The supermarket was empty, considering it was a Sunday night. Most people were either partying at bars and restaurants or chilling at home on their couches. Not sure why Mom insisted I come for milk and ice cream, but she pushed me out of the house and tried to give me a credit card like I couldn’t afford it.
I filled a shopping cart with enough ice cream to sate a rowdy group of kids, as in I picked at least five different flavors, and then skimmed the other aisles, looking for anything else I might need. I really didn’t want to go home just yet. I’d rather still be at the gym with Tatum or anywhere else. I had a bad feeling about tonight’s dinner.
I’d rather be at a dingy supermarket, pretending that I needed groceries, than having dinner with my parents.How sad and pathetic was that?
My phone buzzed with a text, my smartwatch vibrating with the notification from my mom now asking for chips. This was so unlike her, but the text read dipping chips. I chuckled and shookmy head, heading for the chip aisle to grab her favorite kind.What kind of dinner was this going to be?
I walked past the chips. At the end of the aisle, there was a BOGO offer for protein-packed snacks, so I grabbed cans of two white albacore tuna and two beef sticks, unable to shake Tate from my mind. I was hoping just maybe she would one day ask me if I had anything “healthy” in my condo.
With all the requested party food—chips, ice cream, and carton of milk loaded into the cart—I pushed my cart toward the checkout lanes, but I paused at the commotion before me. Standing there, her chocolate-brown hair longer than I remembered from the gym and perfect body, toned to perfection, now in a pair of tight black leggings and a soft-looking sweater, was none other than Tatum Grace. The girl I was severely crushing on stood only a few feet away from me, her body stiff, eyes locked on a masked man dressed in black, pointing a gun straight at her chest.
My heart froze.
The world seemed to hold its breath, as if no one dared to move or even breathe at the scene unfolding before them. Shit like this didn’t happen here, not in our small town.
To have a group of men in masks waving guns around the grocery store was utterly haunting.
I assessed the scene like a fucking predator as I locked eyes with my prey. I wanted to break every bone in his body for not only holding that black piece of metal to her chest, but for the fear and trauma she would later have to deal with.
I’d never been filled with so much rage. All I wanted to do was rip the guy’s face off and destroy him forever for looking at Tatum.
I had to think fast. Her life depended on it.
“You! Come here now.” He crooked a finger at her, beckoning her forward, and she visibly shook, turning her head side toside, looking for help but receiving none. My hands tightened around the handle of my cart, rage pulsing through me. Just who did he think he was, puttingmygirl in danger? Pointing a gun at her like her life wasn’t valuable?
I took two steps back behind a fat old white guy who looked like a clone of Santa Claus as he was shivering in his big gray matching hoodie and pants. I needed a distraction, and I needed one fast.
About five aisles over was a big glass light fixture the size of a small car illuminating the entire scene. Perfect.
I pulled a can of tuna out of my cart, hoping the gunman wouldn’t see me lunging over the fat old guy as I got ready to throw the can. “Shh, don’t move,” I whispered to the man as I reached above his head. I almost dropped the can in my panic, but I quickly caught it.
“Did you hear me? Make your transaction!” His body shook with rage, the gun trembling in his fist as he pointed it at her.He was scared.
My heart sank, and adrenaline coursed through my veins as I ditched my cart and edged closer, needing to save her. I couldn’t stand here and do fucking nothing while her life was in danger. The cops weren’t getting here fast enough, and no one else seemed to be able to move out of their own fear-induced trance to do a damn thing.
This moment would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I wouldn’t survive if I saw her eyes completely lifeless, staring back at me, not when we had so much still unsaid between us. So much I wanted to say but never had the fucking courage to because somehow, after all these years, this woman still made me nervous. There was so much I wanted to talk to her about. So many things I had to apologize for.
I had spent so many years torturing her, trying to hide my feelings in the most pathetic way. All for it to come down to this.To this moment. I would have to throw away all the years I spent painting a completely different picture of who I was in her eyes. Everything I’d tried hiding from her would now come to light.
But none of that mattered. It couldn’t end like this.Shecouldn’t end like this.
“Don’t make me pull the trigger. I didn’t come here to hurt anyone, but I will if I must.”
That’s what they all say,I bitterly thought. He couldn’t even try to be original. And the way that gun was trembling in his hand—he was new at this. Didn’t really know what he was doing. And he was just as scared as the girl he was threatening to kill.
She pushed her cart forward, her feet sticking to the ground as she moved, forcing herself to drag them. She walked straight into a bin of discount items, sending it to the floor, the noise loud in the eerily quiet store.
I focused on the man’s face, mostly hidden by a black ski mask, doing my best to take note of important facial features. The police would be here soon. They would need some characteristics. I would make sure this fucker ended up behind bars. Even if I had to hire someone to do it myself.
Blue eyes like the clear sky on a sunny summer day. Scar just under his right eye before it disappeared beneath his ski mask. A hint of a tribal tattoo peeked out from beneath his mask before disappearing into the hoodie he wore.
He rushed forward and yanked impatiently on Tatum’s cart, pulling her along, her gasp of shock loud and painful. I barely bit back a snarl at the way he was handling her.
“Hurry up!” he sneered at her, his eyes darkening as they drilled a hole into her pretty head. I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands for looking at her, for speaking to her, for making her scared. She was an innocent woman just trying to buy groceries. She didn’t deserve this.No one did.
Her hands shook as they latched onto the fruit in her cart, and she raised it slowly, putting it down on the conveyor belt. My heart beat heavily against my chest, every beat thrumming loudly in my ears. But my focus was homed in on them all while I kept a check on my surroundings, making sure no one important was paying attention to me—like the other robbers he’d come in with.
