Page 19 of Unruly Kris

“About what?”

“About you maybe not liking it. I mean you showed me your traditions, with the tree and decorating, getting Danny’s gift. I don’t have a lot of my own, but I have this, and it’s always been mine.” He cleared his throat and spoke in a rush, as if he couldn’t hold the words in any longer. “Except I thought maybe, after tonight if things went well, it could be…ours… from now on. I mean if you want it to be.”

“Kris, I couldn’t think of anything I’d like better.” Cath said, “And I’m betting I could even get us more volunteers if we needed.”

“You thinking about Special Services?” Kris asked. “Could we still keep it low key then?”

“Actually, I was thinking about Danny and Vera.” Cath quirked a smile. “Danny is a giant marshmallow, and he loves kids, and Vera’s a nurse, who better to figure out what gifts they want and what’s appropriate for being in the hospital?”

“I love you so much.” Kris picked up her fingers and rested them against his cheek.

“I know,” Cath said warmly, stroking his fingers along his jaw, hoping to God he knew she felt the same way. “Now pass the ketchup please, these fries aren’t going to eat themselves.”

14

“So, let’s lay out our battle strategy.”

“Lay it on me, Lieutenant Colonel Sexy.”

“Kris, I’m serious. We get in, we kill it quick, we stealth back out again.”

“Loud and clear. What is our prospective time frame?”

“Twenty-five minutes tops. No distractions, we accomplish our objective and get the hell out again. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Kris looked over the top of his sunglasses at the crowded grocery store and then over at Cath checking her grocery list. “You do realize that there isn’t a hope in hell of that plan working out, right?”

Cath looked up from her phone and seeing the amount of people in the store let out a sharp curse.

Why, oh why, had she put off grocery shopping until Christmas Eve?

With a snort, she watched as Kris went to grab a cart and Cath realized she had her incredibly sexy answer right in front of her. She had been bad at shopping for herself before he came to stay; she had barely kept a skeleton pantry for when she needed it and ate on base or skipped meals if she didn’t feel like cooking. Breakfast aside, Kris’s idea of getting groceries was ordering from a multitude of take-out places so there were different types of leftovers in the fridge, or just going out to eat every day. They were at the grocery store because they had no choice: they needed food and supplies for the house, and since they planned a movie night in as a date, they wanted snacks as well. It was a big enough shopping trip that it necessitated a journey to the nearest full-sized grocery store off base, just outside of San Diego, because the small depot available at Pendleton was thoroughly tapped out from people shopping for Christmas dinners. In her shopping ignorance Cath had forgotten how stupid busy the grocery store was on Christmas Eve.

“Should have brought tear gas,” Kris murmured in her ear.

“Don’t give me ideas,” she murmured back with a grimace. “Well, standing here doing nothing isn’t going to get the job done any quicker. I texted you half the list, stick to it, let’s divide and conquer. Into the breach we go, try not to lose any limbs.”

“Try not to break any off of anyone and we’ll call it even.” He kissed her on the cheek and pulled out the list on his phone to skim it. “Meet you by the front registers once we’re ready to check out?”

“Sounds like a plan.” She grabbed another cart and headed for the produce section. Her first stop was to grab the veggies she needed for dinner, a Thai chicken stir fry she loved to make and rarely had the time or energy to complete after work. While the selection of the most common vegetables was slim, most of the produce she needed was plentiful on the shelves; mainly, she guessed, because no one needed Thai chilies and oyster mushrooms for a traditional Christmas dinner.

Their own dinner tomorrow was about as non-traditional as they could get. Since it was just the two of them, Kris convinced her to let him make reservations at an expensive restaurant in West Hollywood. It hadn’t been a hard idea to sell to her considering it meant less work and more time for them to spend together. The game plan was a lazy day at home, followed by dinner and drinks, then back to the condo to open their gifts to each other. She was, admittedly, feeling a bit giddy about celebrating with Kris. It had been years since she really celebrated Christmas as anything but a casual get-together with friends. As much as she adored Danny, the idea of a Christmas where she didn’t spend the following three days scrubbing motor oil out from under her fingernails and feeling the remnants of a hangover burning the back of her throat was highly appealing. More than that, the idea of spending Christmas Day with someone she loved, someone who made her feel happy and content the way Kris did, was enough to make her feel euphoric. Her mood had been good all day, and she suspected that even an overcrowded grocery store full of overtired shoppers wouldn’t change that.

Steering around the other carts like a pro-NASCAR driver, she managed to grab everything she needed, up to and including other fruits and vegetables to tide them over until the holidays were done. She was passing the bakery section, debating the idea of getting a cheesecake for dessert that evening, when something on a bakery display caught her eye. She steered the cart over and picked up a red and green decorated box, flipping it over to read the back as a lightbulb went on in her brain. Breaking her own rule, she grabbed two of the boxes, set them in the basket. Her phone jingled, pulling her attention away, and she pulled it out her pocket to see a text from Kris with a single sentence and a jar of artichokes:

Green light?... I hear these are good.

Looking up, and through the crowds, she caught sight of him watching her with a playful grin from the edge of an aisle. With a roll of her eyes, and knowing how much she loathed artichokes, she shot back:

Red Light…. Absolutely disgusting. Not a chance of me putting that in my mouth.

She watched as he checked his phone with a smile and then casually typed back:

Noted, anything else I should be aware of on that list?

Cath chuckled and made a face at him, scrunching her nose as he grinned flirtatiously at her. She gave him a smirk and texted back:

Wouldn’t you like to know? … or maybe you’d rather like to know what I would instead?

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