Chapter 14 #2
“I’m so sorry, sugar,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head. “Get some shoes on, yeah? I’ll take you into town to get some groceries.”
“Right now?” she asked, tipping her head up to look at me.
“Right fuckin’ now.”
“But you just got home,” she argued. “Don’t you want to relax for a few minutes?”
“I’ll relax when you’ve got a phone and enough groceries in the house to cook yourself a decent meal.”
“Oh, I’m getting a phone, too?” she asked teasingly.
“You need one.”
“Who am I going to call?” Her hands roamed over my back, sliding under my cut and my brain short circuited.
“Anyone you want—” I snapped my mouth shut. That wasn’t exactly true. “Call me,” I corrected. “Or my mom, or my sisters, or whatever.”
“But I still can’t call my parents,” she said, leaning against me.
“Not yet, baby. Give us a little more time, yeah?”
“We’re married now,” she pointed out. “What would it hurt?”
“We might be married, but there’s still a whole lot of shit goin’ on. Just a little more time, alright?”
“Okay,” she replied, trying and failing to smile. “They probably think I’m still at the cabin anyway. It’s not like they’re missing me. I’ll go grab my shoes.”
“And a coat,” I reminded her as she pulled away.
I tried not to focus on the fact that she thought her family still believed she was at the cabin or the fact that it hurt her knowing that they probably hadn’t even noticed her missing.
The thought of telling her that we’d blown up the cabin and her family thought she was dead made my guts twist. I was still getting to know Esther, and we were still feeling each other out, but I did know that if she had all of the information, she’d be on the phone with her family faster than I could stop her.
She’d never let them believe she was dead, even if it kept her safe. I wasn’t willing to risk it.
“All set,” she announced, coming back into the kitchen a few moments later. She’d untwisted her hair so it fell in a long ponytail down her back. “I’m incognito.”
“You’re what now?” I asked in confusion.
“New clothes, new hair,” she explained. “Hiding in plain sight until we’re ready to let my parents know.”
“Esther, no one who knows you would ever be fooled by a different hairstyle.”
“Obviously,” she said with a scoff. “But anyone who doesn’t know me wouldn’t think I’m a fundamentalist Christian who’s run away from home, right?”
“There’s a lot to unpack in that last sentence,” I muttered, putting my boots back on. “But let’s do that in the car.”
“Aren’t you going to wear a coat?”
“In the car?” I ushered her out the door and locked it behind us. “No. Only when I’m on the bike.”
“You don’t wear a coat unless you’re riding the motorcycle?”
“I guess if it was snowin’, I would.”
“Why?”
“Don’t need one.”
“But it’s cold.”
“Not that cold.”
“It’s the middle of winter.”
“And?”
“Fine,” she huffed as I opened her door. I held back a smile as I closed her into the car. “But I’m wearing a coat. I don’t like to be cold.” She continued as soon as my ass hit the driver’s seat.
“I wouldn’t let you leave the house without one,” I assured her.
“I thought you wanted me to do whatever I wanted?” she countered.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I really fucking liked my wife. “Now, you’re just tryin’ to start shit.”
“I would never.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m amiable!”
“Vocabulary words have no currency in the Mustang,” I teased, glancing at her as I backed out of the garage.
“Amiable means agreeable and friendly.”
“I know what it means.”
“Okay,” she sang like she didn’t believe me.
“Let’s go get you a phone first,” I said as we headed toward town. “You have any idea what you want?”
“Something that makes phone calls,” she replied slowly.
“Do phones even make calls anymore?”
“Very funny.”
“We’ll get you a nice one.”
“I don’t need anything fancy,” she argued.
“Nice doesn’t mean fancy.”
“Nice means expensive. I don’t need anything expensive either.”
“You need somethin’ that takes good pictures,” I said, glancing at her. “Can we agree on that?”
“What the heck am I going to take pictures of?”
I didn’t even bother replying, just reached out and put my hand on her belly.
“Oh,” she said, snorting. “Right. Yeah, that would be good.”
We were quiet the rest of the way, but I shouldn’t have expected her complacency to last. The minute we parked in front of the phone store, she started shaking her head. “Why aren’t we just getting a phone from a mini-mart like normal people?”
“Baby, this is where I have my plan.”
“Phone plans are a waste of money.”
“Not they’re not.”
“They are. They have all of those extra secret add-on charges. I don’t need something like that.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. And the angrier she got, the harder I laughed.
“Esther, they take my bill out of my bank account without me havin’ to remember or fuck with it. My phone always works. I have service every-fuckin’-where. Unlimited data so I can get online without thinkin’ about it. I’m not gettin’ you some track phone from a mini-mart. It ain’t happenin’.”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
“What’s that?” I was teasing, but she wasn’t in the mood for it.
“I said, fine. Okay. We can get an overpriced phone on an overpriced plan so you don’t have to actually physically pay your bill every month.”
“That’s what you took away from my comment?”
She just stared at me. It was so fucking cute that I leaned in and planted one on her. Fortunately, we seemed to catch fire whenever we were touching and a few minutes later, the windows were beginning to fog up and Esther was in a much better mood.
“Let me get you a good one, yeah?” I asked, rubbing her cheek with my thumb. “We can buy generic shit at the grocery store to make up the difference.”
“Why in the world would you buy name brand at the grocery store?” she asked incredulously, unbuckling her seat belt. “Do you really think peas taste any different because they have a pretty logo?”
I chuckled as I got out and went around to open her door. “I don’t even like peas.”
“You’re exasperating.”
“It’s part of my charm.”
Buying a phone from an actual company store always takes forever.
Swear to God, it’s like buying a car when you go in there.
Even if you know what you want, the salespeople are still going to take an hour and a half fucking around with shit before you can actually pay them and get the hell out.
By the time we were done, Esther was looking at me smugly and I was practically vibrating with impatience.
“I’m not going to say that I told you so,” she said conversationally as I put my hand on her back and led her toward the Mustang.
“Oh good.”
“Because we both know that I did, so it doesn’t need to be said.”
I shook my head. Sweet little Esther wasn’t quite the shy, passive woman I’d originally thought. I wasn’t mad about it.
“Thank you for my phone,” she said, looking up at me as I helped her into the car. “It’s very…shiny.”
“You’re kind of an asshole,” I said, barking out a laugh that I didn’t see coming.
“I am not!”
“Don’t worry, sugar,” I said, leaning down to give her a quick kiss. “I like it.”
The grocery store trip took even longer than we’d waited for her phone, but I liked it a hell of a lot better. I drove to the next town just to be sure that we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew, and I got to watch Esther in action.
I’d seen her sweet and soft-spoken, and I’d seen her riled, but watching her handle shit was a new experience.
When we got to the store, she pulled out a piece of paper covered from top to bottom with a huge ass list. The thing was separated into sections—meat, produce, dairy, frozen, pantry—and each item had the quantity she needed written next to it.
I followed her around the store, pushing the cart while she loaded it up, meekly taking direction and grabbing the shit she couldn’t reach.
If I’d thought that Esther was cheap because she hadn’t wanted to spend a bunch of money on a phone, I was quickly disabused of that while we were getting groceries.
She didn’t ask if we had enough money for the huge ass list, just moved from one section to the next, filling the cart until it literally couldn’t hold any more and she had to carry the paper towels in her arms.
“So, you made a list today,” I said, glancing down at her when we’d finally checked out and were headed to the car. I wasn’t even sure how we would fit all of that food into the Mustang.
“Was it too much?” she asked, way too late. I smiled.
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“It should last the next two weeks.”
“What?” my mouth dropped open.
“I planned meals for the next two weeks,” she replied easily.
“Why?”
“That’s how I’ve always done it,” she replied. Now she was looking at me with the expression I was pretty sure I was wearing. “Now I don’t have to go back to the store.”
“I don’t even know what I want to eat tomorrow.”
“Well, when you know, let me know.” She shrugged. “We have options now.”
“Guess we do.”
It started to rain while we were unloading the cart, so I convinced Esther to sit in the car while I finished, and by the time I was done, I was soaked and pissy. I hated being cold and wet. Something about the feeling of wet clothes sticking to me made my skin crawl.
“I could’ve helped,” she said the moment I’d closed my door. “I have a coat on.”
“It’s fine,” I snapped. “I got it done.”
“Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“You have to tell me,” she continued. “If I don’t know, then I can’t fix it.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Are you sure? Because you were fine in the store, but now you seem angry.”
“I’m not angry.” I could feel a water droplet rolling down the back of my neck, and I clenched my teeth together.
“You sound angry,” she pointed out.
“Can you fuckin’ stop?” I barked, slapping at the back of my neck.
It was like a gunshot had gone off in the car. Esther’s back snapped straight and she jerked away. Clasping her hands on her lap, she turned very carefully to face the front windshield.