Page 77 of Raze
But I’m able to recognize what he’s doing in trying to get her to talk, so I keep my mouth shut and tongue pinched between my teeth. Kellan shoots me a smirk over her head.
Asshole.
“Uh…maybe later. You said something about a field trip?” She changes topics, running away in a different sense, but I’d prefer not to have that conversation in front of Kellan, anyway.
The things I need to say are only for her.
Chapter nineteen
Dane
Going out in publicwith Kellan and Raegan together is just asking for trouble.
We’re in the one-stop-shop of the town where we’re staying in at Old Red, so it has everything from groceries to clothes, electronics, and games. It’s where we’ve gotten everything we needed since moving into the firehouse, including the home repair and update items I’ve been using.
It’s outside of the city and in such a small town that the store doesn’t even bother with security cameras. I keep my hood up, anyway.
I push the cart past the aisles of things that are not groceries with a look of murder. Kellan and Raegan grabbed their own cart as if they thought we were buying that much food or would be of any help. Then Kell thought it would be fun to toss Raegan in it and sprint her down the aisles before releasing her and then trying to race her in the cart to the end. He also has tocatchher cart at the end before she crashes into one of the displays in the bigger main aisle, and theyget kicked out of the store.
If they don’t get booted for doing this first.
They’ve already had two close calls before I swore at them and left on my own to do the shopping.
I pass one of the displays of discounted movies and pause next to it. Something possesses me to grab one of them. I pick up my pace to the grocery section and start piling food on top of it with things from our list.
“Oh, my god! Dunkaroos?!” Raegan’s voice cries out in disbelief.
My head swivels toward her voice, and I see that they, at some point, have caught up to me and are following behind. Raegan’s still lying back in the cart, legs hanging in the air over the end, as she holds a turquoise box of children’s snacks to her chest.
“I didn’t know anyone still made these!” she adds gleefully.
It doesn’t pass my notice that those were some of the snacks we used to steal from the kitchens at night.
Kellan reaches in to take the box, and she play-snarls and snaps at him with her teeth while curling herself further around the box. “Mine!”
He laughs and then yanks the cart back on two wheels, and she starts sliding out. She scrambles at the sides, clinging to the cart on either side to keep herself in it while also trying to hold the treat between her chin and her chest. Kellan snatches the box away from her and then sets the cart back down.
“If I knew this was all it took to bring out your teeth, beautiful, I’d have bought a pallet of these,” Kellan drawls, dangling the box over her head for her to try to reach.
I turn away from them and move down the aisle. I don’t even remember what I’m supposed to be going for next, but I can’t watch them anymore. They’re in their own happy bubble, and I’m just staring at them like some regretful idiot.
They’ve fallen right back into their playful ways as they had six years ago. I miss it. But I also don’t think I could ever go back to how I was. To howwewere together.
Now, I’m just an outsider who doesn’t know the first thing about what to say or do anymore.
I pull out the list again to remind myself of what’s left and then make it my mission to get it all as fast as possible so we can get out of here. It’s good that Kellan’s been able to cheer her up, especially with me around, and I don’t hate seeing her smiling again or hearing her laugh.
Once I’ve finished the list, I call the other two over to the register and then frown at the boxes of junk food piled around and on top of Raegan. “We are not buying all of that crap,” I snap at them.
“Raegan wants it,” Kellan says with a shrug. “She hasn’t had any of these in years, and who are we to deny her?”
“The tooth fucking fairy denies her. None of that is good for any of us.” I caution a glance at Raegan, who’s hugging the Dunkaroos to her chest like she thinks I’ll pry it away from her to throw in the trash. The light in her eyes she’d had while goofing off with Kellan dies as I see her closing herself off from me. Like she’s just remembered that I’m here and there’s still so much unspoken between us from the other night. I sigh dramatically and hold out my hand. “Give me the fucking Dunkaroos. I’ll buy them, but that’s it. Putthe rest back.”
Kellan grins at me, and I flip him off behind my back, where she can’t see it.
That fucking asshole was testing me.
As soon as the bags of groceries are dumped in a heap in the kitchen, Kellan bails to the living room. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s play a game.”
