Chapter 3 – The Pick Up in Frozen Foods

SPOV

Busted!

He knew it.

I knew it.

And I’d long ago learned what that ‘It wasn’t me’ expression he was wearing looked like. There hadn’t been enough time that he could’ve already gone to the airport to pick up his imaginary friend and been back in the freezer aisle unless he could fly.

But I didn’t see any wings sprouting from his back, so while angels may have wept seeing him smile, he didn’t appear to be one of them.

I wasn’t mad though. Not really. I’d kept one eye on him the entire night and he’d seemed bored to death. But then he’d been talking to Bill, so who could blame him. I kept trying to think up something cute or witty to say to him before actually going up to him, but I was neither cute nor witty.

Which was why he’d left.

Early.

And lied about why he was leaving.

But I shouldn’t have expected any different anyway. Eric was clearly out of my league, so imagining him bending me over the arm of the couch was a pipe dream. One Hadley must have shared since the door had barely latched behind him when she ran over and whisper-shrieked into my ear, “Why is Big Bend-Me-Over leaving before ringing your bell with his cock tower?”

And while I wasn’t mad, that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun at his expense. I might not have been cute or witty, but I had an evil streak a mile wide.

The fact I’d given birth to the evil duo Treyson should’ve been his first clue.

Perhaps knowing he’d been caught and figuring he had nothing left to lose, he grabbed a pint in each hand and turned towards me with an apologetic look asking, “How about Half-Baked or What A Cluster?” His cheeks took on a pinkish hue as he smiled and added, “You know, as in Half-Baked Excuse or What A Cluster Fuck?”

Who knew?

There was an angel living in my panties and she was sobbing up a storm. And while ‘Juicy’ might not have been splayed across the ass of my sweats, it didn’t make what they now contained any less true. Even his slight overbite was sexy because seeing it only made me want to fill the space with my tongue.

Or my tits.

Or something else much smaller, but rhymed with tit.

Afraid I might offer him a different kind of cream that couldn’t be found in any pint-sized container, I merely stared at him, enjoying every twitch he made being caught ice-cold-handed, until I couldn’t take it anymore and laughed, “It’s fine Eric. It was my own party and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

Obviously. The door had barely latched behind the last guest’s ass before my ass was in sweats and at the supermarket, looking to buy a cow.

“No, it’s not…” he began to argue and then stopped himself. Altering his course, his eyes softened when he followed up with, “I’m sorry.”

He looked like he really did feel bad and I was a sucker for apologetic eyes – which was why Treyson still lived – so I let him off the hook by way of hooking my hip into his and knocking him out of my way. Reaching into the still open freezer door to grab my pint-sized solace, I warned, “You will be if my Chunky Monkey is a Chunky Monkey-shake by the time I get home.”

Not an empty threat.

He-Who-Had-A-Gorilla-Like-Arm-Span reached out and snatched my Chunky Lover from my hand. But before I could push up my sleeves and throw down in the middle of Kroger’s, he tossed it back onto the shelf and grabbed another container from the back. Handing it to me, he smiled and said, “Here. This one should still be hard.”

Why did my eyes have to dart to his crotch at the word hard?

Maybe it was because the fallen angel had fallen into my panties?

I didn’t want to look up to see if I’d been caught, but since I didn’t have a tube of Clinique Facial Mask handy to hide my eyes behind, I had no choice.

And yes. I’d been caught.

Stupid sexy overbite grinning at me.

Stupid fuck me eyes seeing where my stupid fuck my life eyes had been staring.

Stupid crybaby angels.

Taking the frozen pint from his hand, I resisted the urge to shove it down my pants and in between my thighs. Pretending I hadn’t just been staring at his Chunky Monkey, I only said, “Thanks. I guess I’ll see you around Eric.”

I grabbed ahold of my shopping cart and hightailed my hot and bothered ass away from him before I could embarrass myself any further. But maybe the next time we could meet up in the snack aisle and war over a box of Fruit Gushers. It had been so long he could conceivably pop my cherry for the second time.

But I doubted I would ever know since he wasn’t interested in me or my dried up cherries. So I kept going until I pulled to a stop in the next aisle over and stuck my head into the freezer, either to cool off or to try and form a Vulcan mind meld with a box of Mama Celeste.

I hadn’t been melding for very long when I heard, “Are you trying to guess the toppings?”

Stupid sexy rumbling voice giving me thunder panties.

Leaning away from my makeshift icepack, I looked over to see him smiling at me. And because God now hated me for bogarting one of his angels in my panties, Eric leaned towards me – and smelled really good doing it – pointing at the picture on the box and said, “You can tell this one is pepperoni by the flat red circles on top.”

Smart ass.

And because my ass wasn’t so smart – but it was getting juicier by the second – my mouth let him know it by saying, “I prefer sausage.”

And I wasn’t talking about Mama Celeste’s.

Jesus…what was wrong with me?

Maybe I was wearing a pair of Hadley’s sweats, so now I was the whore?

I could tell by his expression he was caught off guard by my unguarded cunt-fession, but he didn’t look uninterested.

And I refused to look down to see if any other parts of him looked interested.

I already knew I found those parts interesting.

Shaking off his stupor – or maybe the splash back from the weeping angels – he straightened up and said, “So, Bill seems…nice.”

Huh?

Why not tell me what the Dow closed at today while you’re at it?

Maybe I’d been hanging out with Hadley and Lafayette so much that I no longer understood a segue that didn’t involve a derogatory remark?

Even if Bill was offensive in my eyes.

But if Eric liked Bill then at least it made him seem a little less attractive to me and I needed all the help I could get if I wanted to make it out of Kroger’s without looking like I pissed myself, so I said, “Uh…I guess?”

That was the best I could do. I was just lucky the term fuckwit didn’t come tumbling out.

Maybe Eric was a mind reader and heard the ‘fuckwit’ anyway because he looked confused and made me downright confuzzled when he added, “So you’ve been seeing each other for a while?”

It took a moment for my eyes to lodge back into my skull, but my jaw was still sweeping the floor when I asked, “What? What gave you that god awful idea?”

Angels could apparently scream in terror just as easily as they could cry.

“He did,” he said with his eyes just as wide.

Perhaps hearing my terrorized panty angels.

I’d seen the two of them talking, but if I’d known that was what they were talking about, I definitely would’ve found something witty to say to them. Or at least to one of them.

Fuckwit.

I was still busy choking on the audacity of fuckwits, so Eric took the opportunity to add, “You’re not?”

“NO!” I yelled, with my vehement denial echoing its way all the way across the store to the dairy aisle.

And I made a mental note to not forget to pick up milk.

“But why…” he began to ask before I cut him off now that my thundering denial had cleared a path in my throat.

“The only reason I let that man into my house is because I have to play nice since Treyson aren’t known for playing nicely when I’m not home. His flowerbeds. His precious koi pond. Those two see it as a challenge to fuck with that man at every opportunity. And since he works from home, he has afternoon teas with my live-in, Mrs. Fortenberry, so she fills his ears with her two cents that I need a man. I can only guess he thinks proximity alone makes him it.”

EPOV

DICK!

I guessed I wasn’t the only dickhead in attendance tonight, but seeing Sookie’s outraged reaction eased the knot in my stomach that had been sitting there ever since that dickhead fucked with mine.

DICK!

But now knowing their relationship was nonexistent, the desperate sounding words came tumbling out faster than I could stop them, as I heard myself ask, “Are you seeing anyone?”

Smooth.

Real smooth.

Dick.

“Do Ben and Jerry count?” she asked with a small smile.

“No,” I smiled in return.

Not when I would love to have a foursome with them.

With me licking both Ben and Jerry off of her naked body.

The ice cream, mind you. Not the Vermont hipsters behind the frozen nirvana.

“Well then no, I’m not seeing anyone.”

Thinking it was way too soon to be suggesting foursomes, at least my mouth cooperated with my brain for once as I asked, “So…do you want to get together sometime?”

“Like a date?” she asked shyly.

“No,” I replied and seeing her disappointment I quickly added, “Not like a date, but an actual date.”

If she just wanted to remain casual acquaintances or maybe just be friends, I was okay with that too. But I didn’t want there to be any confusion on what my intentions were.

She could learn about my intended foursome later on if things progressed the way I wanted them to.

“I would love to,” she replied and I had a sudden overwhelming urge to kiss the smile off of her face, only so I could put it back on by kissing her again.

But since that was probably too forward, I decided to not give her a reason to pepper spray me before I even had the chance to take her out to dinner and said, “Great.”

I probably should’ve just gone on my way. Made some lame attempt at acting cool and telling her I’d call her later in the week. She’d probably worked all day and then she entertained guests most of the night, so I was sure she would be tired. But instead of resting, she was out picking up whatever, but I was keeping her out even later because I wanted to pick her up.

But I wasn’t cool and I couldn’t even act it because I really didn’t want to walk away just yet. It was just me and her – and a few other late night shoppers – and I wasn’t anxious to leave her side. And since I only had a hand basket and she was pushing a shopping cart, I dropped the basket into the empty child seat and grabbed ahold of the cart’s handle asking, “Where to next?”

She smiled – which was a good sign that I wouldn’t be getting a boot up my highhanded ass for taking over her shopping cart – and put on a faked hoity toity tone saying, “The dairy section, Jeeves. According to Mrs. Fortenberry, we’re in desperate need of a cow.”

And following the sway of her ass to the dairy section only added another reason on the list of why’s I would consider buying the cow even if I got the milk for free.

Her ass was that great.

But since I hadn’t even kissed her yet – I was becoming more and more sure than ever it would happen though – it was probably too soon to be thinking those thoughts.

Although it was nice to have those thoughts about someone again.

Neither one of us were moving very quickly and it made me wonder if she really was tired, so I asked, “Long day?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, but then looked at me and smiled with, “But it’s getting better the longer it goes on.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“Mine too,” I admitted. But since I had only left her house barely an hour earlier, I had to ask, “How did the rest of the party go? I’m surprised you’re not stuck still hob knobbing with the rich and pretentious.”

I did okay financially. More than okay actually, but a lot of the crowd were born into their wealth and wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it bit them on the ass.

She laughed and her questioning eyes turned back to me when she said, “I’m not sure which version of events I should give you. Do you want the glossed over one that’s so shiny it should come with sunglasses or the ugly warts and all one that will keep the snob knobs all a twitter at the country club tomorrow?”

“Both,” I challenged. “Dazzle me with the beer goggles version and then rip the blinders off so when I wake up in the morning I’ll regret it.”

And seeing a different kind of questioning in her eyes, I realized how my words could have been misconstrued.

Dick. Head.

“You know I meant the story right?” I added as fast as I could form the words. And since she didn’t look like she wanted to believe me, I went for King of the Uncool by saying, “I didn’t even have a beer tonight. Or yesterday. Or all week long.”

You’d think with my head up my ass I wouldn’t be able to articulate so succinctly.

She let me stew in my own verbal vomit for a few moments before she laughed and said, “You sure do rattle easy.”

If only she knew how much her words could be misconstrued.

The snake in my pants was rattling for her too.

But before I could make any further attempts at keeping my crown of the Uncool by admitting I hadn’t dated very much and she made me feel like I’d just hit puberty all over again, she went on to say, “The glossy version is my youngest wasn’t feeling very well, so everyone left so I could tend to him. The ugly version is not long after you left Trey came out into the living room and threw up his pizza dinner smack dab in the middle of it. So Jason thought it would be a good idea to let the dog inside and Dean thought it was a good idea to clean it up himself. Nobody wanted to stick around for the tiramisu dessert. Go figure.”

“Oh,” I laughed, but quickly followed up with, “Is Trey okay?”

Now I really felt like a dick for keeping her out later than she probably planned.

“He’s fine,” she huffed. “It turns out Jason bet him he wouldn’t do it, knowing he would. They wanted to watch TV on the flat screen in the living room and were tired of waiting for the house to clear out.”

I didn’t know whether to be impressed or scared of their determination to get what they wanted.

But before I could figure out which way Sookie might have been leaning towards, she smirked and added, “So now the power cords to every TV are coiled up and locked in my car for the foreseeable future.”

I was impressed by her ingenuity, but more so by how easily she seemed to handle what had to be an embarrassing situation. From the way she talked, I would guess her dinner guests were exactly what she’d called them earlier.

Business associates.

And seeing her work the room, I already knew she could handle herself in those types of situations, which was probably why her construction company flourished. But I’d also been witness to another side of her. The way she took in stride any mishaps her rambunctious boys seemed to cause on a full-time basis was impressive in and of itself.

Aude would have had a stroke.

She was very much of the mindset it was ‘My way or the highway’ and it usually didn’t cause too much aggravation because we were normally on the same highway. But she was also all about appearances for appearance’s sake. If any little hair fell out of place she would go nuts until it was corrected. It probably had a lot to do with why Pam was so well behaved as a child. She’d learned early on what behavior was acceptable and what wasn’t, which was fine.

Mostly.

But because of that she was never allowed to just be a kid. She couldn’t go play in the dirt or smear herself and whatever else with finger paint. Messes of any kind were unacceptable and Aude and I had gotten into more than one argument about it. But since she was Pam’s primary caregiver, there was only so much I could do to change things. And by the time it was just me and her, Pam was already molded into her mother’s mini-me when it came to just letting herself have any fun.

It was the only part of her childhood I regretted.

Sookie pulled me from my thoughts by asking, “So, have I sufficiently scared you away with my Tales of the Evil Irish Twins?” When I looked up at her, she joked, “I’ve tried dropping them off in the middle of the forest, but they’re always covered in crumbs, so they always find their way back home.”

“No,” I smiled in return. “If anything I’m jealous of their clever little minds. I would’ve thrown up on Bill just to get rid of him if I’d thought to do it.”

Instead of looking shocked at my unintended admission, she only chuckled, “Just dare one of them to. I bet they’d even carve, ‘Help me’, onto their bellies just to complete their exorcism of him from the room.”

Good to know.

And for my sake, it would probably be in my best interests to stay on their good side.

I knew I couldn’t keep Sookie out indefinitely since she’d already warned me what would happen if her Chunky Monkey turned into a milkshake, so after we paid for our respective items, I walked her to her car and chuckled when I spotted the wrapped cords in her trunk saying, “You weren’t kidding.”

“I never kid about giving them a what for,” she smiled. “I kid about giving them away all the time though.”

And after helping her load her groceries into the car, I found myself floundering all over again. We weren’t out on a date, so trying to kiss her goodnight seemed like a maybe dick move.

No matter how much my dick was trying to move towards her or how much I wanted to kiss her.

So I was pleasantly surprised when she leaned up and kissed me on my cheek before saying, “Thanks for keeping me company. And let me know when you want to get together.”

In fact I was so surprised that she managed to get in behind the wheel before I could manage to say, “I will.”

And I most definitely would.