CHAPTER FOUR
Bee pushed the cart forward while one wheel wobbled hard enough to pull the basket sideways. She lifted her phone and looked down at the struggling wheel. The store hummed around her. Cold air drifted from the refrigerated section while the lights buzzed overhead.
The place smelled like dust, produce, and cool metal. It was exactly the way she remembered.
Bee glanced down at the cart again. “Is it me, or are all the carts in this store fighting for their lives? Every time I come here, I swear I pick the one that’s on its last breath. Look at this thing. It’s wobbling like it’s trying to escape.”
She pushed it another few feet. The wheel jerked sideways hard enough to make her laugh. Bee adjusted her grip and angled the phone down toward it. “Okay. Maybe it’s decided it’s done with all of us.”
Bee turned the phone toward the aisle and let it capture the familiar shelves. The store looked smaller than she remembered, but almost everything else felt the same. She moved slowly and showed her viewers rows of snacks she had grown up eating. Talking to them settled her into an easy rhythm.
“I used to come here all the time,” Bee said. “My cousins and I would run through these aisles like we owned the place. Grandma would tell us we were being too much. She always let us pick one snack each, though. I thought that was the best thing in the world.”
Bee stopped when she spotted a familiar box on one of the shelves.
She reached for it and turned it toward the phone.
Her smile widened as soon as she recognized the faded design.
“I used to think these were fancy. If I had these in my backpack, I thought I was rich. I really believed it too. Apparently, I was dramatic even then.”
She laughed and returned the box to the shelf before continuing down the aisle. The cart squeaked beside her while she pointed out things she remembered. Every so often, something brought back a memory she had forgotten.
Near the refrigerated section, Bee spotted a drink she used to buy when she was younger.
She reached into the cooler and held one toward the phone.
“This used to be my grown woman’s drink.
I thought drinking this made me mature. Meanwhile, I was still going home and watching cartoons every night.
I really thought I was doing something.”
Bee dropped the drink into the cart and kept moving. She told her viewers about Grandma’s hidden snack stash and the years Bee had spent trying to steal from it. Grandma had caught her every time. Bee had never once managed to lie her way out of it.
A few aisles behind her, Wes stood near the refrigerated section with a handwritten grocery list in one hand.
His black hoodie covered most of his hair.
He kept his eyes on the page and studied it with more focus than the short list deserved.
Bee’s phone caught him in the background without either of them realizing it.
Wes never looked toward her, and Bee never turned around.
She moved farther down the aisle and stopped when she saw a bag of chips she had not eaten in years.
Her face brightened before she even picked them up.
Bee held the bag toward the phone. “Oh, I’m getting these.
These just unlocked a memory I forgot I had.
I used to eat these every weekend. I have no idea why I stopped. ”
Bee dropped the chips into the cart and continued shopping for another few minutes. When she ended the vlog, she gave her viewers a quick goodbye and promised to show them more soon. She stopped recording and finished the rest of her shopping.
Bee posted the video before leaving the store. By the time she reached the parking lot, her phone had already started buzzing. It buzzed again before she could unlock the car.
She glanced down and expected to see Maya or one of her cousins. Notifications stacked across the screen faster than Bee could read them. She stopped beside her car and opened the app.
Bee expected comments about the snacks or her terrible shopping cart. Almost every comment asked about someone behind her instead.
@saralee: Who’s that guy behind you?
@marissa.kay: The one in the hoodie.
@ashleyb97: Girl, he’s cute. I’m not kidding.
@jennamarie22: Why didn’t you turn around? I’m begging.
@cassieann: Hoodie guy looks shy, and I’m losing my mind over it.
@natalie_rose: We need his username, please.
@heyitslena: He’s adorable. I can’t handle this.
@brianna.m: Hoodie guy is checking his list like he’s the sweetest man alive.
@laurenm23: Drop his @ right now. I’m serious.
@maddielee: I’m already obsessed with hoodie guy.
Bee frowned and opened her video again. She dragged it backward until she reached the refrigerated section. Her own voice filled the air while she tried to figure out what everyone else had seen.
Then she noticed him. A man in a dark grey hoodie stood several feet behind her with his attention fixed on a handwritten list. His face appeared only briefly before Bee moved the phone away. That brief glimpse had been more than enough for her followers.
Bee stared at the screen and looked around the parking lot as if somebody might explain the situation. “You all got that from three seconds?”
She returned to the comments and kept scrolling. New notifications appeared before she finished reading the last ones.
@ashleynicole: Girl, he’s cute. Please find him.
@kelseymarie: Hoodie guy is everything I needed today.
@emilyr22: We need a part two immediately.
@taylorann: I’m losing it over him. Please find out who he is.
@haleyb14: Someone find his username. I need to know.
Bee laughed under her breath and leaned against the side of her car.
She had spent the entire video talking about childhood snacks and a broken shopping cart.
The man who appeared in the background had somehow become the main event.
“I didn’t even see him. I was literally just trying to buy snacks. ”
The notifications continued while Bee went back through the comments. Someone had already zoomed in on him. Another person claimed they recognized the hoodie. Several others were determined to identify him.
Bee shook her head as she scrolled. “This is getting weird.”
She hit refreshed again. A new comment appeared near the top.
@saralee: FOUND HIM. @wesleyblackwater You’re welcome, ladies.
Bee stared at the username and stopped scrolling. Wesley Blackwater. She read the name again before tapping the account.
His profile opened. The man from the background stared back at her from the small picture near the top of the screen. His long hair framed the same quiet expression the video had captured.
For one second, the name meant nothing. Then an old memory snapped into place. Bee straightened against the car and looked at his face again. “Wes?”
Bee went back to her video, then opened Wes’s profile again. She studied him for a few seconds, trying to understand how she had missed it. The years had changed him, but not enough to erase the boy she remembered. Now that she knew it was Wes, the familiarity was impossible to miss.
Bee laughed softly and shook her head. Her followers had identified Wes before she had even realized she knew him.
Another wave of notifications lit up her screen. Nobody seemed to care about the snacks or the broken cart anymore. They wanted to know about Wes.