10. Grocery Store Girls #2
When the guys went out for snacks—because the fully stocked kitchen wasn’t fully stocked enough—I headed down to the kitchen for hot cocoa.
I intended to be back upstairs by the time they returned, but instead was standing there in slippers, fuzzy pajama pants, and a tank top when Jacob stumbled through the back door, shushing a giggling blond I’d never seen before.
“My parents are asleep,” Jacob stage-whispered to her, putting his finger on her lips before kissing her quiet.
Leave it to my brother to pick up a woman in a grocery store.
Wyatt stalked in behind them, a tall, disapproving shadow carrying Kroger bags. To my utter shock, our gazes locked, and he gave me a little eye roll, like he and I were suddenly in on a private joke. The butt of which was, of course, my brother the lothario.
That one tiny gesture changed things. And though we didn’t talk much after Jacob convinced me to watch a movie with them, it felt for a moment like Wyatt and I had bridged some gap or joined the same team.
He didn’t sit too close to me on the couch, but he wasn’t all the way on the other end either. A good distance.
When I was licking salt off my fingers, Wyatt handed me a napkin. I didn’t even mind the feel of his fingertips brushing mine. It actually felt, for the first time in a long time, okay to be touched.
Meanwhile, Grocery Store Girl sat in Jacob’s lap, and they made out like we were not in the room.
Or in the house at all. For a little while, Wyatt and I pretended like it wasn’t happening and just watched the movie, ignoring them and the awkward tension completely.
Then Wyatt shocked me for a second time that night by throwing a piece of popcorn at them.
It landed in the back of Jacob’s hair, which he was wearing a bit shaggy at the time, and almost stuck.
When I giggled, they didn’t even stop sucking face.
And for the next few minutes, Wyatt and I alternated throwing popcorn at them and pretending to watch the movie.
He never smiled, but his eyes seemed to.
There was a connection there—at least I thought there was.
When our popcorn bowls were empty and we were halfway through the forgettable action movie with explosions and a beautiful female assassin whose eyeliner never smudged, Wyatt and I stood at the same time, made awkward eye contact, and then left Jacob with his mouth fused to Grocery Store Girl’s.
Wyatt lingered in the kitchen, looking at me intently but not saying anything.
And I, a person who could usually make small talk with a baked potato, got nervous because he was so cute and so tall and broad.
And because I didn’t hang out with guys like him anymore.
Athletes. With the kind of body shape and size that made me feel powerless all over again.
So, I bolted upstairs.
A few minutes later, I pretended not to hear him on the other side of the Jack and Jill bathroom door, but it was hard to sleep knowing a guy I barely knew was over there—even with my favorite calming music on and my desk chair jimmied under the bathroom doorknob the way I always kept it at night.
Just in case.
Jacob might have trusted Wyatt enough to bring him home, but it wouldn’t have been the first time his trust proved misplaced.
I woke up disoriented and very thirsty somewhere around two a.m. and tiptoed down to the kitchen where I ran into something in the darkness.
Not something. Someone. Two someones actually—Wyatt and Grocery Store Girl.
For a few seconds, she and I formed a Wyatt sandwich. Me smushed up against his broad back, my nose full of what had to be an expensive cologne, and GSG plastered to his front. Which I’m sure was equally broad and smelled just as expensive.
My sleep-addled brain fired off quick warning signals like This is a person, not a piece of furniture along with a few Does not compute messages, but for a few seconds, I stayed frozen against Wyatt’s spine, trying to make sleepy sense of it.
The situation, not his spine.
I was already in the process of stepping back when Jacob turned on the kitchen lights, leaving me blinking in confusion at Wyatt and his—or rather, Jacob’s —lady friend. My stomach felt less like a pit and more like an open wound.
I couldn’t even look at the man I had felt a sense of camaraderie with and maybe even a spark of attraction toward earlier. He showed me how broken my radar was.
What can only be described as a mild ruckus ensued. Jacob said, “Nadia?” followed by, “Dude. Seriously?”
At which point Grocery Store Girl—Nadia, I guess— slipped out the back door, and I hoped to escape through a hole in the floor, which unfortunately did not materialize.
Dad appeared in the doorway with a baseball bat and no shirt, subjecting us all to the shag carpet on his chest and belly. Mom was behind him, squinting without her glasses and yelling at Dad to put on a shirt before he scared the children.
The only thing Wyatt could say for himself was “She came on to me.”
Considering that I was the only she in the room at the moment, both my parents’ heads swiveled in my direction, multiplying the awkwardness by an infinitesimal amount.
I really, deeply wished for that hole in the floor right then. Except, instead of using it for my own desperate escape, now I wanted to push Wyatt into it.
I didn’t think the situation could get any more embarrassing. But I realized you should never, ever think to yourself: It can’t get worse than this.
Because right then Wyatt took a huge step away from me and said, “Not your sister .”
Maybe he meant to provide clarity. But the horrified look on his face combined with his word choice and the particular emphasis on your sister plummeted me to new depths of humiliation.
Especially considering how I had sort of thought we were—well, I don’t know what I thought we were doing when he shared looks with me, handed me a napkin, and threw popcorn with me.
When I thought about all those things, listed out that way, they all seemed so stupid.
I seemed stupid.
So, I did what anyone else in my situation would have done. I said, “I would never ,” and then ran for my room.
Jacob forgave Wyatt. Or he at least made peace with the whole stealing the woman Jacob plucked from the supermarket like a head of lettuce thing.
Me? I made zero peace with the way my brother’s friend could hook up with the same girl the same night.
Or the way Wyatt could build rapport with me, then so quickly and thoroughly dismiss me.
From what felt like the start of a friendship maybe, but also from the realm of any eventual romantic possibility.
Not that I wanted romantic possibilities—with him or anyone else. Especially not that year.
But did Wyatt have to sound so disgusted by the idea of me?
I returned to college early the next day rather than staying for the whole weekend as planned.
The next year, Wyatt went on to play for the team that had drafted him while he was still in college.
Minnesota or Wisconsin or somewhere—I don’t remember.
Just that it felt far, and I was glad to have half the country between us.
Jacob graduated and started working his way up the steep ladder at a killer agency, using his relationship with Wyatt to skip ahead a few rungs.
After that, whenever I was forced to see Wyatt, I kept my distance. Just like I always did with athletes.
And yet...Wyatt keeps popping into my life like some kind of recurring rash. Never pleasant. Always leaving me with a lingering itch.
But as I trail behind him now into the first aisle of the Rivah Maht, I have to admit I’ve maybe softened just a little bit toward him. I definitely feel more comfortable around him.
“You coming?” he demands, turning and giving me a look that would kill a fake plant.
Maybe I haven’t softened that much.
Very quickly, I realize that the map was, in fact, necessary. Rivah Maht appears to have been organized by someone who had a distinct vision. An artistic vision. One that does not align with practicality or any other grocery store in existence.
It reminds me of how Toni arranges her bookcase: first by author, then by color and height. It’s very aesthetically pleasing but not so easy to understand if you’re trying to find a specific title. Unless you’re Toni.
Normally, I’m good with patterns, but if there’s an order to this madness, I can’t pinpoint it. Some aisles seemed to be arranged by color. A few times I thought I found a pattern of reverse alphabetization. I was wrong.
“Why would someone do this?” I ask. “I mean, it makes no sense.”
“Not to you,” Wyatt says, tossing a bag of frozen chicken thighs into the cart.
“And it does to you?” I add a box of mint ice cream sandwiches from the freezer across the aisle. Because ice cream and chicken thighs makes sense. Wyatt wrinkles his nose.
He moves a little ahead of me, leading the way through this madness. He doesn’t answer, not that I expected one from Mr. Monosyllabic. I grab a box of cookies. Is it because I think it will bother Wyatt? Maybe.
A few minutes later, while examining the label on a loaf of bread, Wyatt surprises me by saying, “I grew up shopping here with my uncle.”
I process this. “And he left you the cottage?” I ask, hoping I’m not prodding too fresh a wound.
“And the boat. We used to sail.”
Wyatt is saying so little, but I’m snatching up each breadcrumb of information like a squirrel hoarding for winter. The fact that Wyatt is voicing any of this speaks to the significance of the relationship with his uncle.
“Do you still sail?”
He uses his crutch to point at the boot on his foot. “Not at the moment.”
I don’t know the first thing about sailing, but I imagine mobility is kind of important. I’d like to ask more questions, but the subject of sailing dropped a dark cloud over Wyatt.
“Is all this really necessary?” Wyatt asks, frowning down at the cart.
“I’m not sure we need ten whole pounds of ground beef, but I don’t know how much a guy like you can put away.”
“I meant Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.” He nods toward the collection of desserts I’ve accumulated.
“Do you have a problem with sugar?”
Before he can expound on his clearly incorrect judgment of sweets, Wyatt’s phone rings. He glances at the screen and heaves a sigh.
“I need to take this. Here.”
He readjusts on his crutches to pull out his wallet, but I wave him off. “I’ll send Jacob the bill.”
With a quick nod, he heads through the automatic doors in the front, sending a wave of heat blasting inside. As I start placing items on the belt, I wonder whose calls Wyatt Jacobs actually takes.
When I’m done checking out, I find Wyatt in the parking lot, pacing in his boot and crutches, a clunky gait. One that seems punctuated with some kind of tense emotion. It’s less like he’s walking with crutches and more like he’s trying to aerate the sidewalk, stabbing it forcefully with each step.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I reach him, readjusting the grocery bags in my arms.
He stops, dragging a hand through his hair and frowning. “My mother is coming.”