Hate You Still by Lyssa Lemire
CHAPTER NINTEEN
EMMA
“This can’t be happening,” I lament sorrowfully, my eyes scanning the ice cream freezer for the umpteenth time.
Chocolate? Check. Vanilla? Check. Cookies and cream? Check. Pretzel-fudge (pretzel-fudge??) – check.
Mint Chocolate Chip? Nope. None as far as the eye can see.
“There no extra ice cream on any of the endcaps, either” Knox informs me. “How the fuck does a full-service grocery store not have one of the most popular ice cream flavors?
“Maybe we’re just cursed tonight,” I venture to conclude. It’s not even like the shelves are bare or anything. There’s plenty of selection – just not a trace of the one thing we came out for in the middle of the night.
Knox shakes his head resolutely. “Knox Delton doesn’t give up that easily.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask. “Materialize a carton of Mint Chocolate Chip out of nowhere?”
“A carton?” Knox repeats with feigned incredulity. “You were thinking we were going to split an entire carton of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream in the middle of the night?”
“Absolutely not,” I say, prepared to set him straight. “I was going to have a whole carton for myself. You could get whatever size you want – as long as you’re not mooching off my whole carton, that is.”
“Damn, I must have implanted a craving in you, huh?”
I have to bite my bottom lip. If ever there was an unintentional double-entendre, that was it.
Or … was it unintentional?
Because Knox causes me to crave, that’s for sure. Even though I fight against it, I still can’t deny it. I crave his body, his touch … his lips. I still remember how his strong, leading lips taste, how his powerful, adroit hands feel …
Snap out of it, Emma! This isn’t the time to indulge in fantasies – fueled by four-year-old memories – of Knox.
It seems like my ability to fight against those cravings is diminishing by the hour.
Luckily, I have another craving to distract myself with, because the other meaning of his quip is every bit as true. I’m really dying for some fucking Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream right now.
“Let’s just pick, I guess, the Cookies and Cream …” I open the freezer door and reach for my second (distant second) choice, but Knox’s hand wraps around my wrist.
No freezer in the world could counteract the heat that his hand generates on my skin. The nerves of my wrist that make contact with his wide, powerful fingers radiate electricity throughout my entire body.
My eyes fall on his hand. It dwarfs mine so close to it. My gaze follows up his forearm: it’s enormous. Huge. Wide, thick and dense with tightly wound muscle, veins popping out and accentuating the pure hardness of his rock-like muscle.
I look up to him and he has a confident air about him while he shakes his head back and forth. “We’re not settling tonight. I bet you anything they have some in the back freezer.”
“You think?” I ask, dumbly, my mind still frazzled from his touch. His fingers unwind and I drop the freezer door closed. Even though the cold mist from the freezer is now trapped behind the door, I feel colder than ever, my skin missing his electrifying touch.
“Let’s go find an employee,” he says. We walk around the store, but don’t find anyone stocking shelves or walking around.
It’s a Tuesday night, so staffing is going to be sparse. It’s not like a weekend night, where a grocery store on a college town can expect to have at least a somewhat steady stream of customers. It’s a ghost town here. It’s only been me and Knox since we arrived.
We head to the front of the store hoping to at least find a cashier who might be able to help us. But we only find those damn self-checkout machines, instead. Not a human to be seen.
“I hate these things,” Knox groans, playfully and lightly punching one of the self-checkouts, releasing his frustration. “Whatever happened to human interaction, huh?”
I giggle. “I mean, I use them,” I admit, “but it probably would be better without them.”
Knox chuckles. “Yeah, I use them, too. I guess we’re a couple of hypocrites, huh?”
“Should we just get the Cookies and Cr –” I’m about to propose admitting defeat and writing off the possibility of Mint Chocolate Chip tonight, but Knox lifts his head up disdainfully and wags his finger at me.
“I don’t want to hear the words Cookies and Cream again, young lady. We’re going to get what we came here for, come hell or high water.”
My cheeks flush warm at how he calls me young lady. I don’t know what it is, but something about it is indescribably sexy.
We resume our search of the store. As we wander toward the end of one of the middle aisles, I feel like I see the blur of another figure walking down another aisle some distance across the store. “I think I saw something,” I whisper in a conspiratorial voice to Knox, feeling like we’re spies or something, staking out an enemy force.
“Where?” He responds with an urgency, his hissing whisper matching my own tone, which causes me to giggle. I point in the direction of the blur I saw, and he grabs me my the hand and starts to rush in that direction.
My nerves buzz delightfully and excitedly as we run over, hand in hand. My small, delicate hand feels submerged in his massive, wide paw.
We round the corner and find that I was not mistaken – there is an employee walking slowly down the aisle. Knox releases my hand, which makes me frown for a second.
“Excuse me, sir,” Knox announces our presence. The guy turns around and his face looks anything but happy to see us. I mean, okay, working the midnight shift might not be the most pleasant experience known to man. But boy does he look peeved.
“Yeah?” He replies in a surly voice, his gaze passing disdainfully over both of us.
“We’re hoping you might be able to help us. We’re really in the mood for Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, but it doesn’t look like there’s any in the freezer. Could you do us a huge favor and check in the back to see if you have any?” Knox’s voice is as polite as could possibly be, which almost has me wondering if this whole night is just a dream. Knox, polite? Hell might need another temperature check.
But it’s of no effect to the disgruntled night shift worker. He only shrugs dismissively and says, “Sorry, what we got out there is what we got.” And without a word more, he turns around and starts to walk away.
“Wait!” Knox hurries to stop him.
The man turns around again, this time the annoyance on his face many times greater. “Yeah?” His voice sounds sharp enough to cut glass.
“We really hate to bother you,” Knox begins, his voice still sweet and courteous, superficially at least – but I can easily detect the frustration underneath it now. “But this is kind of a specially occasion. You see, it’s my girlfriend’s birthday.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder and if feels like time just stopped. Did he just call me his … his …?
I look up at him dumbfounded. He has a big, theatrical smile plastered across his face. I know he’s just a putting one a show, making up a bullshit story to try and tug on the heartstrings of the Big Bag employee (if the guy has a heart, that is); but, still, the word girlfriend … how easily and casually is came from his mouth, without hesitation …
“I made her one promise for her birthday: that I’d get her a carton of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, all for herself. I can’t let her down. Come on, buddy, could you just check for us?”
He looks to me, cocking his eyebrow suspiciously. Something tells me that this guy has a streak of cynicism a mile deep that’s going to make him practically impervious to the kind of sympathetic story that Knox is trying to peddle on our behalf.
“We don’t got none,” the man finally spits out. He again swiftly turns around and starts walking back down the aisle, with his same slow, meandering pace.
“Fucking asshole,” Knox grumbles, making no effort to keep his voice below the hearing range of the Big Bag worker who doesn’t even glance back in our direction.
“I guess we’ll just have to settle for the …”
“Nope,” Knox cuts me off. “I said that second-choice flavor is not to be mentioned again tonight.”
I roll my eyes with humor. “Then what? No ice cream?” I pout.
“Oh, we’re getting ice cream, all right. We’re getting the right ice cream, though.”
“How?”
“Come with me,” Knox places a hand on my shoulder – heaven help me, I’m still not over his touch, it’s still electrifying and heart-stopping – and guides me in the opposite direction of where the jerk of a grocery store employee is heading. “I know they’ve got some Mint Chocolate Chip in the back.”
We walk over to the big, flimsy double doors that lead to the back of the store. Knox is confident in his stride, but I stop in my tracks in front of them. “We can’t,” I say with admonition.
Knox laughs. “They’ve got that ice cream back there, Emma, and we’re going to get it.”
“It’s trespassing!” I whisper cautiously. Knox erupts in laughter. I have to hit him in the chest to get him to make any effort to lower his voice.
“This? This isn’t trespassing. Trust me, I know trespassing.” Even though that statement should, if anything, make me more hesitant to follow his lead, for some reason it quiets my scruples.
“Let’s go,” he says, placing his hand on the small of my back and applying gentle pressure to urge me forward.
I realize, with a little bit of anxiety, that I would go anywhere if Knox were gently pushing me forward by the small of my back.
And I mean anywhere.
I shudder as we pass into the forbidden zone: less dramatically known as the Big Bag stockroom. Unlike my partner in crime (and no matter how he tries to assure me, this is, technically, a crime), I’m not used to breaking the rules – let alone the law.
As if he’s reading my mind and chooses the perfect moment to call me out, Knox says, “It’s not as if you’re a stranger to walking through doors you’re not supposed to.” His deep, suggestive voice sends a shiver up my back. We both know he’s referring to my stunt of leaving trash inside his house.
Which was also, technically, breaking the law. But that time he deserved it – open and shut case of getting what was coming to him.
“You deserved it,” I reply, tersely, not shying from standing by the justification in my mind.
He chuckles, a low, sensuous rumble that makes me feel way too hot way too high in my thighs. “Fair enough.”
Wow, he actually admits it.
“But right now isn’t the time to dwell on the past – we have a mission,” I venture to say.
Knox snorts a laugh. “Now you’re getting into the spirit.”
Holding back giggles, I follow him into the storage freezer. We sort through all the boxes, looking for the Mint Chocolate Chip treasure that Knox is convinced must be buried back here somewhere.
It looks like we’re going to again come up short, when Knox’s voice erupts from behind me, “Score!”
“You found it?” I ask, excited.
“Looks like the only carton in the whole store,” he grins, showing it off.
That beautiful green and black design on the box practically shines in the dim storage freezer. The holy grail found.
We stealthily make our way back out onto the shopping floor. We actually pulled it off without getting caught. Making use of one of the self-checkout machines, we pay for it and it’s officially ours: mission accomplished.
Sitting in my car in the parking lot, we both realize we didn’t exactly plan this operation with all the perspicacity of an experienced general. For one, we don’t have any spoons. Knox rummages through my glove compartment and, in another miracle, finds an unopened package of utensils: a plastic spoon, fork, and knife.
“I call the spoon,” I say, grabbing it from his hands after he rips open the plastic.
And we sit in my car, alone in the parking lot of the Big Bag grocery store, sharing the most delicious carton of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream I’ve ever eaten in my life – the minty, chocolatey goodness coming to my mouth with a plastic spoon, to Knox’s mouth, with a plastic fork.