Get the fuck out of here. I blink. What’s the proper protocol here? Kids should come with manuals. I want to give them the money, but I can’t be seen as a creeper, even though I’m stalking their aunt and them by proxy. I scrub my jaw for a second when I hear Tammy call for them. The last thing I need is her seeing the girls talking to a “stranger.” I know that much about kids.
Before Tammy catches me, I grab two Barbies on sale and walk away without a word. I hear her chastising the girls for taking off on her as she’s trying to shop. I wait until they leave the aisle, then return to stare at the dolls, and an idea hits me. Who needs guns when you can do the job with Barbies?
I tuck the two sale-priced Barbies under my armpit and pick up two more, the ones that aren’t on sale, and some boxesof clothes and a pink car. I’m holding it all in my hands and bending, trying to see what else is there on the shelf at the bottom. More shit. I pick up a few things, though I don’t know what half this crap is. They’ll know, and that’s what matters.
Arms full of toys, I’m trying to figure out where to tuck Barbie’s toy poodles. Pockets. Good. I get two boxes with plastic poodles with pink bows in their hair, while searching the display for an armed badass bitch Marine Barbie and can’t find one.
Army Barbie? Negative, and even Ken is just a pilot and not Air Force. This is some fucked-up shit. Neither Ken nor Barbie has a security team or defense personnel.
While I’m aware most girls like sparkly pink Barbies, I’ve gone to war with women beside me, and those who want a badass Barbie ought to have an option to buy one. I’m all for empowering ladies, and I intend to empower Tammy with my dick and some other qualities I can’t think of at the moment because I’m too busy trying to find her in the store.
At the bakery, she gets a brown bag of something, and I fucking missed what it is, which means now I’ll have to get inside the house to see what she likes to eat. I’m trying to think back to what she might’ve looked like as a teenager, but nothing comes to mind. I don’t know her from before. It’s for the best. Back then, at fifteen, I didn’t care about what kind of food girls got at the bakery. I just wanted to grab a tit.
I still want to grab a tit. It’s just now, I’m older and smarter and I know the tit is attached to a body and brain, and I want it all.
Tammy sees me, and her eyes immediately lock on the toys I’m managing to balance in my arms. Her eyes widen, and she hurries toward the cashier, leaving the girls behind her because the girls have stopped to stare at me.
They’ve got that longing look on their little faces, and I smile, saying with no words that I’ll get this shit to them later, but theone in jeans sticks her tongue out and pulls at the one in tights, who’s dug in her heels, giving me sad, adorable puppy eyes.
I follow them to the cashier and find that Tammy’s practically throwing things on the track to get out of the store faster. Too bad the cashier lady is elderly and you can’t hurry her along because she’s too old to give a fuck about your attitude and why you’re throwing shit at her.
Martha—I read her badge—takes her sweet time, likely going even slower than usual, because Tammy’s huffing and puffing at this point, wallet ready, card out, waving and all. The girls pack the groceries, and the badass one who’s clearly more assertive than her sister keeps throwing covert glances my way.
The cashier rings me up while Tammy packs the rest of her groceries. When she pushes her cart toward the exit, I grab my stuff and dump the bags full of Barbie bribes inside. Before she has a chance to protest, the girls are screaming, ripping through the bags, getting the toys out, and I swagger away like Lucifer after an evil deed.
5
Temperatures in the fifties in Wyoming is practically warm, but the winds are starting to pick up this afternoon, so it’s getting chilly. I spent most of my life in the desert of either California or Afghanistan, even Sudan a few times for special missions I don’t like recalling.
Tammy is great for making me think only about her and how long she’ll take to leave the store and face me outside. If she faces me at all. We’ll see.
For five minutes, she stays inside and finally rolls her cart out, passing the truck where I’m leaning against the back without a second glance. The girls hang their heads as if their mom chastised them for accepting gifts from a stranger, but she couldn’t make them return the things because they’d ripped through the boxes almost immediately. The one in jeans looks up from under her bangs and mouths a thank-you.
I lift my thumb.
The girls help their aunt load the bags in the trunk, which thrills me. It means they help out with stuff, as they should. They’re old enough to work, and I won’t have to teach them work ethics and how to help your elderly parents, which is somethingI’ve done all my life with my parents. Taking care of the money, the house, the medical bills, getting rid of Dad’s secret fiancée that one time I was on leave. Stuff like that.
Once the girls get in the car, Tammy gives me her most violent stare and marches over to me, practically fuming at the ears. I wanna laugh, but I don’t. I’m trying to take her threatening look and determined stride as seriously as possible because I did, in fact, do the wrong thing. I came after the kids and left her scrambling for her wits in the middle of a public place.
She jabs a finger into my chest. “Reed MacLoyd, if you pull any shit like that again, I’m gonna…” She’s searching for words but can’t come up with any, so I grab her and push her against the back of the truck and slam my mouth over hers.
She kisses me back, grabs the lapels of my jacket, and pulls me closer. I take that as permission to lift her up and grind my hard-on into her jeans-clad pussy.
I forget where we are, the temperature outside, or that the girls must be watching a stranger making out with their aunt. I forget all that because Tammy tastes like home, and I realize, subconsciously, she tugged at me like an invisible string in the universe and influenced my decision to return to this area and buy a house in the middle of nowhere in a state where freezing winters chase most people away.
Her tongue is small and tastes like peppermint, and I twirl mine in her mouth, promising her that’s how I’m gonna eat her pussy too. Gonna make out with those lips too, lick them, flick them, kiss them, make love to them. When she’s breathless, I put her back on her feet. Her eyes tell me she’s horny. They’re brown, but now bright, almost hazel with lust, and her lips are red and wet as I peck them softly.
She slaps me.
I smile.
“You deserved that,” she says.
“I’ll see you for breakfast.”
“I’m off tomorrow,” she throws over her shoulder as she walks to her car.
“Then I’m coming over tonight.”
