Love Under Quarantine

Yes siree, he’d have a club in one hand, dragging me off by my hair to have his wicked way with me with the other. My skin instantly turns to goose flesh at the thought. Rough, uncivilized sex with Evan. His big strong hands positioning me, holding me firm, ready to take his huge throbbing—

“Hello? Sadie?”

I blink. “Hmm?”

“You buying yogurt or what?”

“Right. Yes. Yes, I am. Love the stuff.” And that is a total lie. Yogurt is gross, right up there with cottage cheese, but I grab a tiny container to save face and push my cart into the fruit and vegetable section. I glance over my shoulder to see he’s smiling while putting a couple huge containers of the plain stuff into his cart.

Damn, I can’t believe he busted me having sex thoughts. How embarrassing. Hopefully he just thinks dairy goods get me overly excited. Even that would be less humiliating than him knowing I was dwelling on his manhood. What we can summarize from this is that when it comes to Evan, I am apparently a terrible friend.

I grab some strawberries and blueberries. A couple of red apples and a ready-made salad. A packet of carrots and celery sticks with some hummus. Yum.

“C’mon. You cannot be serious.”

“What?” I look back over my shoulder at him.

His sigh is so long and heavy it might carry its own zip code. Like I’m slowly crushing the life out of the poor man with my bad food choices. “Step away from your cart, Sadie.” His voice is authoritative and brooks no argument.

A little shiver ripples through me at the deep, sexy timbre.

“Ugh. Fine.” I take several steps back and cross my arms. “It’s not like I didn’t get any fresh fruit or vegetables. Crudités count.”

I glance at the clerks that are restocking each section with the fresh stuff while other patrons are grabbing what they can as soon as it’s put out.

He doesn’t even bother responding. Instead, he gets busy tossing a couple potatoes (so carby), a big bunch of kale (bleh), tomatoes, an onion, broccoli, cauliflower, and four huge cobs of corn into my cart.

“Evan, you’ve gone too far. I don’t do cauliflower.”

“We’ll bake it covered in a cheese sauce. You’ll love it.”

“You’re so bossy when it comes to food.” I grumble, but deep down, this is fun. It’s nice having him look after me like this. Having him care about my health and the contents of my pantry as opposed to just my panties like so many other men. Though if he stuck to my thong, my heart would be safer.

I didn’t really do domestic things with Sean. He had a housekeeper to deal with all sorts of necessities. Someone to handle the shopping and making meals. And then he had me to deal with his dick, and to be available as his plus one at business functions. The man sure had his life sorted into neat and tidy boxes. Pity it sucked so hard being a part of it.

“You’ll at least try it, right? For me?” Evan flashes me a smile and my knees go weak. Oh, the things I wouldn’t do for him when he looks at me that way. This is ridiculous.

“Fine,” I say, letting my head and shoulders sag for good measure.

“That’s my girl.”

Next, he fills his cart with healthy food. Way more than I could ever eat in two weeks let alone one. I push my cart a little farther away and scan the paper products aisle. It’s wiped out completely. Not a single roll of toilet paper. Thank God I buy a huge thirty-six count package every few months. Still, it takes me out of my happy little sphere thinking about all the people who don’t have any.

Powering forward and skipping that aisle completely, I move on. Pasta, rice, canned goods, and so on. There are very few options in the pasta aisle. Which I guess in the grand scheme would make sense because it lasts a long time and is filling. A good way to feed large families.

Grabbing a single box of spaghetti and a jar of premade sauce, not my normal brand, but you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit, I shift my mind back to what we talked about on the street. Namely him. My new favorite subject to dwell on. How would that affect you, losing your mom so young? Having to learn to cook and everything. Taking care of his little brother while his dad was at work. It’s obvious he’s a nurturer by nature. A giver. Despite what he says about having previously restricted sexual relations to hello/bang/goodbye.

Though if he pours all of his energy into football, then he wouldn’t have necessarily have the time or the emotional energy for a real relationship. Perhaps when he left home for college and then the big leagues, he was focusing on his first love, the game, and didn’t see any need for a second. Making up for the time he’d lost having to grow up fast after his mom died, maybe. Indulging in some of the partying he missed out on during high school.