Chapter Nineteen
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Welcome back to Rory’s Market!
Leora
Does anyone actually know how to tell if cantaloupe is ripe or not? Am I supposed to smell it? Knock on it? Offer it up to an ancient tree in the Pacific Northwest and see if it’s accepted as good enough for the forest?
I tilt the melon in my hands, spinning it around to look for anything that could be regarded as suspicious. What that suspicious thing might be, I have no clue, but it could be something. Right?
Wolfe probably knows how to tell if a melon is good or not.
He’s sent me pictures before of the little watermelon and honeydew shapes he cuts for Amia.
He wrote me once that he tries to make healthy foods fun, and junky foods boring.
He preps adorable fruits and vegetables once a week, doing different themes for the shapes and trying to keep up with her current interests.
He does the same with other snacks, too, and I’ve received many pictures of Pinterest-worthy lunches he’s packed her.
I could probably ask him how to tell if a melon is ripe.
I could, actually, definitely ask him how to tell if a melon is ripe. I could do it right now, this very second. Not because I have access to him via Discord, which he only checks a couple times a day, but because I have access to his phone number.
Wolfe Blackwood’s phone number.
It’s scrawled on a pink sheet of stationery paper tucked haphazardly into my purse.
Above the ten–digit number are scrawled more words, explaining things I can’t remember. Namely, how I got home. The last thing I recall from my foray to Blackwood Brew is working hard to pick up ice with makeshift chopsticks. Everything after that, I know from the note.
The note with Wolfe’s phone number at the bottom of it, telling me to call him if I need anything in the night or in the morning.
Apparently, Fox would be more than happy to keep an eye on Amia in the middle of the night so that Wolfe can drive to my home and hold my hair while I vomit.
Apparently, when Wolfe drove me home last night in my car, Fox followed, and the two of them got me safely to bed.
Or, if the note is to be believed, Wolfe got me safely to bed while Fox nosed about my living room calling observations about my person down the hall.
I don’t know what the observations were, because Wolfe didn’t write them down, but I can surmise that they weren’t terrible by the fact that directly below Wolfe’s number lies Fox’s in a handwriting quite a bit sharper than Wolfe’s.
Wolfe wrote that Fox would drive him home, and that I should drink some of the water he left on my nightstand next to his note, and perhaps, if I want to, just as a suggestion, I could take a couple of the pain pills from the bottle beside the water.
Also, by the way, he had a really good time, and he’s glad that I came to the bar. He hopes we have many nights filled just like that, a lifetime of memories in a place where he already has so many. A second lifetime, with you.
Then, his phone number. And his brother’s, but… his phone number. Wolfe Blackwood’s phone number. Right there, for me.
Stars, we really aren’t stuck in our mailboxes anymore, are we?
“Miss Leora!” a bright, beautiful voice greets from the other side of my melon.
I blink and lower the fruit.
My eyes widen. “Amia!”
“Hi!” she whisper-yells, gapped-tooth smile in full effect. She glances around furtively, then leans in. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she tells me. “But I saw your hair! And I wanted to come and say hi!”
I am going to be arrested.
I am going to be arrested, then stabbed.
“Is your dad here?” I ask. “At Rory’s?”
She nods and looks around again. “Yeah, he’s here. That’s why we gotta be real quiet. This is a secret mission!”
“No,” I say, firmly. “No, no, no, no, no. No. Nooope. No. N-O. No.” I shake my head, just to make sure the message is clear.
I put the melon in my cart, plant my hands on a wide-eyed Amia’s shoulders, and spin her around, facing away from me.
“We are going to find your dad right now,” I tell her.
“This is not safe at all. This is danger zone to the extreme. Please never, ever, ever walk away from your designated grown up in public without them knowing again. Even if you’re going to someone you think is safe. I could be a lunatic, Amia!”
This is bad. This is so, so bad. This is not the hot kind of boundary crossing.
Wolfe is going to kill me. He’s going to see me with his daughter, think I’ve done a revenge kidnapping, and murder me on the spot.
Or, more likely, he’s going to call the cops, and they’re going to arrest me, and then I’m going to get shivved in prison for a crime against a child.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I mutter to the stars, scanning aisles as we pass them, looking for Wolfe’s stark white hair.
“I don’t think Daddy’s going to be too mad,” Amia tries to console me. “He lets me go an aisle over to pick out chips sometimes.”
“Does he let you go several store sections over to meet complete strangers sometimes?” I ask, anxiety heightening my pitch.
Amia hums happily. “No, not usually.”
I do not know what there is to be happy about, and I tell her so.
She sighs dreamily. “There’s everything to be happy about, Miss Leora.
You’re worried about me just like Daddy gets!
That’s good news, because Daddy says that he worries so much because he loves me so much.
Plus, you lectured me like he does, too.
And you know what he says about why he lectures me so much? ”
I’m sure I could guess, but I don’t as I finally see a wisp of Wolfe’s hair. He’s in the cereal aisle, walking swiftly away from us as his head swivels around the edge of an endcap.
“Wolfe!” I call.
He turns, frantic, and his entire body deflates as he catches sight of Amia in my hands.
I let go of her immediately and try to prod her toward her father without actually touching her again.
“Hi, Dad!” she cries with pep.
“I didn’t snatch her, I swear,” I say as he gets close enough to scoop his wandering daughter into his arms. “I didn’t even know you guys were here,” I continue, feeling a full-blown ramble coming on. “I–”
Wolfe interrupts before I can gain any steam. “It’s okay, Leora. I know you wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Oh, thank the stars.
He turns his ire on the wiggling ball of happy he holds. “You, on the other hand, are in huge, giant, massive trouble.”
Amia beams. “Okay!”
Wolfe’s eye twitches. “You can’t go off like that on your own,” he says.
“You especially can’t go off on your own like that, breaking one safety rule, to meet someone it’s not been decided you can meet yet, breaking a second safety rule.
Tonight, we’ll be going over the safety rules and the consequences of breaking them, and you’ll be receiving three consequences.
One for each rule you broke, and one for compound interest.”
I take a small step away from the father-daughter duo, then a larger one.
As fascinating—and straight up attractive—as it is watching Wolfe parent, I am not supposed to be here.
If Wolfe wanted us to meet, Wolfe would have orchestrated that meeting himself.
Until he does, I will keep myself literally anywhere else than Amia’s vicinity, including but not limited to: the fiery pits, North Korea, and the other side of Rory’s Grocery.
“Leora.” Wolfe stops me in my tracks, sharp sapphire eyes catching mine. “One second?”
I hold my breath and don’t move.
He sets Amia down. “Apologize to Miss Leora for putting her in this situation, then go pick out some granola,” he says. “Right there, at the end of this aisle, where I can still see you.”
Amia does as bid, eliciting a small squeak from me when she gets closer than expected to deliver her apology. Joyfully, she proclaims, “I’m sorry I broke the rules to come and see you! It was mean and inconsiderate to drag you into the middle of me breaking the rules. Will you please forgive me?”
If I’ve ever seen a less desolate child, I do not know where or when.
“I forgive you,” I say, stepping to the side so she can pass by without having to touch me.
“Thanks!” she says, then turns to her dad. “I’ll get the granola!” She rockets off, sliding to a stop at the very end of the aisle.
Wolfe sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says at the same time that I blurt the words myself. His brows furrow. “You’re sorry?” he asks. “What would you need to be sorry about?”
“For meeting Amia,” I reply readily. “For being in her presence without your express permission. For putting my hands on her shoulders. For walking silently around the store to find you instead of yelling our location so you could get to us faster.” For anything and everything that might get me arrested without Wolfe in my life anymore to send me letters before my eventual stabbing.
His eyes soften on me. “None of that is your fault,” he says gently.
“You don’t control my child or what she chooses to do.
Amia knows the rules, and she broke them, and you’re a casualty in that.
I apologize that I wasn’t watching her well enough to enforce the rules, making it possible for you to become that casualty. ”
I wince. “I really am sorry, though. She’s your daughter, and I’m sure you don’t want her off with someone you barely know in real life.
Normally if I see her in public, I avoid, avoid, avoid.
I try to schedule myself around avoiding you and her, honestly.
That’s why I’m at the grocery store on a Saturday.
You guys shop on Sundays. It’s supposed to be safe. ”
“Leora, it’s okay,” he says. “When you told me you like boundaries being crossed, I know you didn’t mean anything like this.
I don’t…” He bites his lip, glancing at Amia before he steps closer and lowers his voice.
“I don’t even really care that you two have met.
I’d love nothing more than for us to be at the point where you’ve more than just met her, but instead are used to being around her.
I can’t set anything up like that right now, because we do have rules to follow in regards to this sort of thing.
You may be known to her, but you’re not known to her, you know?
And our rule is that I need to be around any new person in our lives at least three times without her before they can be around her in any sort of larger capacity.
It’s a little different with friend’s parents and stuff.
Sometimes it can get muddy, or there are circumstances where it just straight doesn’t work at all, but for the most part, we follow that rule, and it’s proven to be the right decision more than once.
” He checks to make sure Amia isn’t watching, then shifts so that if she does look over, she won’t see it when he engulfs my hand in his and squishes reassuringly before letting it go.
“We’ve only had two hang outs in real life, which means it’s not time yet, but I also am not worried about a grocery store run-in.
What I am worried about is her breaking rules and potentially putting herself in an unsafe situation, because you’re not the only person in this grocery store, and no matter how small this town is, we don’t actually know everyone in it. ”
I’m gawking. I know for sure that I’m gawking, but I can’t help it.
Competent, protective dad Wolfe is hot.
“Stars,” I whisper, holding the hand that he squeezed over my heart. “You’re such a good dad.”
His skin reddens. “What a thing to say to a man who lost his daughter not even five minutes ago.”
“You didn’t lose her,” I protest. “She ran away. That’s way different, and it’s very clear that her well-being is of the utmost importance to you.”
He frowns. “It is, but–”
“But nothing. It is, and thus you’re a good dad. I’ve written to you about my dad. You know what I have to compare to, and you know that I know exactly what she could be subjected to. You’ll not change my mind about this. Take the compliment.”
He stares at me for seconds that feel like hours, and I see the exact moment he decides to heed my words, take my compliment, and let it fester warmly inside of him. “Okay, my starling,” he mutters. “I’ll let you think well of me. I suppose. If I have to.”
I lift my nose in the air. “Good.”
Amia, both arms loaded up with bags of granola, heads back toward us.
I, reasonably, panic.
“That’s my cue!” I declare. “I will be in the fruit section. Then the pasta section. Then, probably, the frozen pizza section. Take heed.”
Then, without waiting for a response, I book it out of the aisle, going the opposite way of Amia’s approach.
I don’t totally avoid them for the rest of my shopping, but I do my best, even though it becomes clear that they aren’t avoiding me. Whenever we cross path’s, Wolfe meets my eyes and smiles, a sweet, amused tip of his lips. Amia waves, big and obnoxious and adorable.
My heart ties itself in knots at the clear adoration I receive, from both father and daughter. Their eyes shine with love, and their smiles with affection.
In the freezer aisle, I let some of my own shine back at them, and when Amia gives her biggest wave yet, I wave back.