“Name?”
“Adley. Don’t know her last name.”
His voice grows tight. “Adley is not a popular name. Where did she move from?”
“L.A.”
He breathes long into the phone, like he’s trying to calm himself. Then, his voice is quiet, like he’s talking to himself, when he says, “Adley Pepper. It has to be.”
I frown as I pull into the parking lot and find her SUV, parking next to it carefully. “Look, I don’t know who that is, but I gotta help our girl get some groceries and get settled at home. Do what you need to do, but come by my apartment tonight to talk. Later.”
I end the call and hop out of the truck, landing firmly on my right foot, careful not to jam up my left knee. The bastard who ended my career.
“Thank you for joining me.”
I whip around to Adley’s beautiful face. Slightly sun-kissed skin, brunette hair falling in waves around her shoulders, big brown eyes like a bar of cacao, dark and rich. She’s shorter than me, maybe even by eight or nine inches. Her tee shirt is loose around her torso, but she’s been poured into those blue jeans, and I approve.
At least for my private viewing.
“Any time,” I manage just as her orange blossom scent overwhelms my lungs. My body’s reaction is more immediate than my mind’s, the muscles at the base of my cock twitching, threatening to make me stand at attention.
Aw, fuck.
Algebra. People who don’t cover their mouths when they sneeze. The red version of clam chowder. Those motherfuckers who took out my knee in the N Zone during the championship game.
My dick settles down immediately.
There. That’s better.
I shoot Adley a reassuring smile and turn to lead the way to the store entrance, picking out a shopping cart along the way, checking the wheels for anything wonky, longing to be useful to her in any way I can.
After she’s shopped and I’ve followed like a loyal and devoted servant of my Omega, I learn a few things about her. For one, she is super organized. Adley goes through the grocery store with a purpose, getting dry goods first, then refrigerated, then frozen, before we check out. Second, she absolutely lives for lists. She has a list of more lists on her phone so long that she had to scroll to find the grocery list she was looking for. Third, she likes her vegetables frozen, and I can dig that. Four, she loves pasta. And a variety of different pastas. By the time we left the grains aisle, she put six boxes of dried pasta in the cart, lined up neatly, two boxes each of three different forms: elbows, penne, and rotini.
No jar-sauce, though. This beautiful woman picked out an array of plain, canned tomato sauces, picked out some spices, a bottle of red wine, and a bunch of other stuff before we made our way to the produce aisle, and then the dairy cases, where we come to my final observation.
This woman is obsessed with cheese.
I never even paid attention to how many different cheeses there were in the world, but this woman has apparently met all the cheeses, befriended them, is on a first-name basis, and has invited them to dinner. Repeatedly.
I’ve never seen anything like it before.
I know cheddar, American, and always thought Swiss was the fanciest cheese around. Oh, and mozzarella. Love me some ‘za.
But Adley builds a small platoon of cheese to be the front-line of her pasta army, and I’m pretty sure my boring stare is going to melt it all.
Maybe she’ll let me try some of her precious cheeses.
At the cashier, I had to hold myself back from paying by carefully bagging all of Adley’s items.
I may not know her well, but instinct tells me she’d be offended if I tried to pay. Instead, I put my high school work experience to good use, taking her reusable bags and gently filling them, then returning them to her cart.
As I push Adley’s haul back to her SUV, she turns to me, her cheeks pink. “Thank you for all of your help.”
My laugh is immediate. “I didn’t do much, but I’m here any time you need something.”
“I won’t bother you.”
I stop in my tracks. “I want you to come to me, Adley. I want to be here for you. Will you let me?”
