“You don’t have it. I hate when you do this, Jay!” she yelled, frantically grabbing a cart and pushing forward.
I decided she was too cute in her futile pursuit to stop her now.
She power walked through the store, and her face fell every single time an item on her list wasn’t on the shelf. Most of the things we needed for Lorraine’s pie were sold out.
We got to the checkout counter and she grumbled, “How can a store not have any sugar left? I mean, that’s ludicrous. They should have stocked extra, Jay.”
I couldn’t hold in my laugh as we neared the counter.
“You think this is funny? We are going to spend all day chasing down these items, and if you’d planned better, we would have saved hours.”
I’d heard this speech from her before. She was my PA after all. I could admit that there had been a lot of times in LA when I didn’t remember something. My mind would be on a scene or foggy from a night of partying. She’d corrected me more than once, righted the ship when I partied too hard and didn’t show up. I was notorious for flaking on our one-on-one meetings too. It wasn’t something I was proud of.
Before partying, I’d been a stickler for punctuality and found that after rehab, the habit hadn’t died. I knew what we needed and I knew we would be fine.
“Relax. I’ll take care of it.” I patted her back. I had it under control.
Her cheeks reddened, and I knew she was frustrated with my lackadaisical attitude when she stomped a foot. “Are you trying to be patronizing? Because you are. You always say that in LA. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ No. I take care of it. And it won’t be fine if Lorraine doesn’t have the local flour to put in for her pie crusts. When did she ask you to get them?”
So, frustrated was an understatement. She was pissed.
I shrugged because answering her would have raised her blood pressure well beyond what it was now.
She whipped out her phone and started typing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Finding the nearest grocery store with sugar and pie crust in stock.”
Her brow was furrowed and her onyx hair fell over one shoulder as she clicked away at the speed of light.
I should have stopped her. I should have told her again it was all taken care of, but this was the Meek I knew. The one who barreled through every problem, even ones this small, with a clear plan for how to fix it in mind. I was surprised to find it was something I’d missed. It was a small victory to see her this way again but a victory nonetheless. She was getting her footing back.
We inched forward in line and, just my luck, Sandy ambled over. The tall blonde from my high school years looked good and yet I had no interest in her. Not even after I’d had dinner with her.
She curved her red lips at me and waved. “You ready for the festival?”
Mikka glanced up, and her eyes narrowed a little. She didn’t engage, though.
“We’re ready. Probably going tomorrow,” I answered, not caring to converse with her.
“I’ll see you there, hopefully? Maybe we can meet up?”
There wasn’t a chance in hell, but I shrugged anyway, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
As the words left my mouth, I saw Mikka look between the two of us. Sandy walked off and I let the encounter go, sure we didn’t need to discuss it.
Dex, a scraggly-haired kid brother of a friend in town, started to check out our items. “Dex, can you tell Al we need the rest of my order?”
The kid mumbled into the mic that was attached to his headphone. Two seconds later, Al came around the corner with a cart of local flour, along with sugar and every other item we needed.
The old man was smiling under his white beard and started packing the materials into a bag and then into our cart. “Lorraine started the pies?”
I nodded. “She and Delilah are whipping them up over at the bakery. We’re going to take this there and help them.”
“Can’t wait to get my hands on one.”
As we walked to the truck, Mikka punched me hard in my shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”