Tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. It could be a shopper or it could be— The years she’d spent constantly looking over her shoulder had made her edgy and paranoid.
Someone—definitely male—cleared his throat. She turned slightly and—
Asher. Her shoulders slumped in relief.
“You’re not done yet?” he asked.
She poked a finger at his chest. “Damn it! Do not sneak up on me like that.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Well, if you were where you said you’d be, I wouldn’t have had to come looking for you.”
“What?” She looked at her cell phone. “Oh.” It had been forty minutes. Well, she wasn’t that late. “I must’ve lost track of time.” Of course the lube was lying there right on the top of her things. She reached into the cart and covered it up.
He had that gleam in his eye again. Great. He’d seen it. An item like that wasn’t exactly something she was comfortable flaunting around a man she barely knew…even if she planned to use it with him.
“I distinctly remember telling you to be outside in thirty minutes.”
She shook the box of dog treats. “Yes, but—”
He held up two fingers.
She groaned. Not the game. “Come on. Be reasonable.”
He raised an eyebrow and, instantly, she knew a punishment was coming. “Come with me, please.” He grabbed her by the hand and soon they were in the family planning aisle.
“What are you doing?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.
He scanned the shelves and pulled down an economy-sized box of condoms. “Extra, extra large,” he said with a flair.
Rolling her eyes, she was surprised he didn’t add a few more extras. Then he threw four boxes into her cart.
“Ash!” She lowered her voice when a mother and her teenage daughter walked past them and stopped to look at the tampons. “That’s like two hundred condoms,” she hissed. “Sorry to break the news to you, but we are not doing it two hundred times this week.”
He said nothing, just went down the next few aisles, grabbing other items off the shelves. Wart medicine, toenail fungus cream, feminine deodorant, jock itch spray, a nose trimmer and a large package of gummy bears.
Gummy bears? “Stop. Stop.” She laughed, trying to grab the shopping cart away from him. “You’re killing me. I am not buying all that…stuff.”
He grabbed an empty cart and proceeded to transfer all of her things to it, leaving just the embarrassing products in hers. When he came to the lube, he hesitated and ended up leaving it in her cart. He peeled off some bills and handed them to her. “You pay for your stuff separately.”#p#分页标题#e#
“Asher, no.” Her cheeks heated. Her stomach ached from laughing so much. “The clerk and everyone in line are going to think I’m a pervie weirdo.”
He mumbled something about Rule Number Two and threw in a package of stick-on vampire bite tattoos in her cart as well. “Every time you complain, a new item gets thrown in.”
She was about to say something else, but when she looked at all the ridiculously embarrassing things in the cart already, she changed her mind and sighed. A deal was a deal.
Of course, he picked the line with the grandma-aged checker and chose a different line for himself so he could watch. When the young man in line behind her saw all the items she was unloading onto the conveyor belt, his jaw dropped. He reached for his phone and she was pretty sure he took a picture. He was probably uploading it to his profile now. And of course, the cashier had to call for a price check on the condoms.
Olivia wanted to melt into the floor. She was seriously going to kill Asher for this. She glared at him in the next lane. He’d just finished up and had the biggest, stupidest grin on his face.
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Thanks for checking the price on those condoms,” she said to the checker. “My boyfriend over there hates it when I overpay for something you only use once. Don’t you, honey?” She liked calling him her boyfriend, even if it was for a joke.
The old woman looked up at her in shock, two spots of color on her cheeks. Then she and the guy in line craned their necks to look in Asher’s direction. He quickly turned away.
“See? He’s really embarrassed, but I said to him that if he’s so worried about the cost, then he should pay for his things himself.” She gave the woman her sweetest smile as she handed over the cash.
When she got to the car, Ash was leaning against the side, clapping his hands. “Bravo,” he said, pulling her to his chest and kissing her. “I like a girl who can think on her feet.”