“What are you doing?”
“Up you get,” he says, gently prodding the back of my good knee with one of his until I stand on the bottom carriage of the shopping cart. He sets the cart into motion. Other shoppers cast amused glances as we pass. We must look ridiculous as he wheels me along the linoleum.
“So, what’s for dinner, Chef?”
“I thought we’d make a game of it,” he says. His breath tickles the hair at the nape of my neck. He pauses halfway down the cereal aisle, a rainbow of boxes beside us—Lucky Charms, Cheerios, Froot Loops, and Cap’n Crunch.
“I love games,” I say.
“I know.”
“What’s the game?”
“You pick eight things. Any eight things. And I’ll use them in our dinner. Let’s see if you can stump me.”
“So if I win, I get a shitty dinner?”
His cheek is rough against mine when he leans forward. When we first met, he was always clean-shaven. Years ago, I told him I liked a little bit of stubble on him—that barely-there, sandpapery kind—andhe started using a beard trimmer instead of a razor. “Don’t worry, love, you won’t win.”
I turn and lick his face, making him pull back with a start. He wipes his cheek with the back of a hand. “What the feck was that?”
“Psychological warfare,” I say, and part of me wants to eat him up, to devour him right there in the grocery store.
I yank a box of Cap’n Crunch off the shelf and set it into the cart.
“You and your feckin’ Cap’n Crunch.” Ollie laughs. “Oh, Nina-Neen,” he says, and shakes his head.
I squint at him, suspicious. “What?”
“I knew you’d pick that, so I may have done a bit of research.”
“That’s cheating!”
“Not my fault you’re predictable.”
We move down one aisle, then the next. Ollie kisses my neck as we glide through the store, making me feel things that are most inappropriate for a frozen vegetable aisle.
“Stop trying to distract me,” I say.
“Why? Is it working?”
“No,” I say.
“Are you sure? You’ve got goose bumps,” he says, and kisses his way down my neck to my shoulder.
“I’m cold. We’re in a goddamn freezer aisle.” I lean forward and tug open a freezer door to reach for a bag of frozen peas.Damn it, too easy. I try to put it back, but Ollie catches hold of my wrist.
“Uh-uh,” he says. “Rules are rules. You touch it, we buy it.”
“You’re a cheater,” I say, and reluctantly set the peas into the cart.
Twenty minutes later, Ollie has three grocery bags looped around his arms. Inside is a box of Cap’n Crunch, a bag of frozen peas, an eggplant (which was an accident, I’d picked it up for the purpose of innuendo, and Ollie said it counted as one of the ingredients), JollyRanchers, wasabi, spaghetti (that awful vegetable kind), peanut butter, and a box of Creamsicles.
I’m not in the mood to eat. I’d really rather keep the psychological warfare going.
“Do we have to go back to the boat so soon?” I say once we find ourselves in the parking lot again.
“Am I winning you over, Nina Lejeune?”
