Garrett Lewis, the manager, immediately cleared his throat. “Apologies for disturbing?—”
“Apologies! I ask you!”
He continued like the woman hadn’t interrupted him. “I’ll deal with this, Mr. O’Grady.”
I slowly dipped my chin.
“Mrs. Vandersand, let me take you to our bistro and we can?—”
“Your bistro? What are you talking about, young man?! I want to see these two hooligans thrown out!”
“Ma’am, Mrs. Vandersand, Mrs. O’Grady owns this store.”
The Karen gaped at him. Then me. Then Aoife.
Because my wife was a saint, a literal saint, even if she had just made out that an orgasm a day wasn’t enough, she peppered kindly, “Mrs. Vandersand, why don’t you let Garrett take you to the bistro for a cup of tea to settle your nerves?”
Because the old bitch’s face screwed up like she’d been sucking on lemons, I chose to disengage.
My wife didn’t deserve to hear more of this outdated vitriol. I’d kissed her, not fucked her! I almost wished Ihadnow.
Hell, if Jake weren’t here…
As Mrs. Vandersand sputtered, at a complete loss for words, I pushed the cart away.“I’ll be in to speak with you later, Garrett.”
It took us reaching the second aisle in the store for Aoife to release a wheeze before she bent over and fell into a laugh/giggle combo that was beyond charming.
Because of its utter contagiousness, Jake ignored his dinosaurs and the show he’d been watching on Aoife’s phone and started up too—his childish delight echoing around us.
“The nerve of some people!” Mrs. Vandersand declared, but I barely heard it over the laughter that bubbled around me.
With a wide grin, I half-leaned on the cart and watched my two favorite people laugh themselves silly.
When Aoife began rubbing her stomach, I knew the end of the fit of giggles neared.
“Something funny?”
She whooped. “Don’t get me started again.” Jake bounced in the cart, and she squeezed his cheeks and dotted kisses on them. “Daddy’s hilarious, isn’t he, little man?”
“I think I’m deadly serious,” I countered, pleased by the megawattage of her resulting smile.
“Why don’t I bring you grocery shopping with me usually?”
“Because I prefer to buy stores than produce?”
“That could have something to do with it.” She reached behind me for a packet of stuffing—the kind her mom used and one she imported when I’d bought an upmarket grocery store under Aoife’s umbrella corporation—the first of two in the city. “I can’t believe I didn’t put this on my list.”
“I can’t either. There’d have been a showdown over the table. That’s the only brand Declan and Eoghan will eat since Star won the stuffing war of ’23 using your recipe.”
“I think I willingly forget,” she mused. “Because you all drive me crazy with the reminders. If I have to hear about how Lena’s makes Declan gag one more time, I’ll lose my shi—sh for real.”
“Nice save.”
She eyed Jake, who hadn’t picked up on the swear word and had returned to the annoying cartoon on her phone. “I thought so too.”
“Eoghan will pack that away by himself.” I studied the three packets in the cart dubiously. “You need more than that, babe.”
“How many?”
