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“Nah.” He smiled. “I usually just bring a backpack and a couple of heavy-duty bags and rough it. But I’m one person, and I know how much that boyfriend of yours eats. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the dude was a lumberjack and not a pencil pusher.”
I laughed. “Calder does have a healthy appetite.”
Rafe glanced toward the stairs, then back at me. “If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’ll come with you and help you carry everything back.”
“Oh. You don’t have to. I can handle it myself.”
“Actually, I have to go anyway.” He thumbed toward his aunt’s apartment. “She asked me to grab a few things—bread, yogurt, these little crackers with seeds that I think taste like cardboard.” He shrugged. “Plus, I need more eggs.”
My stomach twisted, but I smiled. “Okay. You don’t have to carry my stuff, though.”
“We’ll see about that.”
A few minutes later, we were walking the six blocks to the supermarket together, the granny cart rattling behind Rafe over the cracked sidewalk.
It felt…odd. Like I shouldn’t be hanging out with him without Calder here.
But that was ridiculous. We were going to the grocery store, not sneaking off to Vegas to get married at an Elvis chapel. If Rafe wasn’t so good looking, I wouldn’t even give it a second thought, right? Besides, I needed to get the apartment stocked. Us going together was totally innocent. I just couldn’t shake my awareness of him beside me.
The second we walked through the automatic doors at Lincoln Market, the trip turned into an adventure.
“Alright,” Rafe said, grabbing a carton of eggs and palming it like a basketball. “We need some rules.”
“Rules?”
“One point for every item we get into the cart from less than ten feet. Two points if it’s more.”
“You want to throw groceries? That sounds like a terrible idea. Especially the eggs in your hand.”
But Rafe continued. “If one of us misses, the other person gets a point. Oh, and the other person gets to run with the cart and swerve to try and keep the items from going in.”
I should’ve said no.
Instead, fifteen minutes later, I was halfway down the cereal aisle, launching a box of bow-tie pasta into the air while Rafe ran and yanked the cart from right to left like he was swerving through traffic.
The pasta landed on the floor.
“Missed!” he yelled. “Plus one for me!”
“That’s not fair. You swatted the box away. We didn’t say anything about shot blocking.”
He smirked. “Apparently you didn’t read the full rule guide, missy.”
A few shoppers gave us amused looks as we worked our way through the store. A few were not so amused—especially the older gentleman whose toes I ran over with a very full cart. By the time we reached the checkout, I’d worked up a sweat. And I was laughing harder than I had since Nat left Sparky in the strip club parking lot.
The mood changed, though, as Rafe and I walked home. The laughter faded, replaced by a strange quiet between us. When we reached the brownstone, he helped carry some of the heavier bags to the third floor.
“Almost forgot,” he said, setting them down on the kitchen table. “There’s an event tomorrow night I think you’d like. Performance art at a local bookstore. You have any plans?”
I hesitated. “Umm… Can I invite Calder?”
A smile bloomed on Rafe’s face. “I meant the two of you.”
“Oh.” Heat rushed to my cheeks. “Duh. Of course.”
How freaking embarrassing. My runaway fantasy about this man had gotten the better of me. I needed to get a grip.
“Well,” I said, looking anywhere but at him, “thank you for turning the grocery store trip into a memorable one. And for helping me carry everything up.”
