Hollywood Dirt (Hollywood Dirt, #1)(92)
It was stupid.
It was ridiculous.
It was also her idea, and she was laughing, and he would be damned if he interfered with that. He let her pull him forward and they stepped up to the front door. Wearing paper bags pulled over their heads. The greeter, a short older man with a belly, turned, a smile on his face, and paused, the unlit cigar hanging from his mouth drooping.
“Hey Bob,” Summer chirped, snagging a cart from his hand and pushing it forward.
“Hey Summer,” the old man drawled, the cigar fully dropping from his lips as he watched her pass, his nod in Cole’s direction slow and cautious. “Hey Mr. Masten.”
Cole smiled out of habit, then realized the man couldn’t see his mouth, and nodded. “Good evening.” He jogged a few steps, catching up with his paper bag girlfriend, and lowered his head to her. “He knows it’s us,” he murmured.
“Of course he does,” she said, her giant head turning to look up at him, her hazel eyes shining. “Now, Mr. Masten, let me properly welcome you to the beauty that is Walmart.”
She stopped, in the middle of the wide, main aisle, and spread her arms. Spun around a little and stopped. Did a curtsy for no apparent reason and then laughed.
“The list,” he reminded her.
“Oh yes.” She dug in her purse, her head tilted down, hand holding her mask in place against her mouth. “Here.” She shook it out and, from a register halfway down, a blue-aproned employee walked to the end of her aisle and stared at them. “Corn, string cheese, pasta, spaghetti, cabbage, berries, dried peas, plastic bottles, ice cream and whipped cream.” Her words ran together in a line, the last set as one long mashed together word.
“Whipped cream?” he repeated the last one, confused.
She tugged at the bottom of her bag as if to make sure that it was still on. “I always wanted a guy to lick whipped cream off me. Scott was never that adventurous.” She shrugged her shoulders, and the bag moved slightly as she shook her head. “You might be my last chance.”
The woman thought that whipped cream was adventurous. “Okay…” he said slowly. “Whipped cream.”
She tilted her head. “Your face is so sad, I can’t tell if you think that is a good idea or a bad one.”
He stepped closer and looked down at her big-eyed, bright-lipped face. “Woman, I think it’s an incredible idea. I will buy every single can they have in stock.”
Laughter bubbled out of her, and this truce was the best idea he’d ever had. “I like when you call me woman. And don’t be so eager. This is Walmart. They will have a gazillion cans in stock.”
He looked down at her and was glad that she couldn’t see his face. I like when you call me woman. He wanted to call her a lot more than that. Only one month of filming left. The sudden thought was sobering. Not enough time to figure out if his post-sex epiphany was true. Not enough time to properly win her heart.
CHAPTER 100
I wanted to split up. Divide and conquer, that was the best strategy when dealing with the enormity that was a superstore. But Cole said no, that we needed to stick together, and when his old man bag face said something, I couldn’t seem to say no. We should wear these all the time. Behind mine I felt fearless, like the words coming out of me weren’t mine at all, but those of some other, braver, more confident individual. Whipped cream? Where did that come from? And did I actually tell him I wanted him to lick it off? I should have been mortified, but I wasn’t. I felt free.
We took the scenic route through the store, stopping at the sunglass stand—our bag heads too big for proper modeling—then the toys section, a heated discussion erupting over a wall of board games and puzzles. We decided on Taboo and Scrabble, then got distracted with a cartwheel competition: Cole bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t do three cartwheels in a row without my bag falling off (I won, my hair is fluffy) and then I bet, double or nothing, that he couldn’t do three cartwheels in a row without falling over. Needless to say, I left two hundred bucks richer.
It was in the pet section when it happened. We were arguing over the toy selection, Cole insisting, his mouth muffled through the bag, that Cocky was a chicken—a distinction that he seemed to think removed any chance of him enjoying a cat toy—and I was arguing that if Cocky was a chicken then maybe he didn’t need any toys. That’s when he dropped the ridiculous tiny dog collar he’d been considering, and pinned me to the cart, his arms on the handle, my body in between.
I squirmed, and he wrapped a leg around me, holding me against him. “Kiss me,” he said, and I stopped squirming, my hands softening their push against his chest.
“Now?” I squeaked, and turned my head to look down the aisle, my paper bag getting crooked in the process, my right eye losing all sight.
He let go of the handles and pulled at my bag, my hair floating up with it, and he tossed it into the cart, his hands coming down to smooth the erratic pieces. “Cole,” I whispered. “The cameras.”
“I don’t care about the cameras,” he said gruffly, his bag pulled off and joining mine, and there was a moment of nothing, then he pulled with rough hands at the back of my head, and there was a moment of everything.
I knew I was supposed to hate this man, but I kissed him in that pet aisle and somewhere, in the months since he moved here, I lost that objective. I let him kiss me and couldn’t, no matter how deep I reached, find any hate at all.