L

23 2 0
                                    

It all happened so suddenly. One-minute life is just going by, as it seems to do so well, and then you blink. The man you've married is as human as ever. The kids are already five and seven, practically ready to move out if you'd ask me. And romance is dead; buried in the backyard somewhere between the garden shed my sweet husband said he would fix up, but never got to and that mud pit the dog and children love to bring into the house.

Life was sweet, in a quaint little way I'd grown to be content with. The exciting part was over, like a mundane apple. I had forgotten how to be a sassy pomegranate. And I thought I was okay with that. Until I was proven wrong.

~

"Jo! Caesar! Get back over here and hold the cart as I told you to!" Whisper-yelling as my dear angelic children ran away in the supermarket never helped but it didn't stop me from doing it.

The looks of disapproving shoppers never got old either. Quickly pushing the cart down the aisle, I immediately rushed to get Caesar, who had jumped into someone else's cart and was playing with a bag of marshmallows. I had to get him away from the poor elderly lady before he bit her, or worse.

"I am so sorry, ma'am."

Apologizing for the little demons never got old... says the twitch of my eye and white knuckling the cart. Picking up my five-year-old demon, I push the cart with my free hand, looking for my first-born child. She's a wild card but having just passed the cookie aisle, it wasn't hard to figure the mystery out. But as I looked, I couldn't find her anywhere.

"Jole Marie Alvarez!" Now I was straight up yelling. The beat of my heart raced as I continued looking for my daughter, nowhere to be found.

And that's when it happened. The jolt of my cart hitting a display case. My humiliation lodged in my throat. I had murdered the Pillsbury dough boy, his head directly under the wheel of my cart. The little demon hanging off my arm was giggling and wiggling to get free, begrudgingly I obliged.

"Excuse me, is this yours?" I heard amusement greeting me from behind, a male voice slightly chuckling, probably at my expense.

Turning to face this stranger, my eyes locked on my daughter hanging off his shoulders like the little monkey she is. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief before I realized how annoyed this man must be.

"Yes, she is mine. I'm so sorry for any inconvenience she has put you through."

"No inconvenience. She's adorable." His voice was the right tone of firm but gentle.

His younger looking face had me taken back. Taking a moment to appreciate the sheer muscle under his fitted-tee and his height, I didn't realize I was checking him out before it was too late. And then I heard the dreaded words.

"Mommy, I have to go pee." A reality check at its finest. Putting Caesar in the cart, I turn to the hunk standing in front of me.

"Right. Thank you..." I paused remembering I don't know his name. 

"Dylan." He easily filled in the blank.

"Dylan, thank you. We should be going now." I reply, referring to my child still clinging to him.

"No problem. See you around..."

"Ivy." I finish for him, while I take my daughter's hand and flee my hit and run.

But not before glancing back to notice Dylan smiling at me.

~

604 words

The Love We SharedWhere stories live. Discover now