I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I yank down the sun visor and cringe when I see my face. Even after an hour at the coffee shop with the girls, my cheeks are still red from hot yoga, and my hair is a wild mess. I should’ve showered before coming here.
A quick glance at my watch shows that it’s almost five. I’m afraid that if I go home and shower, I’ll get lazy and won’t leave again. Screw it. I pull my hair from the messy knot, run my fingers through it, and spend a few minutes putting it in a bun on my head. When I think it’s good enough, I shrug and slip out of the car.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s so much easier to pull up an app, log in to a profile, and swipe left. Or right, depending on the app. But I don’t want easy, I want a man, and if Edna thinks this will work, then I’m going to trust her. Why shouldn’t I? The woman has a lifetime of experience and was married to the same guy for years and years. She must know something that I don’t.
“Hello,” an older man says when I walk into the grocery store.
“Hi.” I smile and walk past him. I reach for a cart but decide to go for a basket instead because I only need a few things.
I tuck my arm through the handles and set off for the first thing on my list. Body wash. Aisle eight. I find what I’m looking for right away, and when I turn for aisle nine, I slam into another customer. He must’ve had his arms full because various products go sliding across the floor.
“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” I bend down and grab the bag of cotton balls he dropped.
When I stand up to hand them to him, he’s smiling at me. It’s a big, white smile, like the ones in those tooth-whitening commercials, and I don’t hesitate to smile back.
“It was my fault,” he says, reaching for the cotton balls. “My name is Stephen.”
“Lizzie.”
Oh. My. God. Edna was right. This is great. Not five minutes into my grocery store trip, and I’ve already found a handsome man. I don’t know a darn thing about him, except that he likes… “Are those chips yours?” I say, grabbing the Doritos off the floor. They must’ve fallen when I plowed into him. “Cool Ranch is my favorite.”
“Mine, too.” Piling the chips on top of the cotton balls, he frees up a hand and bends to grab something else that had fallen. “Hemorrhoid cream,” he says, waving the tube as he stands up.
“Oh, uh…”
“It’s okay, I’m not ashamed to admit that I have hemorrhoids.”
“Right. Yeah, you shouldn’t be ashamed at all.”
“The doctor says it’s from the anal sex toys I use, but I’m not convinced.”
TMI.
Abort! Abort!
I pull my basket up higher on my arm, holding it in front of me as though it’ll make me invisible. “Well, I hope you’re able to get them healed.”
With the tiniest of waves, I flit around him.
“Wait, Lizzie. Lizzie!”
I ignore him calling out to me and duck down another aisle and then another and another until I’m certain I’ve lost him. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against hemorrhoids or anal sex toys, but…no. It’s too soon for us to have that conversation.
Maybe the food aisle is a safer bet. A few kids run by, knocking into a center display. Their mom yells after them to slow down and, rather than get trampled, I move out of the way.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t control them. They’re little banshees.”
“It’s okay.” I smile as she hustles after them.
One of these days, that’s what I want: little banshees and all. But first, I need a man.
With a sigh, I keep walking and draw up short at the sight of a tall, built man in the cereal aisle. He’s dressed in dark jeans, and his black t-shirt stretches tight across his back. His hair is a little shaggy, curling over the tops of his ears, but I’m good with that. Standing back, I watch him for a few seconds, and when I see a bare left ring finger, I decide to make my move. No idea what that move will be, but I’ll wing it.
Hi, my name is Lizzie.
Can you reach that for me?
“Come here often?”
“Oh my gosh!” I squeak and turn around, a hand to my heart. “You scared the living daylights out of me.” I thump Aiden on the chest. “What are you doing here?”
Aiden grins. His eyes flit over my shoulder before coming back to my face. “He’s not your type.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s buying oatmeal. You hate oatmeal,” Aiden says, taking the basket from my arms. He loops it around his and grabs something from the shelf, but I’m too shocked to notice what it is.
“Just because I don’t like oatmeal doesn’t mean I can’t date someone who does.”
Aiden walks down the aisle, and I follow along only because he’s holding my basket. That’s the only reason. It has nothing to do with the fact that he smells delicious, or that the way he looks at me makes my body tingle. And it certainly isn’t because I’m insanely attracted to him. Nope, that would be silly.
And true.
Utterly and completely true.
So attracted to him that I grab his favorite box of cereal and put it into the basket because I know it’ll make him smile, and I love his smile.
“What if he makes oatmeal every morning for breakfast?” Aiden suggests. “You can’t stand the smell or the look of it.”
“I’ll hide out in my room until he’s done eating and has brushed his teeth.”
“Right.” Aiden laughs and grabs something else from the shelf.
We weave down another aisle and see another man. Damn, Edna is onto something. I can’t wait to get home and report back to my readers that an evening trip to the grocery store is the perfect place to find a man.
“He’s too stuffy,” Aiden says, looking at the man who caught my eye.
“Why? Because he’s wearing a suit? I happen to like suits,” I say, reaching for a bag of Fisher Boy fish sticks. They’re not my favorite, but Aiden loves them. I toss them into the basket, and he smiles.
“I’ll buy one in every color.”
Okay, that was sweet. Damn him for wearing me down.
“Aiden—”
“Don’t say it.” He holds up a hand. “But, really, he’s too stuffy. You’re laid back.”
“Opposites attract?”
“He’s buying shrimp.”
I cringe. “Bleh. You’re right. Let’s keep walking.”
“It’s amazing what you can learn about someone by watching them shop at the grocery store.”
“No kidding.” When we make it to the milk, I grab a half-gallon of chocolate. I turn to put it in the basket and frown when I notice how full it is. I stop and stare at Aiden. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
I nod toward the basket on his arm. It’s filled with everything on my list that I know I didn’t put in there, plus some extra goodies.
He shrugs. “I know you, Lizzie. I know all of your favorites.”
I blink and study the grocery items. He grabbed the things I like. I grabbed the things he enjoys. We’re like an old, married couple. I take a breath and look at Aiden.
“It’s always like this,” he says.
“I’ve never noticed.” Or maybe I have and just didn’t want to acknowledge it because it would make me want things I knew I couldn’t have.
Except now, I can have them.
At least, I think I can, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
Scared.
Reluctant.
Giddy.
Definitely giddy.
Cautious.
“Stop thinking so hard, and let’s check out.” Aiden nudges me toward the front of the store.
“Right.”
We check out. He pays for all the things and refuses to let me pay him back.
“I can’t let you pay for my stuff.”
“Why not? I’m going to come over and eat most of it anyway.”
I laugh. He has a point. “At least, let me make you dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs.”
“That’s my favorite.”
“I know.”
Aiden’s smile is potent. His eyes drop to my lips. He stares at me for a few beats and then lifts his head and shakes it. “I—I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, I do,” he rushes to say. “But I have work to do. I need to finish a mock-up of the video game to get to Ryan. I should’ve had it done by now, but I’ve been preoccupied.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.”
Aiden frowns and studies me. “Are you upset?”
“No, not at all. I just thought—”
I just thought you would say “yes.” And I didn’t realize how badly I wanted you to agree until you didn’t.
I take a breath, blow it out, and pick up my grocery bags.
“You just thought what?” he says, taking the bags from me.
Now is not the time for him to be chivalrous. I’m already having a hard enough time holding onto my control.
“Nothing. I’m not upset, I promise. And you don’t have to carry those, I can get them.”
This feels awkward, and I hate it. Normally, I’d let him carry my bags, no questions asked. But now, it feels different—like we’re a couple, only the other half of the couple doesn’t want to have dinner with me, which is totally fine except that I’m going home alone with all of these crazy mixed emotions.
Emotions I’m not sure what to do with.
“I know you can,” he says, turning away when I reach for them. “And I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
Aiden
“You’re an idiot,” Calvin says.
I shift my cell from one ear to the other. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? The woman you’re in love with asked you to come over so she could make you dinner. And not just any dinner, your favorite. And you said ‘no.’”
“I was doing the right thing.”
It’s been two days since I parted ways with Lizzie at the grocery store, and for two days, I’ve been stalking her blog, waiting for an indication of when I can make my next move. I’m wearing her down, little by little. I saw it in her eyes while we were shopping. Turning down her dinner invitation was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—aside from keeping my hands off her delectable body—but it was the right thing.
“How do you figure?”
“Because she’s not ready for what I want, and If I would’ve gone over there, I would’ve pushed it. The last thing I want to do right now is scare her away. I want her to come to me on her own terms, when she’s ready.”
And I’ll be there as often as I can, showing her—reminding her—of how I’ve changed and how good we could be together.
“What if she’s never ready? Worse yet, what if her inviting you to dinner was her way of coming to you?”
Shit. I didn’t think of that.
All I was thinking of at the time was how badly I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss the hell out of her. It was bad enough sporting a raging hard-on at the grocery store—I wasn’t sure I would make it through an entire dinner.
I’m about to reply when my phone pings with an incoming email.
“Hold on a second.” I put Calvin on speaker and pull up my inbox. I sent Ryan a first draft of the video game yesterday, and I’ve been waiting to hear back from him. Except the message isn’t from Ryan, it’s a notification for a new post from Lizzie’s blog.
Score!
My eyes skim the page. “I need to borrow Millie’s dog.”
“Why does everyone call Louie Millie’s dog? He’s mine, too.”
“Fine, I need to borrow your dog.”
“You’re not going to use my dog to stalk Lizzie.”
“I’m not stalking her. You have to go into work early today, which means that Louie won’t get his morning walk. I’m graciously offering to walk him for you in hopes that I’ll run into her.”
“I don’t have to go into work early.”
“Lizzie doesn’t know that.”
“I’m all for you and Lizzie getting together, but I don’t think you have to lie to make it happen.”
“I can’t show up to the dog park alone, it’ll look suspicious.”
“It’ll look suspicious if you take Louie because you never take him. And if Lizzie ever finds out about this, she’ll be pissed.”
He’s right. I know that he’s right, but I’m desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures. “What if she goes and meets someone? What if they talk, and she falls in love with his dog, and he asks her out on a date? I can’t let that happen, Calvin. She’s mine.”
“Fine, you can take Louie.”
“Thank you, bro. I owe you one.”
“You owe me like a hundred.”
“Add it to my tab.”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve got the giant boxer in the back of my car. There’s only one dog park in the area, so I find a parking spot a few blocks away and climb out. I hook Louie onto his leash and let him out of the car. The roads here are too busy. I’ll let him loose when we make it to the park.
He wiggles his butt and bounces for joy, tangling the leash around his legs in the process.
“Chill, dude. You’re going to hurt yourself,” I say, fixing the leash.
I’m amazed at how many people are out walking their dogs or playing with them at this time of day. Doesn’t anyone work anymore?
Louie sniffs every tree, bush, and patch of grass he can find, leaving his mark as often as he can. When we make it to the actual park, which is nothing more than a giant field, I let him loose. Louie is a good dog, well trained and friendly. He won’t approach just anyone and listens well to commands. He stays a few feet in front of me as I walk forward, looking back every few seconds to make sure I’m still here. When I stop, he sits at my feet and waits patiently for me to make my next move.
I scan the area for Lizzie but come up empty.
“Let’s go this way,” I say, following a path to the left. I’m not sure why I’m talking to a dog, it’s not like he can understand me. Except maybe he can, because Louie takes a left and follows said path.
A few joggers run by us. One stops and asks if she can pet Louie. She oohs and ahhs over how beautiful he is and then stands up and smiles at me. I know this smile. It’s the I-want-in-your-pants smile. It’s one I easily ignore.
“Have a great afternoon,” I say, nudging Louie farther down the path. The woman’s jaw drops, but I don’t give it much thought. I’m a man on a mission, and that mission is…holding a dog while it rains kisses on her face? I’m guessing the man standing beside her smiling with a gleam in his eye is the dog’s owner.
Oh, fuck that.