Me: Grocery shopping.
Axel: Slow down there. Save some good stuff for later this year.
Me: For the record, I was just texting to say hi, but now, I gotta run. Harper’s ready.
Axel: “Harper’s ready.” Listen to him. Four days out, and he’s already whipped.
Ryker: You’re just mad because a sixty-year-old outplayed you.
Axel: LOW BLOW.
Blake: Be good, Knox. And I mean that medically. You’ve been cleared for all activities, but pace yourself.
Axel: WHOA. Was that a sex joke from BLAKE?!
Jace: I think it was.
Axel: I’m screenshotting this. This is historic.
Ryker: Go. Live your life. We’ll keep Axel from doing anything stupid while you’re gone.
Axel: No promises.
Axel: But seriously, happy for you, man.
Axel: Even if you ARE being sappy about it.
Axel: Now go. Before I get feelings and have to punch something.
54
HARPER
Knox Blackwood did not belong in a grocery store.
I realized this the moment he grabbed a shopping cart and the metal groaned under his grip like it knew it was outmatched. He was six foot four of tattooed muscle, crammed into a charcoal T-shirt that clung to him like it was afraid to let go, and a pair of jeans that sat on his hips in a way that should’ve been illegal in at least three states. His silver eyes scanned the fluorescent-lit aisles with the same quiet intensity he used to scan the prison yard, and I watched two stock boys physically step out of his path without even realizing they’d done it.
He looked like someone had dropped a Viking into suburban domesticity and told him to find the pasta aisle.
“This feels weird.” He frowned at the automatic doors as they whooshed shut behind us.
“What does?”
He gestured vaguely at everything. The pyramid of oranges. The woman sampling cheese on toothpicks. The soft, forgettable melody drifting through the overhead speakers that could generously be described as music. “This.”
“Grocery shopping?”
“All of it.” He pushed the cart forward, and one of the front wheels let out a high-pitched shriek of protest. Knox scowled at it. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“Only when you turn. It’s a feature, not a bug.”
He turned. The wheel screamed.
“Noted,” he muttered.
An elderly woman in a floral blouse rounded the corner, took one look at Knox, and nearly walked into a display of canned soup. Her eyes traveled from his face to his arms to the tattoos crawling past his collar, and she did not look away. She just stood there, holding a can of minestrone, staring like she’d stumbled across a nature documentary in the wild.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
