Brooks is typing …
That’s the best kind! I’m with Coach on that one.
The second I read the word “coach,” my heart slides into my stomach. It’s like a slap-to-the-face reminder of who my dad is in Aiden’s world.
And how much jeopardy I’m putting him in by being with him.
Conflict rises within me, but I immediately push it back down. I know what Aiden wants.
Me.
I have never felt this way about any man, and I have to trust that this can’t be wrong.
And that somehow, I’ll be able to make my dad see that.
I text him back:
I’ll pick up a can for us tonight. Anything else I need to get?
Brooks is typing …
Just you. I wish I were spending all day with you.
All of my doubts disappear. Being with Aiden is right. I know it with every cell in my body.
I message him back:
We’ll be together tonight, and that’s all that matters.
I end my chat with Aiden and step out of my car. It’s mild and sunny today, with a temperature in the upper seventies. Mom was right—there’s not a lot of people around, so it’s quiet. I grab a cart and move through the store. Yes, technically, I’m here for two cans of cranberry jelly, but I love wandering through the supermarket, so I’m going to take one lap around and see what I can find.
As the electric doors open for me, I’m greeted by a massive Christmas display and holiday music being piped in through the sound system. I inwardly groan. Thanksgiving really gets the short stick between Halloween and Christmas, and it’s a shame because it’s a great holiday. It’s about being with your family and eating lots of carbs. There’s no pressure to have gifts or the perfect costume. How can that be wrong?
And more to my point, not celebrated equally?
I push my cart past a massive display of red and white poinsettias, stacked upward in a Christmas-tree shape, and decide before I have a look around, I need to get the cranberry jelly first. Otherwise I’ll find a whole bunch of other crap to put in my cart, forget the jelly, and fail the mission my mom gave me in the first place.
I figure cranberry jelly must be on an endcap somewhere. Surely they haven’t filed that away in place of peppermint coffee pods, right? I keep my gaze laser-focused, trying to find the all-important cranberry blob in a can, and spot an endcap filled with boxes of stuffing mix, with cranberry cans stocked in the middle.
Success!
I pull my cart up to the display, and as I’m about to retrieve a can, there’s a loud BANG! Suddenly, boxes of stuffing are flying off the shelves. I shield my face with my hand as a tsunami of herbed stuffing attacks me, falling everywhere, bouncing off my head and body. I hear the whole side of the display crash with a boom, and the boxes keep hitting me on the head. I let out a yelp, and I hear an “OH MY GOD!”
Within seconds, it’s over. I remove my hands from my head, stunned. Then I look around, and there are boxes of stuffing EVERYWHERE. Even my cart now has about ten boxes of stuffing. Cranberry cans also came to the party, and they are part of the mess on the floor. I’m just grateful none of those hit me in the head.
I look over to see a cart has plowed into the right side of the stuffing display, and it collapsed. There’s a girl in her twenties standing frozen at her cart, her hands gripping the handle, her beautiful face twisted in complete mortification.
Meanwhile, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is being played overhead.
I burst out laughing. I’m laughing so hard, tears spring to my eyes, and the girl who crashed into me begins to laugh, too. Then horror enters her blue eyes.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m still standing,” I tease. “And I’m okay.”
She exhales loudly. “I’m so glad. I feel horrible about this. I was—” She abruptly stops speaking, turning panicked. “My phone!” she cries, looking around. “Where is my phone?”
I stare down at the piles and piles of stuffing surrounding us. “It has to be buried in here somewhere.”
