Page 4 of Believe in Me
“Don’t worry, Top. I’ll go get lunch somewhere else and we can try this again another day,” Mike offered as he turned to leave.
Christ, way to make Trish feel two feet tall. “Wait!” she exclaimed. Trish took a breath and blew it out. “Maybe we did get off on the wrong foot. Hal says you’re a good guy, so I’ll take his word for it. What would you like for lunch?”
Chapter 3
Trish sat in her car, staring at the front of the HEB. There was no way for her to get out of buying groceries. If she lost any more weight, Jess would call Trish’s parents. Trish had been successfully avoiding her mom and dad for the past month. Soon, they’d show up on her doorstep, but a text here and there had been enough to keep them away. Them knowing she was with Jess helped too.
You’d think it wouldn’t be hard shopping for one. She’d done it for months prior to the guys showing up at her door. This was just a continuation, right? Tell that to her heart. Joe being deployed had been a temporary cooking-for-one situation. Now it was permanent, and nothing sounded good. Making the effort to cook healthy … or even cook at all… was almost beyond her. Grabbing a bagel or a piece of toast filled her up these days.
Hearing her phone ring, Trish pulled it out of her purse and looked at the number. Area code 719? Where was that from? Probably a telemarketer. She hit ‘decline’ and threw the phone back in the depths of despair, as Joe had called her purse. Shifting to get out of the car, she reached for the door handle as the phone rang again. Grabbing it up, Trish saw it was the same number. Oh, going to be a pain, are you? Deal with a bitchy woman then.
“Hello?” she answered, the tone in her voice definitely wasn’t friendly.
“Trish? It’s Diane,” the voice on the other end responded. Trish leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath. Fuck.
“Diane, how are you and the boys?” Look at Trish go. Polite and everything. She would be nice if it killed her. It wasn’t Diane’s fault that her husband came back, and Trish’s didn’t.
“We’re fine. Joey and Billy are in sports these days. Keeping me hopping. Bruce and I were talking the other night and we wanted to check on you. I think a few of the group are going to be in San Antonio in a month or so. I’m sure you can expect a visit,” Diane told her before asking the question that Trish had been dreading. “How are you doing? Anything we can do for you? Joe would want us to make sure you were okay.”
Lord, couldn’t they leave her alone? She really didn’t want to be rude but keeping in touch with the friends from the unit just brought back the fact that Joe wasn’t coming home ever again. Trish didn’t regret giving up dancing to marry him though. He’d been a brighter light in her life than the spotlight.
“Trish? Are you still there?” Diane asked. Huh, must have been lost in thoughts for longer than she thought.
“Yeah, I’m still here. I’m doing okay. Working with Jess at the café. Keeping busy,” she said in a rush.
A dry laugh came over the line. “Tell me another one. Maybe if I hadn’t been the one there after notification, I might believe that. You were a zombie that existed on black coffee and no sleep. Try the truth now.”
“Bitch,” Trish said quietly causing Diane to really laugh. “I’m holding on. In fact I’m at HEB right now for groceries. Things are quiet. Tell whoever is coming to San Antonio that I’ll make them dinner while they’re here, so they can report back to everyone that I’m fine and moving on.”
“Are you really? Has anyone caught your eye? Even just as a friend.” Could Diane just let it drop?
Trish leaned her forehead against the steering wheel for a minute. “I’m trying my best.” She thought about the soldier with Hal before answering the second question. Had he caught her eye? Maybe but she wasn’t sure she was ready for anything… even friendship. “Will I ever open up again like I did with Joe? Who knows. Am I going to believe that a soldier can protect my heart? Not sure that will ever happen again.”
A quiet sigh came over the line before Trish heard a loud bang followed by screaming. Yes! She was being let off the hook.
“Shit! Boys! I’ve got to go, Trish. I’ll call you again next week,” Diane said before the phone went dead.
Sitting here and staring at the store wasn’t going to magically make food appear in the backseat. Shaking off the melancholy, Trish grabbed her bag and climbed out of the car.
§ § §
Mike pushed the cart down the cereal aisle. Should he be good or bad? Sugary goodness or healthy? He stopped in front of the Cheerios and sighed. He grabbed a box of honey nut and called it a good compromise. He was determined that he wasn’t eating out every meal.
“Manager to aisle seven. Manager to aisle seven,” a disembodied voice sounded overhead.
Ignoring the page, Mike looked down at his list then up at the signs hanging from the ceiling. Nothing else in this row. He noticed two people wearing smocks run by the end of the aisle and figured he’d go the opposite direction. Whatever was going on wasn’t something he needed to get involved with.
Consulting the signs again, he nodded. Cleaning products were two over, but he’d need to walk by seven. Ah well, detergent was a necessary evil. He’d gone to the laundromat a week ago while he was still in the extended stay hotel but now that he’d moved into a house with hook ups, Mike could do his laundry in peace.
As he moved by the aisle, Mike glanced down the row and would swear that was Trish from the café on the ground with a someone in a smock and a guy with a tie squatting next to her. Grunting and shaking his head, Mike knew he couldn’t just ignore what was going on. He turned his cart to enter the aisle.
“I’m sorry, sir, if you could wait to shop for these items, that would be appreciated,” a young guy said, stepping in front of Mike.
Mike stopped and looked at the guy. Christ, he couldn’t even be out of high school. “I think I know…” he started to say before a movement a few feet from them caught his eye. When he turned, the people surrounding the woman shifted and he got a good look at her. It was Trish. Leaving his cart, Mike pushed passed the teen and was kneeling next to Trish in two seconds flat.
“Trish? Are you okay?” he asked as he started a visual assessment of her body. He didn’t see any blood, so that was good.
“Sir? I have to ask you to—” the clerk started before he was interrupted.
