Page 8 of Reckless With You

I really needed to stop with the jokes. I wasn’t very good at them.

“I’ll see what I can do for you.” I winked and looked at the zucchini, finding one that didn’t actually look as phallic as the rest. Because what if I was reading the situation wrong? What if she really did just want a nice zucchini for her family? One that was large enough to feed them all.

One that did not remind her of my dick.

But when she pressed closer to me, her breasts tight against my side, I had a feeling she was thinking about dick, too.

Oh, good. I had reached the stage of my life where I could make zucchini dick jokes no matter what I was doing.

Okay, I had to be honest with myself, I could always make a dick joke. It was kind of my thing.

“Here you go.”

“Oh, and it’s so…firm.”

She winked, and I held back a groan.

Really? Really? There were kids all around us, and she was squeezing that zucchini in a way that made me want to cross my legs. Because given how she squeezed, it made me wonder how she’d squeeze my junk.

Her next words broke me out of my thoughts. “Anyway, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go look at that artichoke over there.”

I hurried off, aware that she was watching my ass as I moved away. I hadn’t actually done that on purpose, but whatever. That had been a little too strange for me. When another lady came up to her, and they both started giggling, pointing, and watching me, I had to wonder if I was on some candid camera TV show that I wasn’t aware actually existed anymore.

I knew women were drawn to me. Men, too. And, sometimes, I used it to my advantage. Other times, I ignored it. They liked the way I looked, liked my smile, my muscles. They just liked what they saw.

I could be charming. I had been a charmer when I was younger, after all. That’s how I’d charmed myself from foster home to foster home. I had charmed my way through all of them until I found the perfect one that I could stay at until I was eighteen. One where no one touched me when I didn’t want them to. Where no one hit me or yelled. They were a good family. One that probably thought fondly of me every once in a while but didn’t necessarily remember me.

The perfect foster family.

But I had used my dimples and that smile of mine to get what I wanted. And I hadn’t been ashamed of it. Foster kids had to learn young. It was sort of our thing.

And so, I used thatswerveof mine—as the kids today said, at least I thought that was what the kids said these days—to get through life.

Tonight, I had plans with the family of my heart, so picking up a lady in the grocery store who fondled zucchini as if it were the last vegetable she’d ever be able to grope, really wasn’t on my agenda.

I passed the artichokes and left the produce area, headed towards the flower area like I had planned all along. I wanted to bring a bouquet or something sweet for my best friend’s new lady love. Yes, I had lied to the zucchini lady about my need for artichokes, but I hadn’t wanted to walk away without saying something. I probably should have said, “flowers.” Or that I was busy. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But no, instead, I had lied.

And now I felt like an ass.

It didn’t matter, though. I wouldn’t see her again. This wasn’t even my normal grocery store.

I sifted through the flowers until I found a happy bouquet of daisies that had little sprigs of white in them. I had no idea what kind of flowers they were. I usually went with lilies or roses or daisies. Though I knew what tulips were, too.

Devin’s little sister, Amelia, would probably know what these are. As would our other friend, Zoey. Considering that Zoey was a florist, and Amelia was a landscape architect, they should know their flowers.

I froze and looked down at the daisies in my hand. Dear God. If I showed up with grocery store flowers, Zoey would probably kill me.

However, her place was closed, so she would just have to deal with it.

Maybe I would buy her some wine or something to make her feel better. Yes, wine. I quickly perused the selection in the wine aisle, grateful that I could actually buy wine at the grocery store. I had visited a state earlier this month where you couldn’t buy wine at the grocery store. Why would anyone allow that to happen? What kind of horribleness existed in the world?

And now I was losing it. I was working too hard, and I really needed a break. Hanging out with my found family tonight would be exactly what I needed.

I quickly picked a red and a white, knowing they weren’t the best wines out there, but they would be tasty. You could find a really nice twenty-dollar bottle of wine these days.

I paid for my purchases, quickly walking past the zucchini lady, who was also checking out, without saying anything.