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“Since I know you this well…” she resumes, looking at her watch. “Have you prepared our grocery list yet?”
“It’s on the kitchen table.”Does she think I’ve forgotten it?Getting up, I give her a slap on the shapely rear curve under her pantsuit pants.
She squeals, evading me. “Then let’s not wait much longer. Otherwise, all the Monday deals at the discount store will be gone…”
What Actually Happened
Katlyn
“Sorry, apologies…” She smiled at the older man who had taken root in the entrance area of the discount store, studying the notice with the weekly specials. “Could I pass? Please?”
He turned around, in slow motion of course, along with his XXL shopping cart, blocking the entrance even more effectively than before. “Are you in a hurry?”
In a hurry? You could say that, yes.She suppressed a sigh, put on a sugar-sweet little-girl smile. “A… little bit…” Secretly, she cursed herself for taking off so late that Monday to get the missing ingredients for dinner.
Once again, she’d had to hurry up and work through this one chapter in order to eliminate errors of understanding that had occurred during the translation into English. In the meantime, when correcting the manuscript transferred by the AI, she missed the forest for the trees…Who had actually come up with the crazy idea of the English edition?She laughed self-deprecatingly, which earned her an irritated sideways glance from the elderly man.
But at least he cleared the way.
Great.She pushed her shopping cart through the automatic doors. It was going to be Thai curry for dinner.What else did she need for it?Curry paste—she put a check mark in her mind, there were still a few jars of it at home. Meat—the fact that organic pork cutlets were defrosting in the refrigerator had inspired her to make the dish. What was missing was the greens. Still, she pushed the cart past the vegetable section at that moment, noticing the displays with only a sideways glance.
The only reason she had biked across town to this store was because—hopefully—what was in the refrigerated section of the discount store: prepackaged, ready-sliced vegetable mixes.
She dodged a mom who was fishing for doughnuts from the self-service pastry counter for her complaining kids. She slalomed around gossiping men in workman’s outfits and stepped on the gas when an ascetic-looking fitness fanboy caught up with her. In a photo finish, she reached the home stretch in front of him and plucked the last three packages of Indonesian stir-fry vegetables from the shelf. And also, two bags of Autumn Mushroom Mix, which the extreme athlete also helped himself to with a grumpy expression on his face.
Recap. What else did she need?Her eyes scanned the shelves of lunchmeat, cheese, and dairy products.Milk.Something rang in the back of her mind:Right! Was there enough coconut milk left in her supply?She should pick up a can, just to be on the safe side. Her eyes kept wandering, over the low tables with the non-food offerings, and…
Holy crap on a cracker!
…her heart stopped for a beat or a beat and a half:
What kind of a cutie was that?
Well, she always liked tall men, athletic, handsome and tattooed; that should be known to her readers by now.
But this guy…?
She noticed that she was staring at him in an almost unseemly way. So, she pushed the cart over to the freezer, pretending to study the selection of frozen pizzas and prepared foods, while she squinted over at him again out of the corner of her eye.
Her female protagonists would describe him as areal hunk of a man: a good 6’3", athletic build. His open canvas jacket revealed broad shoulders and narrow hips. No iron pumper from the gym. The wiry musculature that showed under the T-shirt suggested more of a handball player or track athlete.
A decidedly handsome face that neither the short military haircut could detract from…
…nor the paintbox-colored tattoos that stretched up his neck.
She swallowed. Normally she considered tattoos on the neck or even face area repulsive.
But they suited thishunk of a manas well as theknuckles, tattooed letters on the backs of his knuckles.
She pushed her cart along. Over, between the non-food tables. Looked at him up close.
Needless to say, his left earlobe had a stretched piercing hole. She snorted, albeit suppressed.Crazy. The guy could well have sprung from one of her novels.By beating about the cart, she approached him and picked two more cans of coconut milk from the shelf before she forgot.
Then he lifted a tiger-duck-designed children’s suitcase from one of the low tables with the non-food offerings. Almost playfully, as if it were a pack of Kleenex tissues. And not a clunky thing that a kindergartener could easily ride like a bobby car.
Yep, he’s fit, she noted with appreciation—and at the same time she discovered who he was showing his find to: a totally cute baby, maybe six or seven months old, who acknowledged the presentation with an amused babble.How cute, she thought. With at least five u’s—if it was enough—because the little one could in no way deny its handsome sire.
Now her professional curiosity was aroused:Was the young dad alone with his offspring? Or was the accompanying mom hiding behind the high shelves of canned goods?
