving of syrup and glass of lemonade, however, was something he hadn't anticipated a dessert business to offer: a bowl of shoestring potato fries.

"Where on earth do you put all of this?" he asked, inadvertently glancing down at her flat abdomen and needing to gulp.

"Are we working on what you don't know about me as well?" quipped Lilith, surfacing from a sip of her drink. "We've got ourselves quite a busy night, haven't we?"

"The night is still young."

Whether to distract him or simply to avoid reply, Lilith reached for a fry and—to his astonishment—dragged it along one of her scoops of ice cream, collecting a small lump on its end as if it was a spoon, before popping it into her mouth. Even as she chewed, she smiled when she discerned his expression, an eager glint developing in her eyes.

"I take it you've never had fries with ice cream before?"

Coriolanus knew it was too late to lie. "It's a weird choice of dipping sauce."

"You can say that after you've tried it."

Keenly, Lilith held out a fry to him, and all he could see was her hope. This was not a dare, not the greedy look he might get from someone like Livia, out to feast on his discomfort. She genuinely wished to share something she enjoyed in the hope that he might enjoy it, too.

It was a slim sliver of hope, but he obliged to accept the fry. "We're moving on to the next agenda after this."

Striving to ignore the slight buzz he received when his fingers grazed hers, Coriolanus repeated her actions with his cookie dough.

Polar opposites exploded across his senses: cold and hot, sweet and salty, soft and crispy. It was strange, but it was also strangely delightful.

Lilith watched him with interest, anxious for his verdict.

"Still weird," he proclaimed, "but I like it."

He was grateful he hadn't paused too long before declaring so—he wasn't sure he could stomach witnessing the light in her eyes dim again, even with this grin for recompense.

Radiating not the least bit of gloating but pure happiness, Lilith pushed the bowl toward him so that it was centralized between them.

"Help yourself."

And he did, though not exactly for consumption with his ice cream but as a side to balance out the sweetness.

And they did not move on to the next agenda, or any of them. Instead, they got into another debate over the of their preferred flavours, this time with samples to back up their arguments.

Now that he knew how her brain and tastebuds worked, Coriolanus guessed his would be a lost cause, but he ascertained it when he fed Lilith a square of waffle slathered in cookie dough ice cream and she reacted in all the ways she typically did when he turned on his charm—freezing, blushing, averting her eyes—but insisted that this was the one thing he couldn't convince her of. He wondered if delivering it on his tongue rather than a fork would waver her determination, and it was a mistake. As if he wasn't already hard enough. Luckily, it was dark.

"I hope I don't have to convince you on this," said Coriolanus, and used her other scoop—cereal milk—as a segue into: "Milk or cereal first?"

Thankfully, she said cereal.