But I’m out of vanilla extract and brown sugar, which means I have to go to the grocery store like a functional adult human being instead of a goblin who hoards silk neckwear and men she can’t have.
I take off the tie. Fold it carefully. Set it next to the pen.
Jeans. T-shirt. The blonde hair is really growing out now, dark roots visible, the color fading into something in-between. I should fix it. Maintain the disguise. Be a good little witness.
I don’t.
Sunglasses. Hat.
My disguise is tragic but it’s all I’ve got.
The grocery store is twelve minutes away.
I park. Grab a cart. Navigate the fluorescent hellscape with the dazed horror of someone picking out snacks for her own funeral. Chocolate-covered pretzels for the reception. Stolen dignity optional.
Baking aisle first. Vanilla extract, the good kind, not the imitation garbage. Brown sugar. Maybe some chocolate chips because I’m always out of chocolate chips and also because chocolate is the only thing standing between me and a complete psychological collapse.
I’m reading the label on a bag of semi-sweet, comparing cocoa percentages like this information matters, like I’m not going to buy whichever one is cheapest, when I see him.
Three aisles over. Visible through the gap in the shelves.
That ass. That mobbed-up, leather-wrapped, cocky piece of protein that once stood in my apartment and made me forget how vowels worked.
Enzo.
I blink. Look again.
Still Enzo.
Still right there, casually examining pasta sauce like he has any goddamn right to be in my grocery store in my city in my new life that he is absolutely not supposed to know about.
My brain does that thing where it throws every possible explanation at the wall.
He followed you. He found you. He’s here to bend you over the Haagen-Dazs and rearrange your ability to walk down a frozen foods aisle without getting wet.
Or more likely, the family knows where you are. You’re about to die in the pasta aisle.
At least the chocolate chips are on sale.
Oh absolutely the fuck not.
I’m the emotionally compromised baked goods banshee in this story. I’m the stalker. You don’t get to out-stalker me in my own unmedicated delusion. Who the fuck does he think he is?
I walk straight toward him.
He sees me coming. Has the absolute audacity to look amused and be sexy about it.
“What the fuck, Enzo.”
“Good to see you too, sweetheart.” He sets down the pasta sauce. Marinara. Store brand. “How’s the vanilla extract shopping going?”
“You can’t be here.”
“And yet.” He spreads his hands. “Here I am.”
God, hands. That’s not a man, that’s a sex injury waiting to happen. I’m ovulating just looking at him. I’m probably pregnant now. Immaculate intimidation.
“There’s a U.S. Marshal who keeps tabs on me.” I drop my voice, glancing around like Saul might materialize from the cereal aisle. “If he finds out.”
