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“Well, I wasn’t using it, baby. My goodness. What kind of woman do you think I am?” She sucked her cheek into the side of her mouth and chewed. “That reminds me, I’ll need to pick up a bit of kitty-litter while I’m here. I hope y’all aren’t out of the name brand. I know Gray says it’ll work all the same, but Jonathon knows the difference. He’s real clever that way, you see.” She opened her purse and dug around inside her hoard. There was a bottle of imitationWhite Diamondsperfume sitting at the top of the heap, with about seventy loose packets of ketchup and a bottle ofFixodentunderneath. Eventually, she found her wallet, ketchup packets raining down on the linoleum like a tropical storm. Bernice pulled it open and slowly thumbed through the cash inside. She counted out loud, whispering to herself.
“Let’s see, fifteen for the litter, twelve ninety-nine for the prescription, four ninety-nine for the eggs, about twenty for the fruitcake.” Bernice let out a sigh of relief and looked up at me, smiling. “Do you think you might have one? I know they’re not in season.”
“Are they ever, Mrs. Holden?” I shot a look of pure revulsion at her. “Are they ever truly in season?”
“Truth be told, I always found ‘em a bit too gummy for my liking, you know? But Myrna lives and breathes for ‘em. I know it would really make her day. If it’s too much trouble, it’s alright, I promise. I know you’ve got your hands full right now.” She reached forward, setting her hand on my wrist. Despite the summer heat reaching triple digits outside, her fingers were like ice. “Just thought I’d check.”
“No ma’am. It’s no bother. Let me just go have a look. I’ll see if Rhonda or Gray know if we have any tucked away somewhere in the back.”
“You don’t mind?” Her glossy eyes were filled to the brim with hope, and I dreaded upsetting her with news that we were out. “Really and truly?”
I snorted. “Really and truly. But don’t get your hopes up. It’s almost August. Not exactly fruitcake season.”
“‘With God all things are possible.’Matthew, chapter nine, verse twenty-six.”
“‘Jesus and Kent Fox wept.’John, eleven thirty-five.”
As I approached Gray’s office, I stared at him through the plexiglass window. His head was bobbing up and down to whatever music he was listening to.
I knocked on the door, calling out, “Hey. Hi. Hi there,” like an overzealous gentleman caller approaching a Southern belle’s balcony at dusk. Not that Gray was a Southern belle. And not that I was a gentleman caller. And definitely not that I wanted to climb the trellis leading up to that balcony and have my way with him.
Gray sprung up from his chair, peering down the short stairwell. Lifting his hand in the air, he waved at me, his smile big, bright, and beautiful. “Kent. Hey. Hi. Hey. Come on up.”
“Someone’s perky,” I said, climbing the stairs two at a time. “Hey! Hi. Hey there.”
We’d been doing this since the day we shared at the lake. With all doubt of a possible romance rekindling off the table, we’d spent our time at work together doing various platonic things like stumbling stupidly over our greetings, catching ourselves gazing longingly into each other’s eyes and then looking away, and buying each other lunch and sharing it in the locked employee break room that only Gray had the key to. It was all very above board, guaranteed to leave us with little to no emotional desperation.
“Bernice wants to know if we have, and these are her exact words: a ‘delicious little fruitcake’ hidden away in the back.”
He winked at me. “Besides you?”
“First of all, that’s a homophobic slur and I don’t care for it. And secondly …” I blushed because he’d essentially just called me a tasty little treat. “Yeah. Besides me.”
I sat in the chair beside Gray and inched closer to him. He clicked away at his keyboard, searching the store’s inventory. Our knees brushed together through no fault of my own, and then my chair swiveled, causing my leg to rub back and forth against his. Repeatedly.
“Aha!” he unnecessarily shouted directly into my ear. “One left. Two-liter for the win!” He lifted his arm in the air, seeking a high-five. I would have been remiss in my role as his best platonic friend not to offer one, so I did. Our hands remained connected for several seconds. “Should be on the shelf where we had the seasonal stock last year. Come on, I’ll help you with the ladder.”
***
Gray had been called to the front for a cash register override, leaving me to manage the deathtrap masquerading as a ladder on my own. My knees were wobbly by the time I reached the eighth step. When I reached the ninth, I thought I might go into cardiac arrest. “Keep it together, Kent,” I scolded myself.
“You’re good. I’ve got you, Half-pint.”
My knees shook with surprise. Grabbing the ladder with both hands, I managed to avoid falling, but only just. Once I had regained control of my legs, I glanced down. Gray was staring up at me with a grin. “You—you can’t just—don’t sneak up on me like that. I could’ve fallen.”
Gray shrugged. “I’d catch you.”
I thought of letting go just to test his sincerity, then I remembered how much I enjoyed having bones that weren’t broken. I took another step up the ladder before glancing back down at him with a stupid smile on my face. A reflection of light caught my eye, and I turned back toward the unexplainably long shelf in front of me. One round tin sat at the very back. I couldn’t tell if it was fruitcake or just a seasonal assortment of butter cookies, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try to find out. One final step lifted me high enough to reach over, but the tin was all the way at the back, at least six feet away.
“What kind of madman makes a shelf this long? Is this even structurally sound? Honest to God, Grayson, if I die up here, I’m going to kick your ass.” I stretched my arm out in vain, not even making it halfway toward the back. “I can’t—I can’t reach—argh!”
“Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not long enough—”
“I know, Kent. I’ve seen it in person, remember?”
“I swear to God, Grayson. If you don’t stop making jokes about my dick, I’m going to pull it out and measure it in front of you.” Gray coughed so hard that he started choking, and I turned my attention back to the task at hand. “It’s right there, but I can’t reach it. Can you grab me a broom? I might be able to pull it toward me.”
