11. Aurora and the grocery store parking lot
Chapter eleven
Aurora and the grocery store parking lot
“ H ey, hunny, you wanna make lunch?” my mom called out from the back room. Covered in baby sac gunk and other fluids, typical vet things, she scrambled to the shower. I was still trying to unclog her cache from her laptop web browser when she flew past me.
“Yeah, sure!” I chirped, leaving her laptop to finally update after who knows how long. My phone made a light kissy sound, and I rolled my eyes. The notification sound was growing on me. Mom hadn’t said a word about it yet. Yet being the key word.
Thankfully, it seemed after two “finds”, the app unlocked a messaging function just like any other dating app. I opened the app to find a chunk of text from Yuri.
Dollface! What is this and why did you demand I watch it? I’ve never in my life felt so accosted. And why the fuck did he let her leave? For being the goblin king, he’s not very good at being a king. Also, isn’t she like 16? You want to tell me something ?
I tossed my head back in a cackle. I’d made him park in the driveway the day he brought me home and handed him three DVDs and a book, with no expectation he’d ever watch them or read the book by himself. Then, that next morning, he sent me a whole text thesis discussing The Secret Garden. I’d given him my favorites that Mom always kept next to the TV. Comfort watches.
Texting him back, I pocketed the device in my jeans and ripped open the fridge. Oh, that’s not good. “Uh, hey Mom?”
“Yeah-huh!” The shower sounded from the hallway. I followed the sound of my mother dropping gross fabric into the washer before immediately diving into the steaming shower. Waiting all of a minute before coming around the doorway to her bathroom, I swung into the room.
“We don’t have food.”
“Shit!” she hissed. The bathroom curtain was ripped back to her chin as she stared at me. “I knew I was forgetting something.”
My mother never changed. Every week, we did this growing up. We’d go into town for chores and forget supplies for the business. Then, we would go out the next day, get the supplies, and forget groceries. Every trip into town was a three-day excursion.
“It’s no problem. You’re busy. You’ve got like six more patients outside, and I can hear them snorting now,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Why don’t I grab your card, keys, and head out? I’ve gotta pick up an application anyway.”
“Application?” my mother barked, eyeing me like I’d lost every last marble.
“Yeah, you know, for a job?” I retorted, putting my hands to my hips.
“Pfft. No, you’re not.” She let go of the curtain.
“Mom! I can’t keep living off you. I’m a grown ass woman. I need to pick myself back up again.” She wanted to baby me again, I could feel it. I’d come home sobbing, a broken mess for her to fix like all her other injured turkeys and goats. However, I wasn’t a heartbroken teen anymore. I was a grown, divorced woman who needed to get her shit together. That started with having a paycheck again. I likely couldn’t go too far out of town for work, as I didn’t have a car, plus the added bonus of not having anything of my own or a work reference for five years. What place would hire me?
“I wasn’t saying live off my debit card. I just don’t want you scraping dimes off the floor at the local Piggly Wiggly!” she huffed from behind the ducky shower curtain.
“Not every grocery store is a Piggly Wiggly,” I grumbled to myself as I sat back, leaning against the doorframe.
“What was that?”
“Nuffin’,” I mumbled. “Mom, I need a job.”
“You have a job! Here, at the farm.”
“Oh yeah? You gonna put me on the payroll?” I crossed my arms under my chest.
“Already did.”
“What?” I stomped across the bathroom and pulled just a small portion of it back to look my mother in the eye. “Mom!”
“What? You’ve been doing a whole bunch around the farm: fixing my laptop, taking phone calls for me, handling the payments, all that good stuff. I got the animals. Gladys is my second pair of hands here, so what I need is an admin. You’ve always been so organized, and you understand technology so much better than me. You’ll be getting your first check Friday when they print from the bank.”
I stared at her with my mouth open, just breathing. What? Huh? When did she… Oh. When she dropped me off at the library, she was a little too keen to let me just do my own thing in town. Of course, she put me on the payroll. I let go of the curtain, shaking my head. “I’m taking the truck! And I’m getting pizza from the hot case for lunch! ”
“Oooh! Can you grab those brownie things from the bakery?”
“Yeah!” I called back to her as I stomped back through the house. So much for striking out on my own.
The kissy sound went off as I snatched her debit card out of her wallet and shoved my feet into my sneakers. I opened the app, fully expecting to see another wall of text. Yuri was a paragraph texter. Also never used emojis. However, I got a giant heart instead. Tag, you’re it.
My heart fluttered, considering forgetting my responsibility to my mother and rushing off to go find him. Thankfully, when the map loaded, Yuri was in town. I beamed, trying to zoom in and see where he was, but the app immediately went into directions mode. Ugh! Fine! No spoilers, I guess. Grabbing up the keys, I flew out the door. Giddy excitement filled me. The app didn’t let me switch to text, which meant if I wanted to talk to Yuri, I had to go find him.
Did he purposely press the button? Or had it been an accident?
Gravel sputtered under the wheels as I nearly peeled out of the driveway. The park had only been two days ago, but I was still craving seeing him.
He made me feel…valued? Sexy? Alive again?
The radio was a low hum as I climbed out onto the main road. Every tick that I grew closer to town, the more the little heart icon would flutter, as if it could read inside my chest. Aiming to stay on the careful side, I didn’t speed despite the itch in my foot to slam on the pedal. Was it too soon to be this excited about someone? Probably. Did my need to hear him purr Dollface and clutch the back of my head as he kissed me for my worried brain to shut the fuck up? Yes, yes it did.
Thankfully, the GPS pulled me out of my head as the grocery store rolled into view. Just beyond the forest, my tiny town broke out across the horizon. The only gas pump that shared the cracked concrete parking lot with the grocery store was the first thing in town, and a mysterious, slightly gator-like figure was standing between his truck and the pump, keeping himself as close to the shadows as possible. I smirked as I cranked the wheel and came peeling into the parking lot. Yuri looked up just as I parked on the other side of his pump.
Flouncing out of the cab, I beamed, “Yuri!”
“Dollface,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “What are you doing here?”
Excitement pumped through my veins as I leapt the small distance between pumps to stand beside him. I pulled my phone out, holding it like a proud trophy. “ I found you! ” I sang.
He eyed me with confusion. “But I didn’t press the button.”
My heart and face plummeted. “Oh.”
Yuri clicked the button on the pump and stuffed the nozzle into his truck before he returned his focus to me. Two knuckles under my chin, he brought my gaze up to his. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered, locking the screen on my ‘Congrats! You found him’ notification and pocketing the device.
“What are you doing here? Did you just come here because the app tricked you?” He inspected around the gas pump before returning his attention to me. “I’m only here to get gas and pick up groceries. ”
“Oh yeah, Mom forgot to grab them last time we were in town, so I’m here to grab lunch and some groceries. Would you wanna go with me? We can pick yours up on the way out? I know it’s kinda a domestic thing, but I’d love the company.” I tried not to feel the disappointment. He didn’t click the button… so did the app just decide we needed to find each other again like it did for me? Or was there something I was missing?
“You want me,” he cocked a brow up over his sunglasses, “to go in with you?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” I snorted at such a ridiculous question. Anthony never wanted to do domestic things with me. Not worth his time. Yet, I saw a flinch of something in Yuri’s face. He glanced down to his tail as it thumped against the concrete, then to his clawed hands, then back up to me. My mouth dropped open. “Oh, I’m so sorry Yuri.”
“Don’t stress it, Doll. It’s not like I don’t want to. I’m always down to walk down aisles and torment you about your choice in salad dressing, but I haven’t gone into a business in years. I just…” He trailed off, shaking his head. He glanced back at the pump, unclicking the stand and removing the nozzle from his truck in silence.
“Hey,” I whispered, putting a hand to his chest. He docked the nozzle and immediately wrapped his hands around my waist. Warmth blossomed in my chest as I reached up and took his sunglasses again. This time, he didn’t even fake a scowl; he merely let me pluck him from his face. There was a deep well of sadness in his yellow eyes. It stabbed me deep in the chest. “ Don’t stress it. ”
He let out a slightly wounded chuckle, rolling his eyes. “Sorry to ruin whatever mischief you’d planned for when you found me.”
“I had no plan,” I snorted, leaning into his chest. “Just wanted to see you is all. It’s okay. Why don’t you grab your groceries, and maybe tonight, you can come pick me up?”
I saw him lean in. Like the world slowed down, he was inches from kissing me, and I was melty goo in his hands. However, I never got my kiss as a rickety police pick-up pulled up to the pump next to his. “Yuri! Get your hands off that nice lady. Ma’am, is he bothering you?”
I was ripped out of the sweet, lullaby fantasy of having a moment to ourselves and tossed into the screeching disaster that was reality. Whirling in his arms, I glared at the man with the audacity to rob me of my kiss. “Excuse me?”
“Deputy Freddie Carter, ma’am. Is this man bothering you? Wouldn’t be the first time he put hands on a woman who didn’t belong to him.”
A slim jim looking motherfucker stepped out of the rust bucket pickup truck. He was tall as a light pole, no meat on his bones except oodles of audacity, dressed in a gray button-down police shirt and black slacks. Freddie Carter had ruffled brown hair he raked his fingers through as he closed the truck door with his foot. The horrid scream of the metal hinges begging for mercy came straight out of a slasher film.
“Freddie, what do you want?” Yuri’s hand fell off my hips, and that was the last straw.
“For your information, Bucko .” I snatched his hand from behind me and put it back on my hip. Yuri tensed for only a moment before he stepped up behind me, like a firm wall for me to fall back on as fury pumped through my veins. Before I could finish my statement, I looked up and found Freddie glaring directly at Yuri. “Hey!”
“Freddie, go bully some other people in town, why don’t you? I’m only here for gas and groceries.” Yuri’s claws wrapped protectively around my side.
“Ma’am, if you’re in trouble, you can tell me. He can’t hurt you.”
And that’s when I saw the eye. He wore a porcelain one in his left eye socket. A massive, three-clawed scar ran down his face, but it had seemingly faded with time. However, the more I looked at his face, the more I saw the trenches on his skin and the bad combover over his eyebrows. His glass eye didn’t look at me.
“Yuri wouldn’t hurt me.” The words fell out of my mouth.
“I thought that too.” He raised his other brow. “You’re the new girl in town, right? Sweetheart, let me tell you, getting friendly with the big lug behind you is a bad idea. And you just got yourself straightened out. Heard you’re fresh outta a divorce, just got the cuffs off your wrist kinda thing. You obviously need a man to keep you on the straight and narrow. Girls like you don’t know what’s what in a place like this. Used to big city life…”
Red-hot, blistering rage pumped through my veins. My hands shook. I lunged a step forward, only to be held back by the waist by the might of Yuri. My voice trembled with unbridled fury as I spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t need anyone! But I definitely don’t need some slim jim, two brain cell havin’, can’t tell when a woman isn’t interested unless it’s slapped on his face then turns around and calls her a bitch, elitist dipshit. And I’m not new in town. I’m back in town. So go ahead and get back in your car, Deputy , or Sheriff Thompson’s about to hear about the harassment I faced at the local gas pump from his belligerent deputy.”
“You threatening me, sweetheart?” he growled.
“Call me sweetheart again,” I snapped my teeth together with a hard click, “and find out.”
“Enough!” Yuri hoisted me off my feet, spun me to the other side of him, and shoved my ass in his truck. I almost chewed him a new one, but for the look of desperate plea in his eyes as he shut the door between us.
Instead, I sat back in his seat, arms crossed, pouting at the grocery store parking lot. Who the fuck did he think he was, showing up here and trying to make Yuri out to be the villain? Who was he anyway? Other than some schoolyard bully who never got his ass beat so he became a townwide bully? Horrid, sticky, vile thoughts rampaged through my head as my temper flared. In five years, I hadn’t lost my temper. I was smiles and oh, how sweet to men being audacious at me because I didn’t want to stir the pot. Don’t make a scene. Proper ladies don’t make a scene. But that was Anthony’s wishes, not mine. I’d had it being a pushover sweetie pie.
I’d had it taking shit from other people.
I watched the rearview as Deputy Carter and Yuri spoke in low, gravely voices. Eventually, Carter jabbed a finger at Yuri’s chest, but my gator snatched it off the fabric and forced it, and Freddie, back a step. I couldn’t hear a word, but the look plastered on the deputy’s face was enough to know Yuri made his point. Yuri let go and stomped back to his gas cap. He screwed it back on and slammed the lid shut as the deputy peeled out of the parking lot.
Only after he was gone did Yuri open the door. “Sorry, Dollface. As much as I would like to see you go rabid rottweiler on him—and trust me, he deserves it—I can’t have you doin’ that. He’ll make your life miserable.”
I shifted, dangling my legs off the side of the seat. “Won’t be the first man to make my life a living nightmare, but at least I’m not married to this one.”
Yuri scowled. “You know, you keep talkin’ like that and…”
He trailed off, leaving me wondering—what would Yuri do? I would never ask him. I would never want him to do anything to Anthony. I’d gotten my freedom. How protective was Yuri of me?
“I hope you didn’t make your life miserable by threatening him,” I whispered, switching the subject.
“Freddie Carter has made my life miserable since middle school.” He cupped my sides, sliding in-between my knees. I draped my hands onto his shoulders. “It won’t make a difference in my life if he keeps trying to pull me over for speeding when I’m not, but…you just got your life back. No need to make enemies with the local dickhead if you can avoid it.”
The question hung on my tongue. Before I could think better of it, the words fell out of my mouth. “Yuri, did you take his eye?”
Yuri’s gaze dropped to my lap, all his features softening to a melancholy I’d never seen before. He clutched my sides, as if replaying a haunting memory. It plagued him, I could tell. From the way his eyes slowly climbed back up to mine, to the way he studied my face… it was like it might be the last time he saw it. In a hoarse whisper, he confessed, “I did.”
“What happened?” I leaned forward, immediately cupping his face.
“I…” He looked to the left, out the front windshield and froze. “You should go get those groceries and get on your day. ”
“Wait,” I tried to protest, but he plucked me from the truck and set me down on my feet. No! No, you don’t! I grabbed him by the front of the shirt, not ready to let go. Tugging him in, I felt him jerk in surprise as I smashed my lips to his. No, I won’t let you. Yuri was in pain, and there was something he wanted to tell me. I could be patient. He was giving me the time to get my life together. I could give him the time to find the words.
His right hand clutched the back of my head, deepening the kiss. I backed up into the side of the truck, pulling him with me. He pressed into me. Inhaling deeply, I swallowed the taste of deep woods, smoked meat, and some spice like cinnamon or nutmeg on his clothing. He pulled back only an inch, breathing heavily against my lips. “Dollface, I really got to go.”
“I know, I know,” I whimpered, stealing one last kiss. “But promise me you’ll come find me tonight. I’ll press the button at six. You have to come find me.”
He chuckled softly, nipping at my lower lip. A kiss to my cheek turned to a sensual press to my throat. I groaned softly as he tugged on my earlobe. “It’ll be cheating if you’re just at your house. I wouldn’t need the app.”
A wicked, delightful smile curled on my lips as he pulled away. “What if I’m not at my house? What if I’m…running through the woods?”
Something primal, dark, and needy crossed his face. My core clenched like a copper coil, glowing red hot with desire. He growled lowly, only loud enough for me to hear, “Only one way to find out.”
I was gulping air as I peeled myself away from him. My nipples ached against my bra, demanding to know why I wasn’t having him kiss them too. Every inch of me craved him. I peeked over my shoulder at him before I crossed between the pumps and climbed back into my mom’s vehicle. For no reason at all, I said nothing. I only waved sweetly as I put the SUV in reverse and found a spot on the grocery store side.