Chapter 26 Elias
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELIAS
“Pleeeaaaasse!” Wren begs again, offering me her puppy dog eyes as she sticks her lower lip out in a pout.
“Why is this so important to you?” I ask in frustration. I’d love to give in to her request and take her to the grocery store, but the others were all fugitives. It wasn’t safe.
“I’ve never gone before. It seems like fun!”
I want to argue that grocery shopping is, in fact, not fun.
But she’s been so deprived of everything, and for someone who knows how to cook, it probably would be an interesting place for her to visit.
If nothing else, it is something normal she’s been deprived of, and there is no way I can let myself be a hypocrite and refuse her the same things Robert had.
“Fine,” I concede just as Jagger pulls into the parking lot. I guess they didn’t actually care about my permission and planned to take her anyway.
“Wren, you make sure you are always with at least one of us. And no running off. Understand?” Sly asks as he turns to face her.
“Yes, sir!” She salutes him, and from the look he gives her, I have a feeling that’s something he loves to hear her call him.
Feeling like someone has to take control of this group, especially in public, I take a deep breath before trying to rein them all in. “That goes for all of you. No one goes off on their own, in pairs at a minimum.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Pete says sarcastically before opening the door and jumping out.
He’s quick to grab Wren’s hand, whispering something in her ear that has her laughing before they jog together to the entrance.
The rest of us are a little slower, but when we get inside, they are just standing there, Wren’s eyes wide as saucers as she slowly turns her head, taking everything in.
“This is huge!” she whispers.
“That’s what she said,” Dex says before grabbing her other hand and pulling her further into the store. “And this is just the produce department.”
She glances down the main aisle, and when she sees how far it goes, her eyes widen even further.
I grab a cart and follow behind, with Jagger at my side and Sly between us and the three troublemakers.
Pete is already pointing things out like a tour guide on too much caffeine. “That’s cabbage. Comes in green and red. You can eat it raw, or throw it at Sly when he’s being annoying.”
Dex picks up a head of red cabbage and tosses it up a few inches, as if it were a baseball and he was testing its weight. “Hmm, not sure how far it’ll fly. Sly? Come stand over here, would ya?” he asks, pointing to a spot on the floor a few feet from him.
“If you so much as try to throw that at me, I’ll find the longest cucumber they have and shove—”
“Okay, break it up,” I say, grabbing the head of cabbage and setting it back in the pile. “We haven’t moved past the most boring item in the entire store. At this rate, we’ll be here for a week.”
“Ohhh!” Pete says excitedly. “Sleepover in the grocery store! Wren and I claim the aisle with toilet paper!”
Wren laughs. “What? Why toilet paper?”
“It’ll make the softest bed!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We’re going to get kicked out before we even hit the bakery section.”
Wren laughs again softly, and I feel a little of the tension ease from my shoulders. I’ve never seen her this relaxed—no fear, no haunted edges, just curiosity. She touches a pyramid of apples like they might crumble under her fingers.
“Are these real?” she asks.
“They’re not wax fruit,” Pete says, plucking one and tossing it in the air. “Here. Try—”
“Do not eat that until it’s washed,” Sly cuts in, his voice calm but sharp enough to slice through Pete’s grin.
Pete freezes mid-toss. “Man, you’re no fun.”
“Being sanitary might not be fun, but it’s necessary,” Sly says, taking the apple from him and setting it back on the pile like it personally offended him. Then his attention shifts to Wren. “If you want apples, we’ll buy some. Don’t eat anything that’s been sitting out.”
She nods quickly, trying not to smile, and I swear Sly’s jaw unclenches just a little. How is it that this one little woman has the ability to disarm us all like that? To cut through our anger and fear and worries with one little laugh or smile.
Dex wanders over to the free sample stand and returns with his fists full of toothpicks, spearing tiny cubes of cheese. “They’re giving out food here. For free. This place is amazing!”
“It’s marketing,” I say. “They want you to buy it, but you’re only supposed to take one.”
He nods. “Right, I’d be insulting them by not taking it.”
I let out a sigh. “That’s not what I meant—”
“For you, Eli!” he says with a big smile, shoving a toothpick in my face with a cube of cheese at the end.
I press my lips together, but decide to take it. “Thanks.”
Wren looks up at Sly as she asks, “The cheese was sitting out, doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t eat it?”
“It’s different. It’s been prepared for you to consume. Produce hasn’t been washed, it contains pesticides or other chemicals, and who knows how many ungloved hands have touched it.”
She blinks at him once, then looks down at her cube of cheese. “Sooooo… Can I eat it?”
“Yes, Wren, you can eat the cheese.” She smiles happily and shoves it in her mouth before moaning in approval.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, turning away before I start sporting an erection in the middle of the produce department.
I hear Pete chuckle, but I ignore him. My eyes catch on Jagger.
He’s standing a few feet away, arms folded, scanning the store like he’s mapping exit routes.
His focus flicks between Wren and every stranger within sight.
We’re all protective of her, but he always seems extra watchful, like he understands the threat better than anyone else.
I steer our cart down the aisle, trying to get our little band of misfits going. “Let’s keep moving. The longer we stand here, the more attention we draw.”
Pete falls into step beside Wren, pointing out items like she’s on a field trip. “That’s kiwi, that’s pineapple. It’s my favorite.”
She laughs again before telling him, “Peter, I know what most of this food is. Don’t forget I’ve done a lot of cooking, I just haven’t been in a grocery store.”
He nods and turns her attention to items with different varieties or flavors she may not have known existed. The aisle full of chips and drinks has her the most stunned, that is until we get to the cereal aisle.
“I can’t believe we’ve been with you for a month and you still haven’t tried cereal,” Pete says with a shake of his head. “It’s a travesty!”
“Barely,” Sly says as we stroll through the aisle.
“You don’t like cereal?” she asks Sly.
“It’s not that I don’t like it, but it’s nutritionally deficient. Ninety-five percent of these are packed with more sugar than anything else. They are in no way a balanced breakfast.”
Dex grabs a family-size box of Cheerios and points to the front. “This one says it is.” I lean forward and read where he’s pointing, and sure enough, it states in bold, part of a balanced breakfast.
Sly shakes his head. “It’s lying.”
Dex tosses it in the cart anyway, and when Sly raises an eyebrow in question, he points to Wren. “She’s never tried it.”
“Fine,” Sly concedes. “Just one box.”
We move down the aisle into snacks, and I watch in half-amused disbelief as Dex and Pete argue over which snack cake brand “has the best frosting-to-cake ratio.”
Jagger moves in behind Wren as she stretches on her toes, trying to reach a box of brownies on the top shelf.
Without a word, he takes it down and hands it to her.
She blinks up at him, a little startled, and whispers a soft, “Thank you.” He nods once, then leans down and kisses her gently.
It’s a mere peck, really, but it leaves her looking breathless with red cheeks as if they’d just made out.
I try not to let my mind wander, but it’s hard not to imagine what she’d be like in bed. I bet she’d be extremely responsive to the slightest touch.
“Are you two done?” Sly asks sharply, pulling me out of my trance. I see him glaring at Dex and Pete as they each hold up armfuls of junk food like trophies.
“Almost,” Pete says, grinning. “We’re debating which one’s more likely to cause diabetes first.”
“Neither,” Sly says flatly, plucking the boxes from their hands and setting them back on the shelf. “We’re not living off processed sugar.”
They both shove their lower lip out at him in a pout, not unlike Wren did to me earlier.
Sly just shakes his head and carries on down the aisle.
While his back is turned, I quickly grab a box of snacks for each of them and place them in the cart, hiding them under the bag of dill pickle chips that Wren picked out.
Wren notices and gives me a grateful smile. I give her a wink as Jagger grabs her hand, and we follow the others.
By the time we reach the last aisle, I’ve lost count of how many unnecessary items Pete and Dex have tossed in the cart, despite Sly’s constant refusal. Jagger grabbed a few practical things, like water, canned food, and batteries, while Sly double-checked every expiration date.
And Wren… she’s been smiling the entire time. The way she bounces between each of the guys gives me a small glimpse at how she makes this bizarre relationship work. And for a moment, I feel jealous not just for Wren, but for the family they’re building together.
I’ve been so focused on Wren my entire life that it’s left no room for friends. Even my friends at school were just that—school friends. I never saw them on weekends or weeknights, and after I graduated, I never kept in touch. There was only ever one person I wanted to spend my time with.
And now I’m not sure if I still hate the fact that she comes equipped with four possessive, insane, fugitive boyfriends. At least I know they’d do everything possible to keep her safe.
For a moment, I almost let myself enjoy their company too. Right up until Pete pulls up another cart beside mine, from who knows where, and grins at me. “Hey, Elias, how pissed would you be if we raced these?”
I sigh. “I hate all of you.”