Page 27 of Married into the Mob
But I caught his light footsteps behind me. Most guys would be making a racket with their breathing, talking on the phone, or just complaining about how uneven the pavement was. But his steps made little sound, and I shivered, thinking he could easily creep up on a person.
On entering the grocery store, I grabbed a basket, but he took a cart.
“Are you buying food for yourself?” I strode toward the fresh produce and picked out greens, tomatoes, and a red pepper. Hunter was kinda manic, shoving the cart in one direction, reversing it, and doing wheelies. How was that possible?
A kid asked if he could take him for a ride, but the mother pulled her son away.
I giggled because I would have been that child before I was orphaned. The light went out of me for a while after I lost my folks and went to live with my aunt and uncle.
Hunter tossed bananas, berries, pineapple, melon, and avocado in the cart. Even if I had my debit card, I couldn’t have paid for those. Frozen meals went in too and so many snacks, jars, and drinks, both alcoholic and alcohol-free.
We trawled up and down the aisles, me with my basket, Hunter loading the cart with essentials and luxury items, along with coolers. Perhaps he planned on having a picnic.
“You never know when you’re going to need them,” he replied in answer to my question.
“Now we have to carry this back.” Not so smart buying all that stuff. We had six huge bags, but Hunter took four and didn’t break a sweat, while I staggered back to the building with the remaining two. The guards didn’t offer to carry any, but that wasn’t their job, I guessed.
Much as I didn’t trust the ancient elevator, I couldn’t make it up the stairs.
“I’m sorry. I forgot about your claustrophobia. I can take the bags and you walk up.” His furrowed brow suggested he didn’t like that suggestion. “Or we walk together.”
“Hold me.”
“Gladly.” He dropped the bags and gave me a big hug.
I couldn’t help laughing. “No. When we get in that small metal box that’s going to whisk us upward.”
“Oh.”
I closed my eyes before the doors shut and rested my face on his chest. The elevator clunked and thunked, and it smelled of pee. Ewww!
Hunter talked the whole time, reeling off the list of items from the store receipt. It was very sweet, but I couldn’t think of him like that. He was mafia, and his family had discussed a lot of wackadoodle things.
But when we reached the apartment door, he opened it, put the bags down, and picked me up.
“I can walk.” My face was perilously close to his, and I breathed in his irresistible aroma.
“We’re married. Isn’t this what humans do when they enter a home or hotel after they get married?”
He didn’t think that piece of paper meant anything, did he? Surely not. But I’d have that scar on my palm forever. And because of that, I’d never forget Hunter as long as I lived.
“Humans?”
ELEVEN
HUNTER
“People, humans. It’s all the same.”
“Put me down.”
But I’d already carried him across the threshold and placed him on the sofa. Not the bed, though I’d considered it.
Despite the shabby appearance of the building outside, the apartment had been redecorated recently, and I wondered if whatever Matt had done to it had been the reason for the change in decor.
I grabbed two bags and began to unpack them.
“I can do that. You go and do whatever you have to.” Odell waved me away.
