Food Courting

Chapter 20: Take Out

At first, their journey around the mall was relatively quiet. In Farron's case, it was because she was eating half of the time, and for the moments when she wasn't, she was pointing out interesting items in storefronts or amusing advertisements. In Cora's case, she was busy trying to stick food in her mouth so her foot wouldn't fit.

"That movie sounds cool," Farron said, pointing to another poster of the sequel Cora hadn't heard about. "Have you seen the first one?"

Cora took a bite of the wrap just before Farron turned to her, then shook her head as she chewed.

"There's a theater nearby that's showing it, and they have discounts on Tuesdays, if you're interested."

Cora shrugged with a head tilt, still chewing.

"What kind of movies do you normally like? Or TV shows, if that's what you prefer. Or books."

Cora narrowed her eyes in feigned thought, then took another bite of the wrap.

"You must really like that wrap."

Cora froze mid-chew. While it was delicious, she couldn't tell Farron that she was mainly engrossed with it to avoid talking. At the same time, she couldn't stay silent, especially since Farron went through the trouble of making her lunch.

"I do," Cora said, her voice rougher than she expected. She cleared her throat. "I hope it wasn't too much trouble."

Farron grinned. "Not at all. I had to make my own anyway, and most of the ingredients were things I was trying to use up. The chicken was from my parents again. They bought another rotisserie chicken for some reason. I swear, if it's not because they think I'm starving, it's because they just want an excuse to visit me."

Cora chuckled, then noticed how forced it sounded. "That's...sweet of them."

"They're pretty cool," Farron said, nodding. "They've always been supportive of my sexuality, and they try hard to remember my pronouns too. They forget occasionally, but they also forget their own birthdays, and they always apologize after, so I'm not too bothered. It's also only been a few months since I told them, and they've been getting better."

When Cora swallowed her next bite, it struggled to move around the lump in her throat. "They sound awesome."

"Yeah." Farron paused. "You don't have to answer, but...what's your family like?"

Cora had to resist taking another bite of her quickly dwindling wrap. She expected the question would come up eventually, but she hadn't gotten around to preparing an answer yet—or she had hoped the discussion would never happen. As much as Cora wanted to take the out Farron offered, she couldn't, not when she had avoided too many questions already.

"They're...alright," Cora muttered.

Farron was silent for a moment. "So when you're not dedicating your life to the coffee bean overlord, what do you like to do?"

While that line of conversation was more bearable, it wasn't by much. "Um...nothing much, really. I just...hang around. I'm kind of boring, actually."

"I don't think you're boring."

When Cora met Farron's eyes, Farron smiled. "You're sweet, funny, passionate... I like that."

If Cora had been eating something, she would've choked on it. Instead, the only thing she choked on was her words. There was no way she imagined that, right?

"Thanks. Um..." Cora had to switch topics, fast. "What do you like to do? Cooking?"

Farron shrugged as she removed some of the foil from her wrap. "Cooking can be fun, but it's also something I kind of have to do to, you know, survive. It's also not that fun when my weirder creations don't turn out that great."