“Or lasagna. Maybe I’ll just go with lasagna.”
“Uh-huh.” He leaned his basket on the edge of my shopping cart, effectively pinning us in place.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We’re blocking the aisle.”
He didn’t move.
“You’re in my way, Crow.”
He leaned harder. Hard enough I heard the plastic of his basket crack.
“It’s just dinner.”
He stuffed his boot under the edge of the wheel.
“I think Ryder’s mad at me. There. Happy?” I yanked the cart. He’d been expecting it, and let go. That thing really moved.
It careened into a display of cheese puff balls, sending gallon barrels of safety-orange snack food clattering across the linoleum clear to the apple cases.
A few people looked up, including the checker at the closest stand, Mr. Manly. He’d been my third-grade teacher and had never forgiven me for spreading mayonnaise on the blackboard in an attempt to make it shiny clean.
“Clean up in the bread section,” he croaked over the store’s PA system. “Clean up for Miss Delaney Reed.” Underlying that tone was the unspokenagain.
“Why is Ryder mad at you, Boo Boo?”
I shrugged. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be shopping for last-minute lasagna.”
I must have sounded frustrated enough his uncle tendencies took over.
“All right. You are not cooking lasagna.” He moved me to one side, dropped his basket in mine next to the dragon pig and took over driving.
“I can make las—”
“You’ll try to make it perfect, except somehow it will catch on fire. Or explode.”
“Lasagna explodes?”
He stopped the cart and gave me a look. “Remember the potatoes?”
“That was only one time! Okay two. But lasagna is easier than baking a potato.”
Crow wasn’t listening. He was taking the aisles at a speed that made me stretch my legs or switch to a jog. He pulled up sharp at the deli counter.
“No,” I said.
“Hold your horses.” He studied the options behind the curved glass display cases, the cart blocking a young man with an armful of toilet paper who was trying to squeeze past the kiosk of pretzels and hummus.
“Sorry.” I shifted the cart so the kid could get through.
“Baked lemon pepper chicken, some of that pasta salad with the peas…” Crow looked over at me. “Peas?”
I gagged.
Crow grinned. “Oh, yeah,extrapeas, no, a little more. A little more. And…good. Those rosemary garlic rolls too. Thanks, Heath.”
“There,” he said. “All taken care of. The baked chicken is delicious, and you can serve it cold if you want. Now you go pick out a dessert.”
