Page 25 of Under His Control

“Cheryl said Pamela was a very strict vegan, ‘crunchy’, and eco-friendly parent. No plastic at all. No artificial anything, at all.” He shrugged, looking as lost as I felt at the array of toys and gadgets.

“So… what, wood blocks?” I picked a package up.

“I guess?” He grabbed a stuffed animal of a dog. “This can’t be so bad?” He peered at the label.

“Maybe next time, you should bring Olivia shopping and let her point at what she wants.”

He cringed. “Fuck.”

A parent pushing a shopping cart gasped and covered her toddler’s ears. “Mind your language!” she scolded him.

I covered my hand to block my gesture from the kid and flipped off the woman. “Mind your own business.”

Liam smirked and shook his head. “I’m assuming Olivia’s too young to repeat what I say.”

“Yet,” I added.

“Yeah. Yet. But that reminds me that I need a car seat thing. And a stroller. And…” He whooshed out a long breath. “This will take a while.”

I held my hand out. “Let me see that list.”

He gave me his phone and I skimmed the list. “I can help.”

His expression was unreadable, but I noted the hint of disbelief. “You? Because you’re an expert with thirteen-month-olds?”

“No.” I crossed my arms. “No more than you are. We can figure it out together.”

And so we did. We shopped and deciphered the best we could. He seemed quicker at understanding all the safety abbreviations and icons on the stroller, high chair, and other odds and ends, but he deferred to me about the color coordination and practicality of clothes and outfits.

For hours—most of the afternoon and into the evening—we teamed up against our cluelessness and tried to get all the basics for Olivia. As long as we didn’t talk about ourselves or get too far off on a tangent of why we wouldn’t budge on any one of our particular opinions, it wasn’t that hard to get along with him. To partner up. To while away the day.

“Damn. We missed dinner,” I said as we took all the purchases to the car after a couple of hours at another store.

He frowned, glancing around as we walked to the car. “Yeah. Sorry.”

I furrowed my brow. “Okay. That’s not the first time you’ve acted like this. What’s wrong?”

I’d noticed him getting tense and more alert when we went from one store to the next. I dismissed it as nothing more thanbeing super aware of his surroundings, but I wasn’t imagining how much closer he stood to me now.

“I think…” He turned his head slightly to the left but his eyes tracked something to the right.

“Huh?” I looked forward, trying to understand what he could be looking at in the reflections of any of the car windows in this lot.

“I—” He growled, reacting too quickly to finish speaking. With a firm shove down, he covered me and forced me to duck under him.

I dropped beneath him and sucked in a breath to hold as his hard arm snaked around my waist.

“Stay down!” He rolled as he ordered it.

We slammed to the ground together, stopping the momentum of our roll against a parked car. With him shouting in my ear, it was harder to hear the shot from afar.

As I looked up, sheltered by his body over mine, I stared at the bullet hole in the window of the car.

The bullet that would’ve gone right through my head if he hadn’t pushed me to safety.

9

LIAM

---