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She took his hand as they entered the grocery store, and he tugged it free.

“I don’t need to hold your hand, mom,” Emmett told her. He was already so good at eye-rolling that she was worried about his teenage years.

“Then you need to stay with me and the cart the whole time,” Tori told him.

Pulling a cart free from where it was nestled in with the rest, she started her way through the store. As soon as they walked past the snack aisle, Emmett was full of pleas, the entire reminder in the car forgotten.

“Please, mom?” he begged. Emmett held up the colorful box of fruit snacks to her.

Tori sighed. “If you are good the rest of the time we are in here, and I don’t need to tell you again, then I will let you come back for it.”

“Yes!” Emmett jumped.

“Put it back for now,” she told him.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad deal. For under five bucks, she might hold her sanity together.

“Mom!” Emmett said as they rounded the end of the aisle.

“What? I’m not changing it to anything else?—“

“No. Look. It’s Chance Lawrence!”

Emmett almost ran toward him, but she managed to catch him first, barely.

There in the flesh with a cart full of his own groceries was indeed Chance Lawrence. He looked different off the pitch, she noted. His dark brown hair was less messy, something she’d never seen before on him. It was combed and out of his eyes, a stark comparison to when he played.

Though he wore jeans, she knew his legs were nothing but muscle, even covered. She could see his tattoo peeking out from his short sleeve shirt, and it made her want to get a closer look.

Not that she’d never seen it, but never in real life and certainly never this close. A lot of the players took their shirts off after the game and she knew that Chance had several tattoos, but she wanted to explore them.

Tori shook her head, pushing the thoughts away. “We will not bug him while he is grocery shopping. That’s rude.” She looked down at her black leggings and worn ‘Soccer Mom’ sweatshirt, immediately regretting not putting more effort into getting dressed this morning.

“But, mom,” he whined.

“Remember our deal?” she warned.

“Ugh,” Emmett dramatically threw himself back against the cart but stayed with her and didn’t try to take off again.

Bringing their basket in front of the deli, she and Emmett debated what kind of lunch meat they wanted. Emmett chose ham, and she turned to the worker to place her order.

In that five seconds, Emmett was gone. She turned, looking for him, only to find him running off in the other direction.

Taking her cart with her, she stormed in his direction. Not wanting to draw attention to them or the fact that her child wasn’t listening for shit today, she didn’t yell, but she was definitely going to do a lot of it when they got home.

Tori turned her cart down the snack aisle to see Emmett standing there talking to Chance Lawrence. Suddenly nervous, she debated not collecting her child and just waiting for him to find her but then Chance looked up and saw her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she approached. “I told him to leave you alone but he took off when I was placing a deli order.” Tori put enough into her voice for Emmett to know he was in trouble.

“It’s okay. It was nice to meet a fan,” Chance ruffled Emmett’s hair.

“See? He didn’t mind, mom.” Emmett folded his arms across his chest.

Tori closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer for patience before responding. “I didn’t say he would mind, I said it was rude.”

Chance looked between the two of them before going down on his haunches to talk to Emmett again. “Dude, if your mom tells you not to do something, you have to listen. You also have to stay with her and not run off. You probably scared her.”

“She doesn’t look scared.” Emmett looked up at her. “She looks mad.”