It was technically more information but it wasn’t enough to make me happy, so I ordered the car to call Dorian’s phone and waited for it to connect. The handful of seconds it took for the call to go through were the longest of my life.
“It’s me. Uncle Dorian is packing the groceries, so he told me to answer the phone.”
Emeric.
“First question, am I on speakerphone?” The call sounded odd and it took a few seconds of fumbling to get an answer.
“Not anymore.”
Ancestors above.
Why did kids always answer on fucking speakerphone?
“Thank you.” We were going to have a talk about that. “Are you safe for the moment? Answer yes or no if there are too many humans around to have the conversation discreetly.”
“Just people who know stuff.” I could hear the shrug in Emeric’s voice. “I don’t know what the cashier lady is but she’s smart.”
She giggled too based on what I could hear in the background.
“And one of the parents of a kid in Uncle Dorian’s class. He’s—” Emeric paused as I was fairly certain I heard Dorian whisper for him to be polite. “A cat of some sort, maybe? He’s not—”
Based on the way he stopped answering and sighed, I was going to guess he’d been going to say something rude.
“But he’s being nice now and is going to stay with us until you get here.” Emeric let out a slightly shaky breath before I could answer. “You’re coming, right?”
Yes.
“I’m already on the main road.” And technically driving too fast but that couldn’t be helped. “Are you at Aldi or Winn-Dixie?”
What had that text said?
What kind of cat?
They were all prickly as fuck and fun to rile up, but I really didn’t want to get into a shouting match in the grocery store parking lot.
Not if he’d been helpful.
“Aldi.” Relief was clear in Emeric’s voice. “We…we got a lot of groceries, though, and…and we picked out stuff for meals. Mymom used to say that if she wasn’t careful she’d get home and nothing made a meal.”
I’d run into that issue the last time I’d gone to Walmart, so I couldn’t argue with it even if I couldn’t explain it. “I don’t know how that happens either but it does.”
That got a laugh out of Emeric and I could hear Dorian sighing in the background. It sounded like relief, so I took that to mean they were still safe. “Did he buy so much it’s taking you guys forever to check out?”
Another giggle and a frustrated huff said I was right…but possibly in trouble.
“Uncle Dorian wants to know whose fault is it that your pantry is bare.” I’d heard Dorian grumbling but Emeric was back to snickering as he relayed the teasing.
“That’s a damned good question and we’re going to figure it out.” It’d gotten to the point of unmanageable. “What did you buy for us?”
Keeping him talking seemed like the best thing I could do at the moment, so I asked one ridiculous question after another and promised to help him look up why there were so many different types of cabbage. “What are you going to do with it, though? Coleslaw is disgusting and can’t actually be considered a vegetable to have at dinner.”
“I know.” His excited response got me another five minutes of ranting about weird stuff grown-ups said were healthy. It passed the time but I’d never heard anyone call that shit healthy even if they were trying to get me to eat it.
“But then we got the stuff for salad…oh…we’re done. That was fast.” Emeric’s distracted conversational shift almost mademe laugh. I would’ve described it a lot of ways but fast wasn’t one of them. “We’re going to wait for Uncle Dorian’s friend Mr. Stein to walk us to the car. He went outside but he’s back. Are you almost here?”
He’d gone outside?
To check things out?
