“It’s okay, my sister left it in my car.” I wiggle it on the end of my fingers.
Her cheeks heat as she takes it from me and pulls it on. “Thank you.”
We make our way to the entrance. “What size trolley do we need?” I ask.
“That one,” she says, grabbing a trolley from the row.
“How do you have a Costco card, anyway?” I ask as she pushes it towards me. I help Jacob into the baby seat.
“Oh, Marco. I have a card from work.”
I nod as we make our way inside.
“Okay, where to first, my lady?”
She laughs and pulls out her list from her purse, causing me to chuckle.
“What?”
I shrug and narrowly avoid colliding trollies with someone in front of me. “I just never took you for a list maker.”
“Usually, I’m not, but this is important, and I don’t want to fu—fudge it up.” Her eyes go wide, and I laugh some more.
“It’s hard, right, not swearing? And for the record, there’s no way you could mess this up. Me, on the other hand, that’s still to be determined.”
She stops walking and turns to me.
“I doubt that,” she says.
Jacob leans down and starts licking the trolley handle.
“Hey, buddy, that’s not hygienic,” I say. He looks up and carries on. “Shit, he might catch something.”
“Shit,” he says, sitting up straight, and I swear the entire aisle of shoppers stops to look at me.
One just shakes her head, another man laughs, and a woman says under her breath, “Shameful.” But loud enough for us to hear.
“That’s right,” Vi says. “It tastes like shit, right, buddy?”
The woman’s jaw drops, and then she huffs as she turns around to face her trolley.
“You know you’re not meant to engage or encourage his swearing, right?”
Violet looks back down at her list. “My bad. Let’s get busy, boys,” she says, marching off ahead.
“I guess that’s our cue to follow,” I say to Jacob, who is swinging his legs back and forth. He starts reaching out, trying to grab stuff from the shelves. Lucky for me, he has little arms, but I will need to get him something from his bag, which I left in the car.
“Hey, Vi, I need to grab his bag out of the car. He has these nasty carrot crisps and a drink. Can you watch him for a minute?”
Her eyes go wide. “What?”
“Just watch him for a minute.”
She looks to me, Jacob, and then back to me. “I don’t know what to do.”
I have to bite back my laugh. “You don’t have to do anything except stay with him and the trolley.” Taking her hands, I pull her towards me, push her in front of me, and put her hands on the handle.
“See, perfect,” I say, stepping away.
