“Want to go grocery shopping, Bug?”Beau asked, emerging from his office.
He’d only been in there thirty minutes and had come out three different times to grab a pen, kiss us both, and get a cup of tea. He’d also kissed us both when he got the pen and cup of tea.
Beau was never in and out of his office so much, or in there for so short a time. In the past, he’d be in there for hours, working. He’d rarely come out, and when he did, it was when I was out of the room he wanted to be in. He’d been pointedly avoiding me.
Not anymore.
Even during the short time he was “working,” I missed him. There was a thread between us now, pulled taut when he was only a couple of rooms away.
My run had been torture. Not just because it was bitterly cold, but because every one of my limbs felt claimed by Beau. My body had an awareness of him. A craving that should’ve been sated last night.
It had not.
I was more than glad when he stopped his work early to come out, but less glad when I heard his question to Clara.
Clara jumped up from where we’d been finishing her drawing from that morning. It was an intricate fairy garden with various magical creatures. “Yes!”
Grocery shopping was a novelty. Something she’d only done once since her transplant, masked, with Beau clutching on to hand sanitizer for dear life.
Now that she could do it like a “normal” kid, she was very excited. So many mundane tasks were novel to her, special. Though I hated the reason for this perspective, it was a great gift she’d been given, to find joy in the ordinary.
I smiled at her glee while cleaning up our crayons, taking Clara’s latest piece of art to stick on the fridge.
“Baby.”
Heat pressed up against my back from where I was rearranging her works of art, Polaroids, and the magnets used to accommodate her latest creation. When I first moved in, the fridge was bare. Clara and I had ensured that it was soon cluttered with our treasures, memories.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose at the hands settling on my back, a low gasp rushing from me as Beau’s lips grazed my ear.
“Get your coat,” he murmured. “We’re going grocery shopping.”
He lingered for a breath more, stepping back just as Clara came into the room.
My hand was shaking as I fixed the picture to the fridge.
I turned around to see Beau helping Clara into her jacket as if he hadn’t just set my panties on fire.
“I don’t normally come grocery shopping.”
In the past, any errand that Beau and Clara ran was just the two of them. Because I was hired to look after Clara when Beau wasn’t around. And Beau tried to avoid enclosed spaces with me when he could.
Beau’s eyes roved slowly over my body. “There were a lot of things that you didn’t normally do that you do now,” he countered in a perfectly pleasant tone.
It hit me square in the ovaries, and it took all my willpower to keep my expression neutral.
The upturn of Beau’s lips and the devious glint to his eye told me that he knewexactlywhat he was doing.
“Get your coat, baby,” he repeated, sans innuendo.
What could a girl do?
I got my coat.
When I put Clara to bed that night, I was on cloud nine.
The day had been simple. The three of us. Grocery shopping then coffee and pastries at The Chaotic Baker.
Coffee and pastries with Beauholding my handwhile in line, Clara on his other side.
