Cora and Rasmus seemed to have come to a truce of sorts.

He was holding to his word of trying to be amicable and she, in turn, was trying to reciprocate.

Unsurprisingly, it helped that they no longer had to be around each other for eight to ten hours a day six days a week. Now that her every waking hour wasn't being devoured by work, Cora felt much more like herself again, much more in control of what was happening instead of letting everything happen to her.

It was a nice feeling. She finally—finally—felt like she got to enjoy her successes instead of worrying so damn much.

There were still some lines she had to draw for the sake of her own sanity. She didn't read reviews of the show. She knew how her mind worked. If she saw what people were saying about her, whether good or bad, those comments would worm their way into her head until they became her whole identity, the lens through which she always saw herself. She couldn't put her self-worth into someone else's hands.

For the same reason, she forced herself not to think too much about the upcoming nominations for the Tony Awards, which were going to be released about two weeks after their opening night. Cora knew that she certainly wasn't going to be nominated and was perfectly content with that—all that pressure was the absolute last thing she wanted right now. And besides, the play categories were usually packed with old-timers, the theatre legends who had been at this for decades. Musicals were where you were much more likely to see a new face or two.

A piece of her selfishly hoped that Rasmus wouldn't get nominated either just so that he couldn't rub it in her face, but what really concerned her was what could happen to the commercial success of Illicit Affairs if it wasn't nominated in any categories at all. Awards season—and all of the press that came with it—was one of the main avenues through which producers and creative teams got the word about their shows out into the world. It was how you convinced people that your show was worth spending hundreds of dollars on. So in a way, getting nominated was much more important than actually winning. If you couldn't even score a nomination, all those publicity opportunities went down the drain. By contrast, if you were nominated but didn't take home an award, lots of people would still probably come to your show because they'd already developed a curiosity about it.

Don't think about it. It's out of your control.

Luckily, the nominations were announced on a Monday, their day off from work, so Cora had the ability to ignore them until her own curiosity overcame her and she chose to look them up on her own terms.

Or at least that's what she thought she could do, but a certain Rasshole apparently had other ideas.

She was sleeping in that morning, cocooned in a comfy cradle of blankets, when there was an unexpected knock on the door. She didn't know who could possibly be coming over at this time, but she rolled out of bed with a groan and threw on a hoodie and sweatpants over her pajama shorts.

When she opened the front door, there he was, already up and functioning for the day. Men were such enigmas when it came to what they did and didn't choose to put effort into—Cora could smell cologne on him, but his hair was rumpled as if he'd done nothing with it at all. She didn't grasp how he could seem so bright-eyed but also like he might not have rolled out of bed until fifteen minutes ago.

She raised a hand to her mouth to stifle her yawn. "What do you want?"

"Best Play."

It was too early in the day for her brain to quickly process any information that was fed to it. "What?"

"We're nominated for Best Play."

It took another embarrassingly long moment for what he was saying to register with her. But when it did, her stomach dropped like she was on a rollercoaster. "Really?"

It was rare to be nominated for Best Play and nothing else, but it was possible. And if you could only get nominated for one award, the biggest one you were eligible for was obviously the one you wanted.

"No, I bothered to come to you on our day off just to lie," he retorted.

"I wouldn't be surprised." A pause. "But...wow. Holy shit."

Even though the playwright and producers would be the ones to receive the award in the event that they actually won it, it felt like a win for everyone.

As if he could read her thoughts, the corner of Rasmus' mouth curved up into a lopsided smile. "Holy shit is correct. I guess I felt like congratulations were due," he admitted. "Since they wouldn't think our show is any good if we weren't up there killing it every night."

"Killing you," she corrected.

"I try to be nice and you make it about murdering me?"

"You really shouldn't pretend to be shocked by that," she advised. "It's not a believable look on you. But, um, thanks. And congrats, too."

Not thinking that this conversation was going to go anywhere else, she moved to close the door, but Rasmus reached out and caught it before she could and held it open.

Before she could verbally protest, he startled her by saying, "Let's go get breakfast or something."

Cora stared. Why did it sound like he was asking her out? She resisted an impulse to shake her head at her own ridiculous thought—Rasmus would go on a date with one of the infamous New York subway rats sooner than he'd go with her.

"It's our day off," was all she said.

He nonchalantly glanced over her shoulder at the unoccupied living room, not appearing to find his own behavior to be perplexing at all. "And you're clearly so busy right now."

She never thought that he was going to take the whole fake friends thing far enough to hang out with her on their days off, but she had asked him to convince her. Which meant that her job was to allow him to do that when he tried.

So she surrendered. "You're paying."

"Fine."

As Cora opened the door wider so that he could step inside, she pointed to one of their kitchen barstools. "I need fifteen minutes. Sit and do not touch anything. And fix your damn hair."

Had Rasmus planned on asking Cora to do anything with him when he showed up at her door? No. But here he was, waiting in her kitchen and wondering why on Earth he was compelled to hang out with a girl who took joy in finding ways to insult him.

This wasn't part of the deal—he should just walk out the door right now. But he needed to keep her placated, keep her confidence up. Because when he saw her start to crack and break, he didn't really see her at all.

All he saw was a mirror image of himself. And that scared the hell out of him, so he was refusing to let her shatter.

She eventually emerged from her bedroom in a jumpsuit, a thin golden necklace resting around her neck. She'd also put a little pearl clip in her hair, whereas he—

"You didn't fix your hair," she remarked.

Rather than quip that he didn't see a convenient mirror just lying around anywhere, he bit his tongue and ran a hand through his hair. "Better?"

"No," she sighed. "But it'll do. C'mon."

And just like that, turning on her heel and strutting out the door, she'd successfully taken control of this outing from him. He followed her out, muttering under his breath that he was pretty sure his hair looked exactly the same as it always did. She either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him, most likely the latter.

"What do you want to eat?" she asked as they walked to the elevator.

He shrugged. "I don't know that I care. I don't think there's such a thing as bad breakfast food."

She wrinkled her nose. "There's absolutely such a thing as bad breakfast food."

Rasmus let out a low breath. "Nothing I ever say will be right to you, will it?"

Cora's sigh was much more obviously exasperated than his. "How are you turning freaking breakfast into an argument, Rasmus? Really, does everything have to be a fight with you?"

He could ask her the same thing. "It was a joke. Calm down, it's not that serious."

She looked like she was on the verge of snapping that she absolutely was not going to calm down when the elevator doors suddenly opened and an older man stepped out. She clamped her mouth shut, unable to yell at him in front of someone else, and soundlessly stepped into the elevator.

They were silent for the whole ride down.

But once the doors slid open again, Cora finally huffed, "Starbucks. I need caffeine, so we're going to freaking Starbucks and you are going to keep your freaking mouth shut if you don't like it."

He did keep his mouth shut. He'd assumed that she'd go for something more substantial than a Starbucks pastry if he was the one paying for it, but he wasn't complaining. This way they could hopefully keep the endeavor short and separately go about the rest of their days, forgetting that he ever tried to make this mess work when they clearly functioned better when they were as far apart from one another as possible.

The line at Starbucks was long, but he wasn't surprised. He doubted there was a single one in Manhattan that was ever not crowded, but at least it gave him time to figure out what he wanted. He usually avoided Starbucks precisely because it was usually such an ordeal to get in and out of. That, and half the items on the menu didn't even sound like they should be real things—what the hell was a Dragon Drink?

A laugh slipped out of his mouth when Cora went ahead of him and actually ordered a Dragon Drink, but he disguised it as a cough. She glanced back at him but wasn't glaring, which gave him hope that his tactic worked. He ended up ordering an americano.

There was one table left by the front windows, great for people-watching but terrible if you hated being watched. Rasmus couldn't care anymore if random strangers happened to be looking at him when they passed by, not when his whole job was to be in front of people for two hours at a time while frequently making out with the girl currently sitting across from him.

Theatre was a very weird career.

But luckily, by the time they received their drinks and pastries—a Dragon Drink was apparently some horrifyingly pink thing that looked like a My Little Pony had thrown up in the cup—Cora's mood seemed to have mellowed out. She contentedly sipped her Pinkie Pie upchuck and said, "Thanks."

"Sure."

"I have to ask," he confessed, eyeing her drink suspiciously. "What's actually in that thing?"

She gave the cup a thoughtful look. "Would you believe me if I said the blood of my enemies?"

"Your enemies bleed pink?"

Before she could respond, his thoughts were entirely derailed by a spurt of abrupt, stifled giggling from somewhere nearby. He watched Cora's eyebrows furrow as if she'd heard it too.

Why did it feel like someone was laughing at them?

Trying his best to be inconspicuous about it, he shifted ever-so-slightly in his seat so that his eyes could trail towards the source of the sound. It didn't take him long to find it. There were two girls, probably still teenagers, huddled at a corner table and whispering to one another.

And then he noticed their tee shirts. They were the ones sold in the lobby at Illicit Affairs.

Rasmus turned back to Cora, whose eyes were as wide as saucers—she'd clearly had the same realization as him. What do we do? she mouthed to him.

"Just act normal," he whispered.

"But normal for us isn't normal at all!" she hissed.

She had a point there. "What do you want me to say?" he asked under his breath. "It's not like I'm just gonna approach a couple of teenage girls. That's creepy as hell."

"I know, I know," she shot back, nervously folding her hands on the table. Rasmus nearly reached over to pull them apart, but that definitely would have added fuel to the fire already brewing in the corner. "But do we wait and see if they come over? Or do we just leave? I don't wanna be obvious about it."

"Five minutes," he decided. "Let's just give it five minutes and then get out of here. And we gotta look like friends in the meantime."

Cora looked down at the table. "I don't know how to act like your friend in front of an audience," she mumbled.

Now she was overreacting. "If you can be my wife in front of an audience, I'm sure you can be my friend. Just treat me like you'd treat Prescott."

She bristled at the mention of her best friend. "I can't do that," she said shortly, taking a small sip of her drink. "You guys are nothing alike."

"I'm starting to think you're not a very good actress."

It was the wrong thing to say—of course it was. Cora sat up straighter, her eyes like steel as they bore into his. "I'm a damn good actress and you know it. But my history with Simon is...complicated. Those aren't just feelings I can channel towards someone else."

Rasmus leaned forward, lowering his voice. "And by 'complicated,' you mean you fucked him and it was so boring that you didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore?"

Metal grated against the floor as Cora shoved her chair back from the table and stormed out the door in a flurry of motion, abandoning the rest of her drink.

"Shit," he muttered to himself. "Shit."

Rasmus grabbed both of their cups and went to follow her, but he couldn't literally run out of the store without making a scene, so she was already halfway down the block by the time he got outside.

"Cora!" he shouted. "Where are you even going?"

She was headed in the opposite direction from where they came from and kept walking, not even sparing him a glance over her shoulder. Rasmus had to run to catch up with her, dodging people as he went and accidentally bumping shoulders with a couple of them. Their angry retorts got lost in the wind as he kept his eyes locked on the girl with the chestnut hair.

"Cora–"

He grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around only for her to strike him across the cheek with the palm of her hand.

His mouth fell open in shock as the stinging blossomed on his cheekbone, radiating out like the rings of a spider's web. Cora yanked her hand back and held it against her chest like she was just as surprised as he was that she actually hit him, but she didn't seem to regret it.

"Why?!" she seethed, and he would realize later that she'd had tears in her eyes. "Why are you always trying to hurt me? What makes you think you can go and say things like that?!"

But Rasmus didn't have an answer—he couldn't speak at all.

Cora didn't know what she'd just done to him, but it was a worse pain than he was capable of inflicting on her. His whole body tightened, pushing against his will to either break down or go into flight mode.

He had already worn enough bruises on his skin to know how these situations turned out for him. Logic was completely out the window—in its self-preservation efforts, his body had decided long ago that pushing back wasn't an option anymore. It had only one reaction to being struck:

Run. Run before you get hurt even more.

But Cora didn't know any better than to read his silence as total apathy.

So she took her cup out of his hand, popped the lid off, and dumped all of its contents onto him.

With a turn of her heel, she was gone.