Page 23 of Demon's Desire

On Thursday, they got a call from their landlord saying that the damage from the fire had been very minimal, and they’d be able to move back into their apartment the next day. They were ecstatic to get to go back, though they were both a little heartbroken about having to buy some new furniture and a new television. At the very least, the investigators said that the fire was caused by a wiring issue, so the landlord agreed to reimburse them for everything they needed to replace, and their upstairs neighbor apologized for accusing them of starting it.

Thursday afternoon, Kelly and I went to Jewel-Osco to get some ingredients for dinner. Since it was the last night that Torie and Mica would be with us, we wanted to do something special. We’d been doing a lot of delivery and dining out for the past week, so I was excited to get into our kitchen.

“What are you making again?” Kelly asked for the third time. “Pasta?”

“Nope,” I corrected her. “No pasta. I’m just making meatballs.”

“How are meatballs a meal?” she asked as she pushed the cart along behind me.

“You make like a hundred of them,” I explained. “Plus, I’m making mashed potatoes and asparagus to go with it. You’re going to love it. I found this awesome recipe online. It’s simple, but it’s just going to be time consuming, so you have to help me.”

“Fine. But if I don’t like them, I’m going to complain a lot,” she promised.

“Deal.” I laughed. She would like them. She’d literally had them before at my mom’s house and loved them. She just had the memory of a goldfish. “Apparently, these meatballs are usually served with lingonberry jam.”

“What… What is a lignonberry?”

“I actually have no idea.” I shrugged. “I’m not even sure if I’m saying it right.”

“All right.” She laughed. “I guess that’s why we’re not having that.”

“There it is!” I sighed as I grabbed the ground allspice. “That took forever.”

“What is allspice?” Kelly asked as I handed it to her.

“I have no idea about that either. But I trust it more than I trust lignonberries.” Was it lignon or lingon? I had no idea. I could Google it later. For now, I needed to find heavy cream, beef broth, and lemon juice. “I think I have everything else.”

“Okay, well, I know where the dairy aisle is.” She nodded in the appropriate direction. “I’ll go get the heavy cream, and you look for everything else. How much do you need?”

“Just one cup, which is… not a lot, I think?” I blinked.

“I’ll Google it.” She shrugged and started pushing the cart past me.

I started in the other direction to find the right aisle. I was usually a microwave or delivery person. If I did cook, it was something simple that came in a box, so I wasn’t very familiar with ingredients or what aisle they were found in, but hey, I could follow a recipe pretty damned well.

It only took a couple of minutes to find the beef broth. That was easy. I tucked it under my arm and searched the same aisle for lemon juice. Lemon juice, lemon juice, lemon juice… Nothing. Damn.

I went to the next aisle over and looked up and down every shelf. Still nothing. I checked the next aisle, then the next one, and I was back where I’d started.

“Where is the lemon juice?” I muttered to myself as I turned down a new aisle. When I did, there was a young man standing directly where I needed to walk. I stopped in my tracks, then started to go around him. “Excuse me.”

“Actually,” he placed his hand on my arm, “did I hear you say you were looking for lemon juice?”

I blinked and turned to him. I hadn’t realized I was that loud. “Yeah… Do you know where—”

He held up a small, plastic lemon-shaped container and handed it to me. “I grabbed an extra, and I was just on my way to put it back.”

“Oh!” I blinked and took it from him. “Well, thank you. Where do they keep it?”

“It’s actually over with the vegetables.” He pointed in that direction. “It’s in its own crate. I never understood why they put it there.”

“Yeah… me neither.” I blinked. “Well, thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled at me. I gave him a polite smile in return and was about to keep going when he stopped me. “What is your name?”

“Oh… Mia,” I said softly. “And yours?”

He looked like he was a couple of years older than me, but not much. He was well dressed, wearing a sweater over a collared shirt with slacks. He was nearly a head taller than me. But he was cute, and he had a nice smile. I just wasn’t expecting to stop and chat with anyone in the grocery store.