Page 3 of The Perfect Blend
As I reached out to take it, my fingers brushed his and a small zing raced up my spine. I pulled my hand back and threw the tin of coconut milk into the trolley with more force than was strictly necessary.
He raised his eyebrows, and I felt even more awkward. This interaction had to end, no curry in the world was worth it. Even one with a recipe which had over four hundred five -star reviews.
“Thanks again!” I said, faux cheery voice sounding brittle even to my own ears. I steered my unruly trolley down the aisle away from him and prayed to the supermarket gods that I would not see him again.
The supermarket gods decided they wanted to see me suffer, I quickly realised. Only five minutes later I wandered into the dairy aisle and realised two things at once. One, the yoghurt I was searching for must be on another aisle, and two, Mr Tall, Dark and Rude was walking down said aisle towards me. I couldn’t do an about face and draw attention to myself, so I quickly chose a cheese at random and stared at it engrossed. I was very interested in brie, yes I was. Never had a cheese been more fascinating, I must know more about it. I picked it up and looked blindly at its ingredients. In my peripheral, l could sense him slowly moving closer and then eventually past me as I continued to investigate the packaging thoroughly. Finally, he exited the aisle and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Ridiculous. I was putting the brie back in the fridge, when I felt the watchful gaze of the lady standing to my right. Feeling judged and somehow in the wrong by putting it back after clutching it for so long, I put the cheese in my trolley instead and walked swiftly away.
Two aisles over, he struck again. I was just turning into the central aisle as he was turning into the aisle I was exiting. We had to stop suddenly to prevent a collision and I couldn't avoid looking him in the eye. I did an awkward nod and, surprisingly, he did an awkward nod back before we quickly manoeuvred away from each other. And I’d thought it had been bad the previous month when I’d repeatedly run into my old chemistry teacher! After making small talk the first two times we’d bumped into each other, we had nothing left to say. After that we just pretended not to see each other. This was so much worse.
I felt slightly embarrassed about having gotten into an argument with him in the first place, never mind having to decide how to interact with him in a supermarket. To top it all off, I had to admit to myself that I was attracted to him. Like, really attracted to him. Drawn to him in a way I hadn’t felt in years. I wanted to reach up and run my hands through his curls, his blue eyes held me captive even as my mind knew full well that he was an utter arse. And then there was something so familiar about him. I felt like if he just smiled at me properly, I would know him. I found myselfwantingto know him, despite him being utterly odious the last time we spoke. Well, the time before last, since he had actually sounded quite pleasant when he’d been helping me this time. But then, of course, he hadn’t realised it was me. He probably would have just left me to it if he had, his fingers crossed that one of the cans I was reaching for would fall out and bonk me on the head. How had I gotten myself into such an awkward mess? And how was I going to get out of it?
I made the sensible and mature decision to continue avoiding the problem altogether. For the rest of the shopping trip, I was on high alert. I made a quick diversion to avoid a potential run in, and another time I dove into the clothing section to hide amongst the Christmas jumpers when I spotted him nearby. I felt like an idiot, pressed into the flashing Rudolph knits, waiting for the coast to be clear, but my body had moved on its own accord without input from my brain. Finally, I got through my whole list and made it to the checkout. I picked one with a reasonably short line and started piling my purchases onto the conveyor belt. A lime bounced off and onto the floor, forcing me to bend down and scrabble around to grab it. I popped back up, placing the runaway lime on the conveyor belt and out of the corner of my eye I spotted that none other than Mr Tall, Dark and Rude was joining my queue. My heart sank. Not again. Fortunately, he spotted me and I had to hold back a snort of amusement as he did a swift u-turn and headed for another checkout. I was kind of glad it wasn’t just me being affected by the farcical situation we had found ourselves in.
I chatted happily with the checkout lady, high on the relief of being out of the woods, then hightailed it out of there back to my car. I put my shopping in the boot, wheeled the trolley back and got in. The car growled to life, and I started backing out, eyes on the rearview mirror. Which, suddenly, wasn’t clear for me to reverse.
I slammed on the breaks as someone slapped their hand against the back of my car. Swearing, I wrenched up the handbrake and opened the door to shout an apology behind me.
“I’m so sorry!” I called, craning my neck to see around the back of the car. A trolley's nose pushed out, and its handler followed behind. I could feel fate laughing cruelly from on high. Naturally, of course, with today’s luck, it could only be Mr Tall, Dark and Rude.
“Of course it’s you,” he said, a half smile on his face. “Are you trying to run me down now, instead of running me out of town?” he asked, pushing his trolley to the boot of the Land Rover parked in the space next to mine. I couldn’t believe it, I’d actually parked next to him. This must be karma for a past life. Though what I’d done to deserve this, I didn’t know. Perhaps Tesco was cursed for me now, I might have to change supermarket loyalty and go elsewhere.
“If I’d been trying to run you over,” I called back, feeling my cheeks burn, “I wouldn’t have braked!” I slammed the door shut and congratulated myself on my oh so clever response. I could hear him laughing.
“There’s always next time!” he shouted back.
Electing to ignore him I focused instead on reversing out very slowly. I was careful to avoid looking at him as I made it safely out of the bay and drove off, finding myself wishing once again for this to be the last time we met. I hoped this time my wish would actually be granted. Though since I also habitually made a wish to win the lottery whenever I entered, and yet shockingly never had, I wasn’t holding high hopes.
∞∞∞
“This is great,” cackled Zoe, who was curled up on the sofa in her living room, glass of wine in hand. Her blond riotous curls always had to be tied up for work, but this evening they bounced freely to her shoulders. She had a round face and pointed nose and chin, with naturally rosy cheeks and freckles. She despised how "cutesy" she looked, but I always thought she looked like a beautiful garden fairy. I’d told her that once, and she told me that I was lucky she liked me as much as she did, otherwise she would have punched me. I hadn’t mentioned it since.
Tonight that elfin face looked gleeful and mischievous as she said, “I feel like this has major romantic comedy energy.”
It was our bi-weekly Booze & News evening. After a few years of struggling to make time to see each other, we’d decided to put some time aside every fortnight to relax and have a proper catch up. Tonight we were in Zoe’s little cottage up in the village. The cottage had four rooms total, but Zoe loved it. A small living-dining room, with a tiny wood-burning stove and a view out over her little front garden, plus her kitchen made up the ground floor; then up some steep stairs was a tiny landing with her bathroom and a large airy bedroom. She called it quaint and was thrilled that it came with a drive just off to the side of it, where she could park her animal grooming van.
I looked at Beanie and Ruby, Zoe’s poodle, as they lay cuddled together by the fire. They were best friends just as much as Zoe and I were.
“I don’t know about the comedy part, it was more awkward than anything,” I said, reaching for a malteser and settling back against the chunky cushions of the sofa. “Excruciatingly awkward, actually.”
“Well, I think it’s pretty funny. Especially because you fancy him,” teased Zoe.
“Fancy? What are you, a teenager?” I shot back.
“I see you’re not denying it.”
I laughed and took a sip of wine, saying nothing as to not incriminate myself further.
Zoe nodded in satisfaction, blonde curls bouncing as she did so. “You fancy him. This is so fun!”
“Not if you’re Sharon,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I literally just mentioned to her, ‘oh you’ll never guess who I bumped into at Tesco’s’ and told her the story, and she was off.”
Zoe huffed out a laugh. She knew what my cousin was like, opinionated and overprotective when it came to me and men. I had a history of poor choices and Sharon was desperate that I not repeat them. “What did she say?” Zoe asked.
“Oh, you know, how clearly he was an overly aggressive weirdo and that I should avoid him. Never mind that it was me who nearly ranhimover, not the other way around!”
Zoe laughed.
“You know what you need?” she said.
