Chapter 54 Harper
HARPER
Knox Blackwood did not belong in a grocery store.
I realized this the moment he grabbed a shopping cart and the metal groaned under his grip like it knew it was outmatched.
He was six foot four of tattooed muscle, crammed into a charcoal T-shirt that clung to him like it was afraid to let go, and a pair of jeans that sat on his hips in a way that should’ve been illegal in at least three states.
His silver eyes scanned the fluorescent-lit aisles with the same quiet intensity he used to scan the prison yard, and I watched two stock boys physically step out of his path without even realizing they’d done it.
He looked like someone had dropped a Viking into suburban domesticity and told him to find the pasta aisle.
“This feels weird.” He frowned at the automatic doors as they whooshed shut behind us.
“What does?”
He gestured vaguely at everything. The pyramid of oranges. The woman sampling cheese on toothpicks. The soft, forgettable melody drifting through the overhead speakers that could generously be described as music. “This.”
“Grocery shopping?”
“All of it.” He pushed the cart forward, and one of the front wheels let out a high-pitched shriek of protest. Knox scowled at it. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“Only when you turn. It’s a feature, not a bug.”
He turned. The wheel screamed.
“Noted,” he muttered.
An elderly woman in a floral blouse rounded the corner, took one look at Knox, and nearly walked into a display of canned soup.
Her eyes traveled from his face to his arms to the tattoos crawling past his collar, and she did not look away.
She just stood there, holding a can of minestrone, staring like she’d stumbled across a nature documentary in the wild.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
“You have a fan,” I whispered.
Knox glanced over his shoulder. The woman quickly pretended to read the sodium content on her soup. “She’s probably wondering if I’m going to rob the place.”
“She is not wondering that. She’s wondering if you’re single.”
“She could be a grandmother.”
“You’d be surprised. Hope springs eternal in the canned goods aisle.”
We turned into the produce section, and I grabbed a bag, heading for the apples. The Honeycrisps looked perfect, firm and golden-red, and I started picking through them, pressing my thumb gently against the skin to test for that satisfying snap.
Knox stood beside me, watching.
“What?” I asked, glancing up.
He shook his head once. A small movement. “I don’t remember the last time I had a fresh piece of fruit.”
I paused, an apple halfway to the bag. “They didn’t serve you any?”
“Everything came out of a can.” He picked up a Honeycrisp and turned it over in his hand, studying it like it was something rare. “Pretty sure the kitchen staff’s secret ingredient was sadness.”
“That, and a complete disregard for human taste buds.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He set the apple back down, carefully, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch it.
And something about that small, careful gesture cracked open a door in my chest that I wasn’t ready for.
Because it was just an apple. A Honeycrisp sitting in a pile of a hundred identical Honeycrisps.
I’d grabbed them a thousand times without thinking.
Tossed them in a bag, tossed the bag in a cart, moved on.
I had never, not once, considered what it would feel like to go years without the simple, stupid privilege of choosing one.
I put three more in the bag and dropped them in the cart. “Well, your taste buds are in for a serious wake-up call. I can dice these up, grill them in butter, and sprinkle them with cinnamon.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You’ll hand-feed them to me? Naked?”
“That goes without saying.”
I winked at him, and the smile that broke across his face could’ve powered every fluorescent bulb in the building. Full, unguarded, and so rare that I wanted to photograph it and frame it on the wall.
He followed me to the potato section, his stride easy and unhurried, though I noticed the way his eyes still tracked every movement around us. Old habits. The kind that years of watching your back didn’t let you shake.
“Do you like mashed potatoes?” I asked, holding up a russet. “Diced? Baked? Twice-baked with cheese and bacon?”
He gave me a look. “Refer to our previous conversation about the cans.”
“Right. The sadness cans.”
“The sadness cans.”
I laughed and dropped several potatoes into a produce bag. “Okay, well, I want to make you a really nice dinner tonight. We could do steak. Salmon. Pasta. What’s your favorite food?”
Knox paused.
It wasn’t a dramatic pause. It wasn’t for effect. He just stopped, his hand resting on the edge of the cart, and something shifted behind his expression. A flicker of something that was there and gone so fast, most people would’ve missed it.
Then he shrugged. One shoulder. Casual. “I honestly don’t know anymore.”
I don’t know.
He said it the way you’d say, I think it might rain later. No self-pity. No bitterness. Just a fact. A small, matter-of-fact observation about his own life that landed in my chest like a brick through a window.
He didn’t know what his favorite food was.
Fourteen years of being handed a tray with whatever the kitchen decided he deserved.
Fourteen years of eating to survive, not to enjoy.
No choosing between Thai or Italian on a Friday night.
No craving something specific and driving to get it at ten p.m. because you could.
No Sunday morning pancakes or birthday dinners or midnight snacks, standing in front of an open fridge.
He hadn’t tasted a fresh, crisp apple in over a decade.
He didn’t even know what meal would make him close his eyes and groan with satisfaction because no one had ever asked and he’d stopped wondering.
My eyes burned.
I turned toward the tomatoes before he could see.
“Well then,” I said, and I was proud of how steady my voice came out, “how about I make you my favorite dinner?”
He cocked his head, the way he always did when something piqued his curiosity. “What’s your favorite?”
“Chicken Parmesan. Homemade spaghetti sauce from scratch. Garlic bread with an irresponsible amount of butter.”
The sound he made was low, almost reverent. “That sounds incredible.”
“Then we’d better hit the tomato section.” Following me, he turned the cart. The wheel screamed. “I’m going to make you the best meal you’ve ever had. And that’s a promise.”
“Can I make one request?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Anything I want?”
“Anything you want.”
“No limits?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why do I feel like I’m walking into a trap?”
“No limits?” he repeated, the edge of a grin tugging at his mouth.
“Fine. No limits.”
“I want you to cook it naked.”
“That’s unsanitary.”
“You can wear an apron.”
“Oh, just an apron. Because that’s the picture of kitchen safety.”
“I’m very concerned about safety.”
I snorted. “You’re very concerned about seeing me without pants.”
He didn’t deny it. He just smiled. That slow, devastating smile that started in his eyes and worked its way down to his mouth, and I felt it in places that had absolutely nothing to do with grocery shopping.
We moved through the aisles, and I tried to focus on the list, but Knox kept stopping. Not to look at anything in particular. Just to look at everything.
He stood in front of the cereal aisle for a full two minutes, scanning the boxes like he was reading a foreign language.
“You okay?” I asked.
He scrubbed a hand over the side of his face. “There are … a lot of options.”
“Welcome to capitalism.”
“In there, you eat what they give you. Same rotation every week. Monday was mystery meat. Thursday was pasta, allegedly. Sunday was whatever they scraped off the bottom of the budget.” He picked up a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, read the back, and set it down.
Picked up another. Set it down. His hand hovered over a third, and then he pulled it back and just stood there.
I watched his jaw work. The way he pressed his tongue against his molars, like he was fighting something back.
“Hey.” I touched his arm. “Grab whatever looks good. Grab five boxes. Grab ten. We have a whole pantry to fill.”
He looked down at me, and for a split second, the mask slipped. I saw the overwhelm he’d never admit to. The disorientation of being handed back a life full of choices after years of having none.
“I’m not used to this,” he said quietly. Not a complaint. An observation. Like he was narrating his own reentry into a world that had moved on without him.
I laced my fingers through his. His hand engulfed mine, warm and rough and steady. “We’ll figure it out together. One box of cereal at a time.”
He squeezed my hand once. Then he grabbed the Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
“Good choice,” I said.
“I have excellent taste.”
“You’re dating me, so obviously.”
He huffed a laugh and followed me through the rest of the store, seemingly oblivious to every female head that swiveled in his direction as he walked past. A woman in yoga pants literally stopped mid-squeeze of an avocado to stare.
A teenage girl at the deli counter whispered something to her friend, and they both giggled.
He helped me reach things on the top shelf without me having to ask. He loaded everything onto the belt. He carried every bag to the car in one trip—because of course he did—his arms barely registering the weight.
I started the engine and buckled my seat belt. “We need to get you a license next.”
“There are so many things I haven’t thought about in years.” He said it simply. A man taking inventory of a life that had been on pause.
“We’ll make a list. You need to open a bank account. Get your driver’s license. Get a car.”
“Figure out my favorite food.”
“Figure out your favorite food,” I agreed.
“Figure out my favorite sexual position.”
I smacked his bicep. He didn’t even flinch. Probably felt like a mosquito landing on a boulder.