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A pleasure shimmied through the exhaustion lingering in her body. He hadn’t corrected her when she’d said “girlfriend.”
“Packet or freshly made?” She picked two boxes of granola bars off the shelf and turned them over.
“Packet. I’m a single man. And apple-cinnamon, before you ask.”
“You never just go for it and buy a mixed box.”
“No,” he said, his voice amused.
“Then you haven’t lived.” She sighed, putting the more exciting box of granola back on the shelf.
“What was the sigh for?”
“I love these granola bars, but they have so much sugar I might as well eat a candy bar. One of these days I’ll turn the box over, and that sugar number will be reasonable. Then I’m going to buy every box on the shelf. Maybe drive to every store in Missoula and buy all their boxes. Stock up, just in case they change the formula again.”
“You do this every time you come to the store?”
“Every time I come to the store to buy granola bars. Does this mean you’ll never come with me to the grocery store again?”
“No. Like everything else we’ve done together, I’m fascinated by the process.”
She beamed at him. “That was sweet.” Then she reconsidered what he’d said. “I think.”
His left shoulder lifted in an easy shrug. “It was meant to be. I don’t think you have the ability to be boring.”
“I was probably pretty boring when I was lying on my couch complaining and coughing.”
“Eh,” he said, waving her concerns away. “You were sick. Everyone gets leeway when they’re sick.”
“Thanks.” She leaned against the rail of the cart and pushed. Talking back and forth with Levi was fun, even if they were only loafing around the grocery store, but it was also wearing her out. She’d overestimated how well she actually was. The soles of her slippers shuffled against the linoleum like she was ninety years old.
“Do you want me to push the cart?”
“No. It’s holding me upright,” she said, which was only a partial exaggeration.
“Do you need to get more things?”
It was Mina’s turn to stop and contemplate. She had fruit, stuff for salads, bread, granola bars and peanut butter. She could survive off what was in her cart for the next week.
But the blanket on her couch was starting to stink from fever sweat and sick-person coughing, and there were snotty tissues under the bed and buried in the couch cushion she would have to retrieve sometime. The whole house had become suffocating. And she’d be stuck in it tomorrow.
“No, but I want to keep going. I’ll lie on the couch,” she said, trying not to grimace at the thought, “while you put everything away. I can direct.”
He didn’t say anything, just gave her a sideways look, his eyes full of a faux sense of imposition.
She stopped in front of the pasta sauces, grabbing only the one she knew she wanted and not looking at the more interesting vodka variety that had appeared on the shelves since the last time she’d bought sauce. “I’d better not push my luck. There’s still half the store left and plenty of time for you to decide that we’re a better couple when we don’t grocery shop together.”
“Maybe. But I’m thinking instead that I need to rearrange my schedule so that I have enough time to come back with you.”
Her heart swelled with so much pleasure that she coughed and had to clutch the bars of the shopping cart to keep herself upright.
Confident in herself, in Levi and in their relationship—and amused that he was amused with her shopping—Mina kept up a running commentary through the rest of their grocery-store adventure. And even though her eyes were closing on their own and her shuffling went from active retiree to a retiree after knee surgery, she explored every aisle.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MARY O’REILLY SET Levi’s beer on the table as he was sliding into the booth across from Dennis. Then she set Dennis’s drink in front of him. Dennis was starting with a beer, no added whiskey—that was a good sign. The sour look on his face was not.
“So,” Dennis said as he raised his beer to his lips, “what do you have to say that will convince me not to move?”
