Chapter Twenty-Five
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Me personally, I love grocery day. Poem though? Yikes.
Poem
Friday, as everyone knows, is grocery day.
And grocery day, as everyone also knows, is the worst day of the week.
I am now experiencing the worst day of the week with Fox for the second time, and I can confirm that it is significantly worse than the worse it already is when you are forced to begin it while the grass is still wet with morning dew.
“Poem, if you don’t pick up the pace, I’m not getting your Alanis,” Fox threatens, glaring at my feet as they drag the rest of my body with them to the door.
“Why are you torturing me?” I ask. “Why must we go so early? What’s wrong with shopping after noon, when all of the best people have just woken up?”
“Is this why you’re late to work every Friday?” he asks. “Because you don’t shop until an hour before your shift starts?”
“How could I possibly know that?” I retort, shoving my feet into the black combat boots I left by the front door. “How could I possibly know anything at this time of day? How could anyone possibly know anything at this time of day?”
“My desires at this moment are not to kiss or cuddle or compliment,” he informs me. “But rather to throttle. How quickly one forgets what frustration feels like when one focuses on love, and yet, here it is, coming home to welcome me like an old friend.”
I yawn. “You could always shop by yourself? Plus, what happened to the whole ‘I want to protect you’ thing you had going on the last couple of weeks?”
“Like I told you last week when grocery day showed up, I’m not depriving myself of time with you just because you’re cranky and mean. Also, protection has nothing to do with throttling. Throttling you is for the pure enjoyment of us both.”
“And like I told you last week, it wouldn’t be depriving yourself if I’m asleep in my bed and not hanging out with you anyway. All you’d be missing out on is your new—and creepy—habit of staring at me while I sleep. An action, by the way, that does not induce the desire to throttle.”
“I like my new habit,” he grumbles. “You make cute little meeping noises when you’re asleep.
I’m not missing out on the meeping noises if I don’t have to, and I’m not missing out on you being awake if I don’t have to, either.
I’d rather have you by my side and want to throttle you than have you in bed meeping without me there to adore it. ”
I hold up my hand in a clear, concise symbol to STOP. “We had a rule, Fox.”
“‘No adoration before noon,’” he quotes. “I know, but have you tried being less adorable before noon? No. So really this one is on you.”
I sigh. “I guess the answer is two weeks, then.”
His thick brows furrow, making a little line between them. “The answer to what?”
“How long I had to wait to get our regular playtime back,” I answer. “It’s almost enough to wake a girl up, the joy of arguing with you again.”
He rolls his eyes. “We’ve argued in the last two weeks.”
“We’ve argued exclusively about whether or not we were going to continue kissing.
In the stockroom, in your office, on the couch, in the kitchen, in my bed.
Lots of kissing going on, and occasionally arguing about if that kissing should be put on pause, but not a whole lot of arguing about anything else since we had date night.
In fact, zero arguing about anything else.
It’s been freaking me out. Even last week when you first introduced me to the Friday morning grocery torture, you didn’t do anything more than smile in amusement at me sleepily walking through the store.
This week, though, you’ve left the honeymoon phase of wooing me enough to be annoyed at me.
” I sigh, dreamily. “It’s glorious, Fox, and encouraging. ”
“Encouraging?” he asks. “Me being annoyed at you instead of blinded by infatuation is encouraging?”
“Of course,” I answer. “For you, specifically. I could never fall in love with a man who didn’t play with me. I’d say your current ire has increased your chances of a happily ever after by at least thirty percent.”
Terror flits through his eyes, followed quickly by an unnatural, blank-faced calm.
I blink.
“Whoa,” I say. “I haven’t seen that face in a minute, either.”
“What face?” he asks.
“The one you make when you’re trying to hide your thoughts from me,” I reply.
He shrugs. “I have no thoughts to hide, remember?”
“Mmm, no. As that doesn’t fit my current agenda, I don’t recall at all. Pray tell, what are your hidden thoughts? If you tell me, I’ll go to the grocery store willingly. With a pep in my step, even.” I hide crossed fingers behind my back.
He pulls my arm to my front, holding my fingers between us. Forcibly, he uncrosses them and makes me repeat myself.
Rude.
“I didn’t like the idea of my efforts being in vain,” he says immediately upon an honest promise from me.
“I know that I believe you’ll reject me in the end, but I hadn’t thought of how the changes in my attitude and behavior toward you could negatively affect my chances, and it’s scary to think that me being more loving toward you could be the very thing that makes you not want me. ”
I lace my fingers with his. “But I said that it wasn’t an issue,” I point out. “We were fighting just fine. Problem solved.”
He shrugs. “What if that’s an anomaly? What if I never want to fight with you again?”
I don’t mean to—I really don’t—but I laugh.
“Fox,” I snort. “Half my personality is brat. There’s a zero percent chance I never do anything to ignite your ire ever again.
” I scoff. “These past two weeks, I wasn’t wondering if we’d ever play again, but when.
I was watching to see if the timeline of your annoyance would be something I could live with.
Of course, I’d prefer going no longer than a week and a half, if I got to choose, but two weeks is livable. ”
Perfectly frozen, Fox stares at me. And stares at me. And stares at me.
“Use your words,” I finally huff.
“You’re taking this seriously,” he says. “You’re actually considering the possibility of a future with me.”
Uh… “Well, yeah? What did you think I was doing?”
“Placating me?” he suggests. “Taking the kisses while you still enjoy them and putting up with the rest?”
My nose scrunches. “That would be a messed up thing to do.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But I wouldn’t blame you for it.”
I sigh. Then, to fully express my utter exasperation with this man and his stupidity, I roll my eyes. “I’m not ‘placating’ you.”
“I see that,” he agrees. “Instead, you are—for reasons unknown—actually looking at me as a man that you might want to be your man. I’m confused. And curious. And shocked. And, in case I didn’t mention, confused.”
“Sorry, were you confused?” I ask. “I couldn’t quite tell. You were so subtle about it with your words and with the wrinkles you’ve got sprouting all over your forehead.”
“I do not have wrinkles,” he grouches, running a hand over his not wrinkles. “And you’re not clearing up my confusion.”
“That’s because I don’t understand what you find confusing.
You said you were going to do your whole following your heart and desires thing so that I could decide if I find you worthy of me or not.
I thought my end of that was, you know, doing the actual deciding?
Is that not what I’m meant to be doing?”
“Well… yeah,” he says. “That’s what you’re meant to be doing. I thought it would take a while before you did it, though.”
“Goodness, you’re an idiot,” I huff, tugging him out the door.
“Did we not have a date? Have we not been having them pretty much every night, if eating dinner together at 4:00 AM is the only criteria we seem to need to constitute a date?” I pinch a feather on his bicep, satisfying myself with his flinch. That’s what he gets for being a dodo.
“I’m actually considering you as a mate, Fox,” I continue clearly as we descend the stairs.
“I’m attracted to you in a big way. Cohabitating with you is easy, if we ignore the rise and shine of it all.
You have a job. You have a family who loves you.
You treat that family well. You treat your employees well.
Lately, you treat me well. You make grand declarations about keeping me safe and loved, and you follow those up with daily care and attention.
You’re smart when you aren’t being dumb.
And now that I know why you’re being dumb, even that isn’t as annoying as it once was.
We work well together. We live well together.
We play well together. I’d be stupid not to at the very least consider the possibility of us, and we both know I’m not stupid. ”
We reach the bar as he replies, intelligently, “Oh.”
I snort. “Yeah. Oh.”
“In my defense, it does seem too good to be true. You loving me back is literally a fantasy realized. The possibility of the future I want being within reach feels farfetched at best.”
“And yet.” I gesture to myself, then him. “Here we are. About to do the domestic task of arguing over groceries at the local market. You’re a lot closer to your dreams than you think.”
After that, he spends the entirety of the trip to Rory’s Market flicking awed glances at our conjoined hands and grumbling about not screwing things up.
“You’re not going to screw anything up.” I sigh. Wanting to keep the connection of our hands, I climb after him out the driver’s side of the big black truck he bought after selling his motorcycle when he moved back home. “Relax.”
“The love of my life is considering the possibility of spending the rest of her life with me when she barely likes me at all. I think we can allow me the worry that I’ll mess that up.
It’s not completely stemming from the worry that I’m inadequate, but also from the natural worry that all men have when they know their heart is in the hands of a woman who could easily crush it without a second thought. ”
A blast of frigid air conditioning smacks me in my frowning face as we enter the store. “I think I like you more than barely,” I protest. “And I’d have at least a third thought before damaging your heart.”
“Good morning!” a rickety old voice interrupts our spat from behind the till.
Fox waves to Rory, the market’s namesake, while I blink at him, having only just remembered that other people, not just my temporary roommate and possibly forever romantic interest, exist at this time of day as well.
“Rory, is this safe for you?” I call, horror in my bones. “Young at heart is not the same as young at body. Being up and about this early is surely ill-advised.”
Rory, the loon, laughs at me. “Oh, Poem. You light up this town.”
I was not, it should be noted, joking. Before I can say as much, Fox bumps me toward the carts. “No time for arguing with old men about their sleeping habits,” he says. “We’ll be late.”
Um. “Late for what?” I ask. “Work doesn’t start for ages, and that’s accounting for you going in early.”
“Late for our domestic over which strawberries to buy,” he replies. “We had a date.”
Well. One cannot argue with that, I suppose.
And so I do not. We have our argument about berries, and then about pasta shapes, and then about protein sources, and then about frozen pizza brands, and then, and then, and then, until, finally, I am allowed to give my lecture to Rory on the importance of sleep for an aging man as he rings up our fraught grocery haul.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” the surely near-death man replies, nonplussed.
Very much plussed, I retort, “Which will be sooner than later if you don’t get some rest, old man!”
“All right!” Fox intercedes, plopping the last of our bags into the cart. “That’s enough playtime for one day. We’ll see you next week, Ror.”
Rory grins amiably, bidding us farewell as I attempt to glare some sense into him. “I better not see you next week!” I call as Fox tugs me away from the till. “You better be at home in bed when I’m in here next!”
Rory laughs.
I scowl.
Fox sighs. Then he kisses my pouting lips, and I forget all about Rory and his imminent doom.
I forget all about everything. Because when Fox Blackwood kisses me, my world becomes just him, and me, and the butterflies fluttering a riot in my belly, brushing against my heart as if to say, This one, this one, this one. We want this one.
I know, my heart replies. I think… that I do, too.
Terrified and more than a little intrigued at the notion, I deepen the kiss, adding tongues and teeth and curiosity to the mix.
Fox groans. “We’re in public, kit.”
“We’re not doing anything illegal,” I pant, nipping at his lip.
“Not yet,” he growls. “But we will be if you keep that up.”
I bite him again, just for fun.
Somehow, we do avoid doing something illegal.
Barely.