Page 27 of How to Hide Your Angel Kid

“But you’ll talk about it in bed?”

Pinks tried not to think about it.

Galent stepped into his new pair of pants; Pinks couldn’t stop watching the way Galent’s bulge lifted with his movement, bouncing a little as it caught against the open fly, before it dove under the coarse fabric. A whimper almost escaped him.

“I’ll show you more later,” Galent murmured.

“No!” Pinks spun away, his entire face burning.

When Galent was finally decently dressed and there were all kinds of clothes in the shopping cart, they headed for the checkout stands.

“This was the most dramatic shopping trip I’ve ever had,” Pinks said, ready to crawl into bed and do unspeakable things with his right hand.

Galent grinned. “Shall I make it more interesting?”

“Please don’t.”

They joined the shortest queue, holding onto their cart so it wouldn’t race in circles around them. Zarrie babbled and tried to grab Galent again.

Amazingly, the giant twisted his body away so Zarrie couldn’t even touch his shirt.

They were about to step forward when Pinks realized that Galent had completely stopped moving. And that Galent was rapidly turning into stone, all over again.

“No!” Pinks groaned.

But Galent couldn’t hear him. In fact, his wallet and phone had both frozen into stone along with his clothes, and there was no way Pinks could pay for their overflowing cart.

When the shopper in front moved to pay and Galent still remained a rock, Pinks did the only thing he could think of. He turned to the old man behind them. “Would you like to go ahead of us?”

The man thanked him and pushed his cart around Galent. Pinks shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching with dread as the cashier rang up all of the man’s items, andhebegan to pay.

So he turned to the plump lady behind them with a wince. “Would you like to go ahead?”

She looked curiously at Galent’s rock-solid body, before moving her cart to the empty spot in line. “Thanks!”

Pinks clutched Zarrie, remembering the times his parents had left him queuing while they dashed off to grab something at the other end of the grocery store. Just that Pinks had a baby now, and his source of cash was an awkward statue in the middle of the line.

Pinks let another ten people go ahead of them, glancing around anxiously. Some of the shoppers were watching him—of coursethey would. It wasn’t every day that a statue showed up at their store. But this made it difficult to tell if anyone actually meant them harm.

Besides, how long could this go on before the meat in his cart spoiled? Would a manager kick them out for obstructing traffic?

Was there a special spot on Galent that had to be pressed to turn him back?

Pinks was about to implode from all his uncertainty when color returned to the statue.

“Oh, thank gods,” Pinks breathed, thunking his forehead against Galent’s stony arm. “Ow. Fuck.”

“No cursing in front of babies,” Galent said, glancing around them. “How long did I give you the... cold shoulder?”

Pinks groaned. “Shut up, that’s terrible.” He shoved Galent forward so they could finally start unloading the cart. “You were stone-cold for too long.”

Galent sighed, but he began placing everything on the conveyor belt, discreetly studying the other shoppers.

They were buying so many things that the cashier took forever to ring them up—including the clothes on Galent’s body. Pinks took one look at the total and fully expected Galent’s credit card to decline the transaction, but it went through.

Galent and the cashier put everything back into the cart, and then they were finally out of the store.

Away from all the watchful eyes.

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