What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 15

Bennett

Milky white liquid gushes across the tile floor of Earl’s grocery store and surrounds my brown leather boots until the soles are no longer visible.

I look at my boots and then back up at the horrified expression on Norah Ellis’s face.

“Oh my God!” she cries so loudly it makes my ears ring. “I’m so sorry!” she keeps shouting while she puts the one jug of milk she managed to keep off the floor into her cart.

Why on earth is she screaming? When I realize she has earbuds in, I point toward her ears. “How about you take those out, yeah?”

Her cheeks turn an impressive shade of pink as she fumbles with the headphone cords until she has them removed from her ears and in her pocket.

“Seriously, I’m so sorry. I think I ruined your boots.”

I almost want to laugh at how much time this woman has spent apologizing to me in the last week and a half. Someone better get Guinness on the line because she has to have reached a record by now.

Since I don’t have a cart of my own, I put my carton of eggs and Summer’s Danimals Smoothies in Norah’s cart and head for the front of the store to replace Earl. He’s behind one of the registers, just like normal on Saturdays since he’s usually short-staffed.

“Hey, Earl,” I call out and successfully grab his attention. “Where are the mops?”

“Mops?” he questions as he runs a loaf of bread over the scanner for an older gentleman named Harold Metcalf, the owner of the diner on Main Street. I’m pretty good at recognizing everyone after being in Red Bridge for so long, but Harold with his distinct comb-over and handlebar moustache is hard to miss.

“I need to clean up a little spill.”

“Where at?”

“Refrigerator section. Just some milk.”

Instead of telling me where the mops are, he grabs the microphone beside his register. “Cleanup on aisle two!” His voice screeches and crackles through the speakers of the grocery store. “I repeat, cleanup on aisle two!”

For fuck’s sake.

“I can do it,” I urge, and he shakes his head.

“I don’t pay Lance to sit around and play on his damn phone. He’ll do it.”

Lance just turned eighteen and has been working at Earl’s for as long as I can remember. He’s also lazy as fuck and rivals Houdini whenever there’s work to be done. I once watched Earl shout for Lance to come help at checkout for a good ten minutes while I stood in line behind five other customers, only to replace out he’d excused himself to Bear Lake with some friends twenty minutes prior.

As I head back toward the refrigerator section, I hear “Cleanup on aisle two, Lance!” another five times before I make it to where Norah stands in front of the milk spill.

Her cheeks are cherry red now, and there’s a part of me that would replace that level of embarrassment over spilled milk adorable if I thought about it too much.

“Earl is handling the mop situation.”

“Yeah, I think everyone in the store is aware of that.” Irritation dances around the edges of her voice. “Did you really have to make such a thing of it?”

“It’s not a big thing. I tried to get a mop, but Earl insisted that one of his employees needed to do it.”

“Dammit, Lance!” Earl’s voice is in the speakers again. “Get off your butt and head to aisle two! It’s an emergency!”

Norah groans and rubs a hand down her face. “Holy hell, this is not an emergency.”

“It’s no big deal,” I tell her, and she looks up at me with narrowed eyes.

“Everyone in the store is looking.”

I glance over my shoulder and see that she’s not wrong. At least six people have walked toward the fridge section to see what all the aisle two fuss is about.

“Lance! Aisle two! Now! Emergency!”

Her true emotions are on full display now, and she flashes a glare in my direction. “Because of you, the Red Bridge firemen are going to end up getting called out again.”

“Because of me?” I question on a humorless laugh.

“Yeah. You. The mop emergency alarm-sounder.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not the one who dropped an entire gallon of milk on the floor just trying to turn around. If you’re going to point fingers at someone, you’d better do it at yourself.”

Narrowed eyes whip back to my face, and her pretty mouth parts in disgust.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be such a grumpy jerk, you know?” She glances down at my stuff in her cart and scoffs. “What kind of grown-ass man buys Danimals anyway?”

Lance chooses that exact time to show up, sleep in his eyes and a mop not much skinnier than him in his lanky hand, saving me from having to make up some line of bullshit. “What happened back here?” he grumbles, his voice raspy like he just woke up from a nap.

“I accidentally dropped the milk,” Norah admits. “I’m really sorry.”

“This is a mess,” Lance complains, and her cheeks go back to that pinkish-red hue again.

If it were me, I would tell Lance to fuck right off, but that’s not what Norah does.

“I know.” She grimaces and holds her hands together like she’s praying. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She’s back to the apologies. Back to polite. I can’t stop myself from poking at the flaw.

“You think I should line up everyone in the grocery store so you can start your apology tour?” I ask, and Norah’s gaze swings back toward me. “Probably’ll make it easier for you to get through them, you know?”

“Excuse me?”

“Apologizing. It’s your thing,” I answer with a shrug. “Figured I could save you some time by rallying everyone up while Lance finishes mopping.”

Her mouth drops open so far, I can see all of her pearly white teeth.

“What?” I question. “You can’t deny it’s your thing. Miss Apologies. Even when it’s not your fault, you say sorry for it. And whenever I think you’ll get tired of always apologizing, another assurance slips from your mouth.”

She is appalled. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”

“Well, I did.” I offer one nonchalant lift of my shoulder. “You know why? Because it’s the truth.”

Her eyes narrow like they have the power to crush me in the process. “You know what your thing is?”

“What’s that?”

“Being the world’s biggest dick,” she snaps, finally showing some backbone again.

“Having the biggest dick or being the biggest dick?” I question with a smirk. “Just want to clarify since I’ve heard the first on more than one occasion.”

“You know, one moment, I think you might actually be a nice guy beneath that cold, hard, grouchy surface of yours, but then, you prove me wrong by being an asshole.”

“And asshole and a dick? Don’t hold back on my account, sweetheart. Please. Tell me what else I am since you seem to know so much about me.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but then quickly closes it. She even does that two more times before she lets out a deep exhale of air and turns back to Lance. “I’m really sorry about this. Thank you for cleaning it up.”

“Whatever,” the teenage grocery employee mutters as he halfheartedly finishes mopping. Ten bucks says the next person through this aisle eats it.

Without another word or glance in my direction, Norah finishes grabbing several more gallons of varying milks, carefully puts them in her cart, and heads for the front of the store like I never existed, my eggs and Danimals going with her.

I guess it’s safe to say I pissed her off.

Whatever. I don’t have the time or energy to let myself care. I have way more important stuff to worry about.

Quickly, since I’m starting over, I go back to my list and gather the things I need before stopping at the pharmacy to pick up Summer’s prescription and heading for the checkout myself.

Earl blathers about this year’s high school football team, and I pretend to listen as he scans my stuff and bags it for me.

“Later, Earl,” I call as I move through the automatic front door and head in the direction of my truck.

The sun is strong and bright today, and I can barely see for the reflection of light coming off the pavement. That’s probably why I make it all the way to my truck and unlock the driver’s side door before realizing I’m being accosted again.

“What the hell is your problem?” Norah yells from the passenger’s side of my truck, and I groan.

“Good grief, you’re like mold, you know that? I can’t seem to get rid of you.”

“God, you are so infuriating!” She slaps her palms against the sides of her thighs. “When I realized I bought your groceries, I stayed in an effort to mend fences. I thought you might need them, but maybe I’ll just egg your truck instead!”

“You do that, and you’re going to replace yourself in a whole shitload of trouble, sweetheart,” I growl, rounding the truck to snag the bag from her before she can follow through.

I grab at the plastic, and she pulls it back, devolving us into a ridiculous game of grocery bag tug-of-war. When I inevitably win, her fists ball up at her sides in anger, and then suddenly, without any warning, the flat of her palm lands on my cheek in a cracking blow.

When she lifts her hand again, clearly ready to give me another strike, I step forward to grab her by the arms, to calm her down and stop my racing heart while I’m at it, but for some dumb, inconceivable reason, my lips end up on hers.

I kiss her. And she kisses me right back.

I take and taste and delve my tongue along the side of hers, and she lets out a needy little gasp into my open mouth. I slide my hands into the soft waves of her hair, and the movement presses our bodies tight against each other. I’m breathing heavily and so is she, and I’m no more than two point five seconds away from ripping our clothes off and pushing our bodies together in a way I know we would fit.

Call it intuition from years of stupidity, but this is the kind of passion I fucking know would translate into the bedroom.

It takes every ounce of control I have left, but so did starting my life over… I can do this.

I set her away punitively, as though she’s the one to blame, even though we both know that’s not the case.

But my eyes home in on her mouth. It’s pink and swollen from the kiss, and I witness her top teeth dig into the plush flesh of her bottom lip.

Her brown eyes are huge as they stare up and into mine. Big and beautiful and fucking tempting me to make them fall closed again.

I want to hear the way her breath escapes her lungs on a needy gasp again. I want to feel the way her lips meld perfectly to mine. I want to dive my tongue back into her mouth and taste her.

I want to feel all of her perfect curves with my big hands.

I want to know what Norah Ellis looks like when she really comes undone. I want to know what she feels like, sounds like, when she’s too busy chasing her pleasure to run that rambling little mouth of hers.

Fuck.

It takes everything inside me not to kiss her again.

“Get out of here, Norah.” My words come out like a harsh demand, but deep down, I’m begging her to get the hell out of here so I don’t lose control.

“Bennett—”

“Leave,” I snap, effectively sending her away to her pile of bagged milk and down the sidewalk in a hurry.

A stupid kiss and even stupider reaction.

I guess, no matter how hard I try, I’m never going to grow out of being a dumbass.