Page 56 of After All This Time

I roll my eyes. “Get over yourself, Kaplan.”

“No seriously, you complimented me.”

“You just complimented me.” I huff.

He shakes his head, rolling his eyes and laughing.

The grocery store is right across the street from the Promenade at Sunset Cove. It takes us around twelve minutes to get there.

When Noah turns into the shopping center, I can’t help but think about the fact that I’m going to the grocery store with him. A dumb thing to overthink, but I’m interested to see how this goes because I’ve never done anything like this with him before.

It’s strange how something so mundane feels incredibly different with him.

Noah finds a parking space near the entrance and turns off the engine.

“Wow, it’s pretty quiet,” I say.

“Makes sense considering that it’s 8:30 at night.”

“Did you write down what we need?”

“Nope.”

My eyebrows lightly furrow. “Why?”

“I have it all stored in this bad boy,” he says, pointing to his head.

“Is this something you’ve always done?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“And how many times did your mom have to go back to the store to get something you forgot to mention to her?”

He looks around the car, avoiding any possibility of looking me in the eyes. “Maybe a lot.”

Yeah, I’m lucky I brought a list. This should be fun. Not.

Once we make it inside, he grabs a cart and follows me as I head for the produce section.

Avocados. Check. Romaine Lettuce. Check.

He throws a bag of honey-crisp apples into the cart.

“You’re going to bruise those when you do that.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Oh, he did not just call me Mom.

I put my hands on my hips. “Take that back right now.”

He laughs malevolently. “Never.”

When we finish in the produce section, I go to the dairy section.

“What’s on the list?” Noah asks.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Organic milk, eggs, goat cheese crumbles, cream cheese, shredded parmesan cheese, and plain Greek yogurt.”

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