It wasn’t until we actually pulled up that I realized I was going to be grocery shopping with Lance. Not just that, I was grocery shopping for a large number of people who deserved some great food for being great people and I really could not afford to do that.
This thought, of course, only made my butt sweat more.
Lance, hopefully oblivious to the sweat situation, didn’t even look at me as he got out of the car.
I took a deep breath, tried to subtly wipe the dampness from my forehead with the back of my hand and got out of the car.
There was no real way to check for wet patches on my ass without looking like a maniac, so I just had to hope for the best.
Luckily, Lance didn’t seem too bothered about waiting on me after he’d locked the car, he just strode toward the entrance.
I watched him for a beat, his purposeful, lithe strides, his shirt and jeans free of any sweat and looking sinfully delicious.
I gulped in a swallow of humid air and followed him to the grocery store.
Which was where the problems continued.
He’d already gotten a cart by the time I made it into the foyer. The big kind, not the small ones I usually used with Nathan. I’d always looked enviously at the moms with the designer bags and leggings, pushing around the overflowing large cart full of name brand food. They didn’t even glance at prices when they threw things into their cart, didn’t consider whether they really needed it, didn’t look at the shelves with an eagle eye for the things that would go the furthest and last the longest.
No, they shopped for what they wanted, what their kids wanted.
Whereas I was pushing around a sparsely and strategically full small cart of off brand products, whatever fruit and veggies were on sale that week, clutching coupons and doing mental calculations in my head as every new item landed in the small cart.
Nathan, the angel that he was, sensed my quiet panic about going grocery shopping. So, unlike other children, he didn’t run up and down the aisles, picking up things he wanted, or begging me for all sorts of treats.
He walked in step with me, chattering about whatever he’d learned in school that day, a cool cloud he’d seen, or his new goal of farming ants.
I loved that little dude for so many, infinite reasons, but the supermarket thing nearly broke my heart. So, usually, I’d find a way to sneak a candy bar or something into the basket and slip it into his lunchbox the next day.
I was not in charge of this grocery trip, as Lance made clear by wheeling the large cart right into the fruit and vegetable section.
I pursed my lips to stop myself from saying anything about the cart, though the gesture was not needed, my pride shut me up plenty.
“Get the shit you need for the guac,” Lance said, snatching pre-made salads from the chiller.
Again, I had to purse my lips to stop myself from saying that the pre-made salads were grossly overpriced and the ingredients for salads were cheaper and would go further.
I went and got the shit I needed for the guac, looking for the cheapest variety of tomatoes, onions, and avocados.
By the time I made it back to the cart with my careful selections, the cart was already a quarter full. My eyes went wide with everything Lance had dumped into it while I was trying to find the best avocado.
Meats of varying kinds, more salad ingredients, some pastries from the bakery section. Huge bottles of iced tea, both sweetened and unsweetened. Sodas. Fresh bread. Pretty much the makings of an epic barbeque.
And bankruptcy for me.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Lance beat me to it.
“You’re not a vegan or some shit, are you?”
I snapped my head up from the cart to focus on him. He’d hooked his sunglasses in the front of his tee, in a way that looked both effortless and incredibly sexy. His expression was blank, hard, if anything, a little impatient.
He pretty much looked like a man who would rather be anywhere but here, not a man who had all but accosted me—at the very least, accosted my purse—in order to get here.
I tried to think of all the places a man like Lance would like to be than grocery shopping with the single mother who had a crappy car, butt sweat, a violent ex, and an adorable kid.
A gym, by the looks of his body.
Likely some trendy, edgy, masculine loft in downtown LA with sparse furniture and some weights in the corner—where I imagined he lived.
Or some in between some slim and tanned twenty-year-old legs. Beautiful, big hair, an easy smile, no baggage, able to do things like buy groceries without having a panic attack and emptying her bank account.