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“As dirty as the shoppers who fondle the peppers with their filthy hands.”
“But the carts also sit outside in the elements. Birds poop on carts.”
“Just like the peppers before they were picked.”
“At least tell me you scrub them.”
“The peppers or the birds?”
She just sighed, so I said, “Until my hands bleed, don’t worry.”
“So.” Sophie cleared her throat, and I could tell she was about to launch into her presentation. “This wedding.”
“Should I get tilapia or salmon?” I pushed the cart toward the seafood department.
“Neither, because you won’t feel like cooking them, so you’ll throw them in the freezer, where they’ll go to die.”
That’s exactly what usually happened. “So canned tuna?”
“Good call.” She was unfazed by my distraction. “Why are you so hell-bent on not doing it?”
“The bigger question is why areyouso obsessed with making it happen?”
I reached for a freeze-dried salmon fillet, but Sophie smackedmy hand and gave me a headshake before saying, “I very much enjoyed the rush of saving someone from a lifetime of marital hell, and also I could use five thousand dollars.”
“But you didn’t know about the 5K when you called me.”
“True, but now I do.”
“And who says I’d give you half? I was the only one invited, remember?”
“Because they don’t know about me yet. You’ll give me half,” she said, grabbing a bag of veggie straws from an endcap and throwing them in the cart. “And you’ll thank me for being so good. You might offer me more.”
“Won’t,” I said, turning down the canned food aisle.
“Nope,” she said, putting a hand on the cart and guiding it toward dairy and frozen. “Do you have other plans this weekend that conflict with the wedding?”
“No,” I said, watching as she started tossing Greek yogurts into the cart.
“So there’s norealreason you can’t, right? No ex-lovers in the bridal party or any underlying reasons?”
“There are two real reasons,” I said, meaning it. My tone of voice must’ve changed, because she stopped shopping and turned to face me. “The first is that work has been a real bitch lately, so a stressful event isn’t how I want to spend one of my two free days, and the second is thatyouwill only make it more stressful.”
Sophie
“Me?” I looked up at him—he was so tall—and wondered what the hell that meant. “What the hell does that mean?”
He crossed his arms. “We’ve been thrown together in a few bizarre situations, which makes the fact that we’re essentiallystrangers easy to forget, but the reality is that you don’t know me and I don’t know you. So running around with a stranger adds to the stress.”
“Oh, come on—I’ve already done my social media creeping, and I’m sure you have, as well.”
“Yes, but what does that really tell you about a person?”
“A lot,” I said, feeling mildly offended that he seemed to have reservations aboutmeafter we’d already hung out a couple times. I turned the cart and pushed it toward frozen foods. “I’ve learned everything I needed to know, and I’m guessing you have, too.”
“Yeah, but have you ever done online dating? Gone on a blind date?”
“Of course I have.” I opened a freezer door and started grabbing my favorite frozen lunches and chucking them into the cart. “Who hasn’t?”
