Love Fool

Ten

               A few weeks later as Lacey was in the grocery store checking out the prices for the chicken she wanted to get, she felt her cart get hit by someone else. "Excuse you, you jerk." She looked up and fell silent when she saw Julian on the other side with his cart halfway full. "Uh, hi."

"I saw you picking out boxed potatoes and figured I'd find out why a beautiful person like yourself eating cardboard potatoes instead of the real thing?"

"Money is really tight this month." She glanced into his cart. "Not like you have any room to talk with that canned cabbage."

"That, my dear friend, is for the homeless guy who lives in the gully out by my apartment."

"Apartment?"

"Yeah, I moved out not too long after you took off. It didn't sit right with me what Vale and Khai pushed you into."

"Oh. I wasn't drunk that night."

"I know. I watched you fill that bottle with water from the window. I've never met a girl who would drink Hypnotic straight."

"Mm, good thing you didn't know me when I was twenty-one." She looked back at the chicken and grabbed a tray of breast meat.

"Okay, let me buy you potatoes and then I'll leave you alone."

"Why buy me potatoes since the boys have carved me out to be the bad guy?" She frowned at the price and then placed it back down.

"Cause I don't think you're bad, I just think you're being you." He stood there and stared at her while she glared at him. "It's the best thing I could come up with without pissing you off."

"Mush."

"What?"

"Mush. All I have been eating since I moved into my own place is mush."

"I'm going to need more info."

"It's almost like I forgot how to cook." She glanced around hoping that no one would hear her. "I lost all capability to take care of myself when I moved back in with my parents. They wouldn't let me cook or clean for fear that I would fuck up everything."

"Damn, your parents are terrible." He sighed. "Okay, I'll buy you potatoes and make you dinner. Enough for there to be leftovers."

"Mmm and what am I to do after that's been eaten?"

"Then I'll come back over and make you more." He gave her a small smile.

"I feel like there's a hidden meaning behind this."

"Only want to help. Honest." He turned his cart, so it was no longer touching hers. "Red or white?"

"Red."

"Grab the chicken and meet me outside when you're done." He shuffled off over to the fresh produce as she went back to the chicken.

"What is your obsession with sitting on tabletops?" Lacey asked as she watched him slice up the potatoes.

"Why not? Why does everything have to be proper? I took off my shoes."

"I'm only wondering."

"I like to be different. Any chance that I get, I take it." He bit off a piece of potato, placed the rest of the slice onto his knee and then went back to cutting. He glanced up at her as she chopped up the carrots like he asked. "Why do you follow the rules?"