Dirty Letters(53)

Luca pulled me into a hug. “Well, I’m really proud of you, of everything you’ve accomplished, if I haven’t already made that clear.”

“I’m proud of you, too. You’re successful in your own right. I create music and perform, but you create entire imaginary worlds. That’s no small feat, love.”

As we resumed wheeling the cart through the desolate aisles, I found myself grabbing everything I wanted on impulse, mostly packaged foods that I wouldn’t be caught dead eating back in LA.

“Are we having a Super Bowl party I don’t know about?” she joked.

“No. But I’m happy, so I feel like celebrating—being bad, eating things I can’t typically eat.”

Including you.

I hadn’t realized how much I was starving for normalcy until I finally got a taste of it during this trip. Granted, food shopping in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly “normal.” But I could really get used to this, hiding out with Luca, having sex all day, then venturing out only at night for sustenance.

As we approached the register, Luca said, “I’m just warning you that Doris is a fan, and she’ll probably recognize you. I haven’t mentioned anything, so I’m not sure how she’ll react. She might blow your cover.”

Luca had previously told me about this cashier, a warm and friendly face who always worked the graveyard shift.

“I think I’ll live if she outs me, given there are only two other people in this entire place besides us. Hardly a potential stampede.”

We approached the register with our cart.

“Hey, Doris.”

“Hey, Luca.”

Doris started to scan the items before she finally noticed me. Her eyes went wide as she mindlessly proceeded to scan the same item numerous times. She was in shock.

Luca cleared her throat. “Doris . . . this is—”

“You’re . . .” She pointed. “You’re . . . Cole Archer.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re . . . in my supermarket.”

Looking around, I nodded. “I seem to be, yes.”

She looked at Luca and then back to me. “You’re . . . here with Luca?”

Luca seemed to struggle to find the words. “Doris . . . Cole is my . . .” She hesitated.

I realized at that moment that Luca didn’t know how to categorize me. Understandably so, because we’d never discussed a formal title. I’d referred to her as my woman but never referred to myself as her man.

I finished Luca’s sentence. “Boyfriend.”

Luca turned to me. “Boyfriend?” I couldn’t tell if she was taken aback.

My heart sank, wondering if I’d fucked up in being presumptuous. “Is that not okay?”

When her mouth curved into a smile, my pulse slowed down a bit.

“It’s perfect,” she said.

“Good,” I whispered. “Very good.”

Our eyes locked until Doris’s voice interrupted.

“How did this happen?”

“How much time do you have, Doris?” I asked.

With stars in her eyes, she sighed. “All night . . . all night for you.”

“Alright, then.”

She gazed at me, eager for my explanation.

“Well, first off, my real name is Griffin. And our story started long before I ever became famous. When we were kids, Luca was my pen pal. We wrote letters to one another, didn’t even know what the other looked like. I fell in love with her through her words, but I never told her that. Due to a terrible misunderstanding, we were estranged for a long time. I was heartbroken. Then one night this past year, I got drunk and wrote to her again, never thinking she’d write back.” I looked over at Luca and kept my eyes on her. “We realized our mistake and picked up right where we left off. Except this time, we took some big chances. We found each other for the first time, and I realized that I’m even more in love with her than I thought.” I studied Luca’s shocked expression for a moment, then turned to the cashier. “I’m in trouble, Doris. I’m worried, because everywhere I go, people know who I am—or they think they do. It’s not a normal way to live. And my girl . . . she gets scared around crowds. It’s the worst possible combination of factors. It feels like everything is against us sometimes. But my greatest hope is that she’ll continue to believe in me, to believe that what we have is stronger than anything else working against us. I’m just so happy to be here, Doris—with her and with you.”

A carton of eggs that Doris had been holding slipped out of her hands and smashed onto the ground.

She seemed unfazed by the broken eggs as she fixated on us. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I’ll . . . I’ll get you a new carton of eggs. I’m sorry.”

She ran away before I could say anything else.

I took the opportunity to turn to Luca and say, “I hope that was okay to admit, that I’ve . . . fallen in love with you, Luca. I love you. I’m crazy about you.”

Luca was in tears. “I love you, too, Griffin. I really do. I always have.”

We embraced, and I whispered in her ear, “I wasn’t exactly expecting that to come out the way it did, but now that it has . . . I want you to know that I mean every word.”