Chapter 15 #2
I buy the tomatoes and some basil that smells like summer.
Reid trails behind me like a very tall, very willing pack mule, carrying my bags and asking questions about everything.
Why these peppers instead of those ones?
How do you know if an avocado's ripe? What's the difference between all these kinds of apples?
He stays close. Closer than he needs to in the open-air market, where there's plenty of room to spread out. His hand finds the small of my back when we stop at a stall. His shoulder brushes mine as we walk. Like he physically can't stand not touching me.
I am absolutely not complaining.
"You're very tactile today," I say as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear that the breeze blew loose.
"Today?" He grins. "I'm tactile every day. You're just finally noticing."
"I noticed before."
"Yeah?" His voice drops. "Did you like it before?"
"Maybe."
"Just maybe?"
I hand him another bag of produce to carry instead of answering. His laugh is warm and delighted.
"You really know what you're doing," he says as we head back to the car. He's already eaten two of the strawberries from the basket we bought, and there's a bit of juice at the corner of his mouth that I want to lick off.
Again with the licking. You have a problem.
"It's just grocery shopping."
"No, it's not." He pops another strawberry — that's three now — and talks around it. "You've got a system. You know which vendors have the best stuff, you're checking everything for quality." He swallows. "It's like watching someone who actually knows how to live like a grown-up."
His praise makes me warm. Which is stupid.
It's shopping. I squeezed some avocados.
But nobody's ever watched me do something that mundane and acted like it mattered.
In my family, competence was the floor, not the ceiling.
You should know how to feed yourself. You should be able to navigate a market in a foreign country.
My parents never clapped for that stuff.
It was just survival. Expected. Unremarkable.
But Reid watches me thump a watermelon and looks at me like I just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
"Are you going to eat all the strawberries before we even get home?"
"No." He pops another one. "Maybe. They're really good, Laine."
He loads my bags into the car, sneaking one more strawberry when he thinks I'm not looking. I see him. I let him.
"So what's next in my grocery education?"
"Now we go to the real store. And I teach you the art of meal planning."
"I'm ready. I'm a sponge. Fill me with knowledge."
"You're a sponge full of stolen strawberries."
"Borrowed. I borrowed those strawberries."
The small store is busy but not overwhelming. I grab a cart and pull out my list. Reid's reading over my shoulder. Standing close enough that I can feel his chest against my back, his chin practically resting on my head. Who stands like that? Is he trying to make me insane?
"You organize this by store layout," he observes.
"Produce first, then dairy, then frozen stuff last so it doesn't melt. It's just efficient."
"It's impressive." He sounds genuinely awed. Like I just solved cold fusion with a grocery list. "My shopping method is usually 'walk around until I see something that looks edible, then buy chips.'"
"That explains a lot about your kitchen."
"Hey, I have other food. Blake cooks sometimes."
"Chili, shepherd's pie, and tacos."
"Those are foods!"
We start in produce, and somehow I'm explaining things I didn't even know I knew. How to pick good lettuce. Why you shouldn't buy pre-cut vegetables. The difference between regular onions and sweet onions. Who am I right now? Some kind of grocery store oracle?
Reid listens to all of it like I'm delivering classified intel. At one point he pulls out his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking notes."
"You are not."
"I am." He turns the screen toward me. He's actually typed lettuce - heavy = good, brown = bad. "This is valuable information, Laine. I'm not going to remember it otherwise."
"Oh my god."
"What? I'm being a good student." He waggles his eyebrows. "Maybe later you can quiz me."
"On lettuce?"
"On whatever you want."
The way he says it makes my face heat. His grin widens.
"You're enjoying this," he says while I'm picking through lemons. He's leaning on the cart, watching me with this soft look that makes me completely forget what I'm doing.
"What?"
"Teaching me stuff. You light up when you explain things." He reaches out and tucks that same strand of hair behind my ear. It keeps escaping. Story of that strand's life. "It's beautiful."
Do I? I hadn't noticed. But now that he says it — yeah.
I am having fun. And the way he's looking at me makes me feel like the most interesting person in the produce section, maybe the whole store.
And that's saying a lot since there's a woman in her seventies near the strawberries wearing a full on kimono and what looks like a Davy Crockett hat, complete with raccoon tail. That woman has seen some stuff.
"I like helping people."
"I know. It's one of my favorite things about you."
He says it like he's telling me the weather. Like it's a fact. But one of my favorite things about you implies a list. A whole list of favorite things. About me.
"Come on," I say before I spiral into cataloging what could possibly be on that theoretical list. "Let's go find you some actual food."
In the meat section, Reid reveals that his idea of protein is whatever's cheapest and requires zero brain cells.
"Reid. You've been buying the pre-formed burger patties?"
"They're convenient!"
"They're barely meat."
"They taste like meat. Meat-adjacent. Meat-ish." He picks up a package and squints at it. "What's wrong with them?"
I show him how to read the labels. Explain the difference between cuts of chicken. Point out what to look for in ground beef. Basically give him the crash course I wish someone had given me six months ago.
"This is like having a personal nutritionist," he says, watching me compare prices.
"Don't get carried away. I'm not that good at this yet."
"You're good enough to keep yourself fed with actual vegetables. That's more than I can say." He puts the pre-formed patties back with exaggerated sadness. "Goodbye, old friends. Laine says you're not real meat."
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it. With your eyes."
We're in the cereal aisle when it hits me how easy this is.
Reid pushing the cart while I cross things off my list. Both of us debating different brands like the fate of the world hinges on granola clusters versus flakes.
His hand keeps finding excuses to touch me — tugging the hem of my shirt, brushing lint off my shoulder, resting on my hip as he reaches past me for something on the shelf.
Each touch is casual. Each touch lights me up. His hand keeps finding me like it has its own agenda, independent of the rest of him. I don't think he even notices he's doing it half the time. And that's what gets me — the unconsciousness of it. Like touching me is just what his body does now.
I've dated guys who couldn't be bothered to hold my hand in public. This is so much better.
"Question," Reid says, stopping in front of the massive wall of breakfast options. He spreads his arms wide like he's presenting a game show. "How do you choose between like forty different kinds of cereal? This is overwhelming. There are too many options. I'm paralyzed."
"What do you usually eat for breakfast?"
"Coffee. Sometimes toast if I'm feeling fancy."
"Reid!" I turn to stare at him. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
"That's what Blake says. Right before he hands me a piece of toast and pushes me out the door." He picks up a box with a cartoon character on it. "What about this one?"
"That's for children."
"I'm a child at heart."
"It's literally called Chocolate Sugar Bombs."
"Sounds delicious."
I grab a box of something with actual nutrition and toss it in the cart. "Try this. It doesn't taste like cardboard, I promise."
"If you say so." He puts the Chocolate Sugar Bombs back with visible reluctance. "But if this turns out to be gross, I'm blaming you."
"Deal."
By the time we get to checkout, the cart is full and Reid looks slightly overwhelmed.
"How much food does one person need?" he asks, watching me unload.
I stop. Stare up at him. "Did you just call me fat?"
His mouth drops open. He makes this choking, strangled sound — like his brain just crashed and rebooted — and I hold the stare for exactly two more seconds before I crack. His relief comes out as a growl, and he nips my neck while I giggle my way through unloading the rest.
"This will last me most of the month," I explain, still laughing. "Plus extra because I'm trying to be better about meal planning."
"Meal planning. Right." He's helping me put things on the conveyor belt. "That's when you decide what you're going to eat before you're hungry?"
"Exactly. Revolutionary concept."
The total comes to more than I usually spend, but looking at all the fresh produce and actual ingredients, it feels worth it. Reid tries to pay for half, but — no.
"You taught me things," he says, trying to hand the cashier his card. "Least I can do is contribute to the cause."
"Nope. Not happening."
The cashier's grinning, but sisterhood wins out and she swipes my card. Reid scowls and tucks his card back.
"You know if I have my way, I'm going to be eating a bunch of that food, right?"
"Doesn't matter. You buying my groceries feels a little..."
He stops dead. "You're going to say creepy, right? Fuck. I was trying so hard not to be creepy. I'm sorry."
"Not creepy. I swear. Just... maybe too soon."
His eyes narrow, studying my face, and something in his expression softens. "Okay. Too soon. I'll take that over creepy any day." He leans in close, his breath warm against my ear. "But just so you know, I'm keeping track. And when it's not too soon anymore, I'm buying you so many groceries."
"That's the weirdest threat I've ever heard."
"It's a promise, Lainey."
Loading bags into my car, Reid gets quiet. He's arranging things in my trunk with more care than groceries probably require.
"This was really nice," he says finally. "I mean, I know it's just grocery shopping, but..."
"But?"
"I don't know. I never thought errands could be fun.
" He closes the trunk and turns to face me, leaning against the car.
"I never thought I'd want to spend my Saturday morning learning about tomatoes and meat labels.
But with you..." He shrugs, looking almost embarrassed. "Everything's better with you."
I fiddle with the keys. Spin them around my finger like a fidget toy. Ridiculously pleased and trying not to show it. "Wait until you see what we can do with all this food."
"We?"
The word slipped out before I could stop it. We. Like we're a team. Like this is a thing we do now. "I mean, if you want to help me cook some of this stuff. You don't have to—"
"Laine." He's grinning at me across the hood of the car. "I would love to help you cook."
That smile. I slide into the car before my legs give out. Does he have any idea what he does to me?
He slides in, still smiling.
Yeah. He knows exactly what he does to me.
So screwed, Mitchell. So completely screwed.
"So," I say, "ready to see what we can do with all this?"
Reid leans across the console, and for a second I think he's reaching for something in the back seat. Instead his hand finds the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. His eyes drop to my mouth.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I'm ready."
Then he's kissing me. Soft at first. Then deeper.
His other hand cups my jaw, tilts my head so he can kiss me more thoroughly, and I forget we're in a parking lot.
Forget there are people walking past with shopping carts.
Forget everything except his mouth on mine and the fact that my hand is gripping the steering wheel like it's the only thing keeping me from floating out of this car.
When we finally break apart, I'm more than a little breathless. My lips feel swollen. I want to climb across this console and into his lap, which would be deeply undignified and also worth it.
"That was nice," I manage.
Nice. I just said nice. Someone revoke my vocabulary.
Reid doesn't laugh at me, but his eyes are dark and his voice has dropped to that rough register that turns my spine to liquid. "Just nice?"
"Really nice."
"I'll take it." He's looking at my mouth again. "For now."