Page 100 of Maxwell

Chapter Forty-Two

Rotisserie chicken or fried chicken?

Jasmine carefully examined the options, unable to decide what she wanted to take home from the supermarket deli section.

Fried. She hadn’t had fried chicken in a while. She was reaching for the container when she saw him.

Maxwell.

He was standing in front of one of the store’s refrigerators, filled with bottles of juice. He wore a charcoal sleeveless shirt that showed off his biceps, cargo pants, and sandals. He looked casually, effortlessly sexy.

Did he know she was going to be here? She didn’t think that was possible, but maybe.

For the past month, she hadn’t been allowed to forget about him. It started with the roses and his promise that he was not going to give up on them. Since then, she had seen him twice at Piedmont Park. The second time, she had been alone, and he’d only said hello and kept walking.

He gave Keisha tickets to a Delta J show. A Pac-Man game had shown up gift-wrapped at her apartment, no note. But she’d known it came from him, showing he’d remembered the off-hand comment she’d made at Uptown Arcade about looking into finding something similar.

A box of kid-sized toy stethoscopes had arrived at the office one day. No name, no return address. They placed them in the waiting room play area. The second mysterious gift they had received was a set of bilingual picture books, which had also been placed in the waiting room play area. They would come in handy since the number of Spanish-speaking patients and parents had increased over the years.

No one had claimed credit for the stethoscopes or the books, but she knew they had come from Maxwell—thoughtful and delivered without an audience.

She watched him remove a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator and place it in his hand basket. Her eyes followed him as he moved to the produce section and started examining the blueberries. She could hear him now. He laughed and said something in Spanish.

He hadn’t once glanced in her direction. His behavior let her know he had no idea she was there, so he couldn’t have followed her. She stood uncertainly in front of the hot food, waiting for him to see her.

Then, before she could talk herself out of probably the craziest decision she had made in weeks, she wheeled her cart over to him. She was almost on top of him before he looked up, and his face went still.

“Jasmine.”

“Hi.” Her voice came out quieter than she had intended.

He said something in rapid Spanish to the person on the phone. Paused. Then spoke again in Spanish before hanging up and tucking it in his pocket.

“Hi,” Jasmine said again. “Grocery shopping.” She immediately felt foolish for stating the obvious.

“Getting a few things for the weekend.”

She rubbed her left forearm. “Me too. I was trying to decide if I wanted the roasted chicken or the fried chicken.”

He looked in her empty cart.

“I decided on the fried chicken, but when I saw you... I, um... thought I’d come over and say hi,” she explained.

“I’m glad you did.” He shifted the basket to his other hand. “For the record, I wasn’t following you. I had no idea you would be here.”

“I believe you.”

“Excuse me.” A woman reached between them and picked up a container of blueberries and then went over to the oranges.

Neither of them moved. They kept their eyes on each other.

“You look good,” Maxwell said softly.

“You said the same thing at the park a while back.”

“True then. True now.”

She could feel the color filling her cheeks. “Why did you leave the practice?”