Anyone? (9 page)

He laughed, which grated on my already thin nerves. “Well,
it’s Cole, and I would normally say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but honestly,
I’m not so sure that it is.”

I scanned the various MP3 Players, headphones, and gadgets
on display, searching for the car charger that would work with my particular
phone. Dad didn’t have a lot of money, so I didn’t own a smart phone like most
of the kids at my school. Cheap. Useful. Portable. Dad didn’t care about data
plans, searching the web, or my desperate need to text my friends.

“Texting? Why do kids insist on finding ways to be less and
less sociable? Call your friends and actually talk to them, or better yet,
write them a note. That’s what we used to do back when I was in high school
when
nobody
owned cell phones. We wrote on a piece of paper, then folded
it into a triangle and tossed it at our friends when we passed them in the
hall. Somehow, even without phones, we managed to communicate and meet up at
the right places at the right time.”

He didn’t get it. No one wrote notes anymore, and even
though my phone had its limits, I made it work and tried not to complain—too
much. One girl didn’t even own a phone at all, not a cell phone, not even a landline,
so I knew things could be far worse than not owning the latest gadget.

But as I looked at my phone, and the various
modern
chargers
hanging there, I wished Dad hadn’t been so antiquated.

“You ready to go?” Cole approached, snacking on a half-eaten
candy bar. A few unopened candy bars stuck out of the breast pocket of his
jacket.

“Almost. I’m trying to find the right charger for my cell
phone.”

He nodded, took a bite, and talked as he chewed. “Good, even
if it is a little misguided. It shows you haven’t completely given up. You’re
tougher than you thought.” He held the candy bar out to me. “Want a bite?”

Really?
“Gross. I’ll pass.”

He shrugged, slipped the last piece into his mouth, and then
opened wide to show me the mushy, chocolaty, brown mess on his tongue.

“Eeww. You’re disgusting!”

“Awesome.” Then he did it again.

“You’re worse than a child, I swear.”

He smiled. “That’s what I’ve been told.”

I was about to look through the chargers once more, but
stopped and turned around as he began to walk away. “What did you mean I’m
misguided?”

He grabbed a package of green ear buds and looked them over before
placing them back on the shelf and opting instead for the neon-pink ones which
he slipped into his pocket next to the pilfered candy bars. “We already
discussed this. Satellites are down, remember? But if you want to figure it out
for yourself, then that’s your right. Do what you gotta do.”

“I’m looking at chargers because my dad left me a message, telling
me where he and my brother were, but my battery died before I could hear the
whole thing.”

“Wow. Hate when that happens. The irony.”

“Can you please be serious for one minute?
Please?”
The
longer I spent with this guy the more appealing my idiot brother looked.

He cleared his voice, raised his chin, and held up his hand
in the manner of Queen Elizabeth. “Of course. Please proceed.”

I tipped my head and gave him an incredulous look. “Just be
normal.”

He dropped his arm to his side and shrugged. “Now you’re confusing
me. What do you want? Serious or normal? I can’t do both.”

“Forget it.” I waved him off and turned to the display of
chargers again. “I don’t know why I even bother. You’re impossible.”

He came to stand at my side, our shoulders nearly touching,
then grabbed a charger from the shelf, opened the package, and took my phone
from my hands. He connected it at the base and smiled. “This should do the
trick.”

“Thanks.” I tried to take my phone from him, but he held it outside
my reach.

“Not so fast, short one. First, you need to tell me your
name. It’s only fair since you know mine.”

I released an irritated breath. “My name’s Tess, and my cat’s
name is Callie, in case you want to know that too.” I reached for my phone
again, and this time snagged it from his grasp.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the back of the store
where we’d left my kitten. “Callie, huh? You do realize your cat isn’t Calico
but more like a Tabby, right?”

“I didn’t name her Callie because of the color of her fur! I
liked the name, okay?”

He raised both hands, palms out. “I was only pointing out
the obvious. No need to be all defensive.”

“I’m not being defensive—”

“Yeah, you kind of are.” He took a step away from me, palms still
raised. “Have you thought about checking out the women’s personal hygiene area
by any chance? I hear they make pills for this kind of thing.”

“You’re kidding me, right? You didn’t just suggest my aggravation
with you is due to PMS and
not
based on the fact you’re freakishly
annoying?”

He removed a candy bar from his pocket and tossed it at my
feet. “Look, chocolate.” Then he turned and took off down the aisle.

“You’re going to need these.” Cole knelt and placed several
bottles of vitamins next to my already stuffed bag.

“I don’t have room. I can barely fit everything in there as
it is.” My pile grew larger every time Cole left me and reappeared carrying more
stuff—jerky, sunscreen, scarves, and gloves, packages of gum, knee-length
socks, and now vitamins. “I won’t be able to carry my bag.”

“You make things more difficult than they need to be, I
swear.” He left me again and returned with an empty shopping cart. Why hadn’t I
thought of that before? Here I was, busting my back, when all along I could
have used a cart like the homeless do—I
was
homeless after all.

I grabbed my bag to toss inside, but he pulled the cart away
from me. “First things first—get in.”

“Huh?”

“It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, but thanks anyway.” Trying to
understand Cole was like trying to understand calculus—nearly impossible. For a
guy who kept confessing his “adultness,” he sure didn’t act any more mature
than a ten-year-old.

I reached for the cart again, but he yanked it away. “Get
in.”

“We don’t have time for this—”

“Of course we do! There’s always time for some fun, and
right now we could use a little.
You
could use a little. Remember I said
I’d only stay if you promised not to poop at my party?”

Poop at my party?
“Do you mean be a party pooper?”

“Not much of a difference, really, but you promised, so get
in or I’m walking out the bullet-riddled front door and not coming back.” He
stepped backward, taking the cart with him. He turned it one way and then the
other, testing me by wiggling it back and forth.

I needed to find Dad, not goof around with stupid shopping
carts. He was wasting time.

“Okay, suit yourself.” He whipped the cart around. “See ya on
the flipside, kid.”

“Wait, Cole.” I dropped my bag.
What am I doing?

“Yesss?” He turned the cart toward me and raised a brow.

“Even though I think we should be doing other things like
gathering bottled water and trying to find a way to charge my phone, I’ll get
in your stupid cart.” Being with him had better be worth it, but the longer I
was with him, the more unlikely it seemed.

“Sweet!” A huge smile swept over his face, and his
expression of victory nearly caused me to change my mind. I could be stubborn
too.

He gave the cart a shove in my direction, and I took hold of
it, stopping it before it crashed into the shelves and knocked everything to
the floor.
This is ridiculous. Sooo ridiculous.

“Go on, get in.”

“This is dumb.” I slipped a leg over the side into the
basket. “I haven’t ridden in one of these since I was a little kid.” When was
the last time I rode in a grocery cart? Maybe when I was three or four years
old? There was a reason for that—
carts weren’t meant for grown people!

“Really? I did this the other day.” He maneuvered the cart
in the direction of the front doors and steered without regard to its passenger—
me—
forcing
me to grip the sides to keep upright.

“Yeah, I kind of figured this was something you did on a
regular basis.” I glanced over my shoulder. “You’re not going to do something
stupid that gets me injured or killed are you? I’m still recovering, remember?”
I didn’t want more stitches.

“Relax. You worry too much.” He pushed us through the broken
door. The shards of glass crunched beneath the wheels and the cart skidded a
little, but he managed to get us outside without tipping the whole thing over.

“Hey, wait! What about my cat? Where are we going?” He was a
crazy man. I had no idea what his intentions were or whether we’d even be back.
We would be back, right? My cat and my things were there. Why had I agreed to this?
Because I’m a moron.

“Shhhh... everything’s going to be fine. Your cat has the
best setup, toys, food, water, so she’ll be okay until we return. We’ll only be
as long as it takes for you to liven up a bit.”

He steered us past the cars in the parking lot to the four
lane, normally busy, street out front. “Hang on tight!”

“Wait just—”

But he ignored me and began to run with the cart. The wheels
fought against the momentum, twisting and turning, but they handled my weight
and his persistence. The air whirled around me and whipped my hair across my
eyes.

I brushed the wild strands away, and gripped the sides
tighter as Cole pushed the cart even faster. I was certain shopping carts weren’t
meant for speeds higher than grocery store aisles allowed and Cole was going to
get me killed. Stitches were the least of my problems.

He hopped on the back, adding his weight to the already
burdened cart. He no longer steered the metal contraption on wheels down the
precarious road, but threw his arms out to the side and coasted.

I gripped the cart as though my life depended on it, which at
the moment, it did. This wasn’t fun at all and I wished I’d never agreed to his
stupid games.

“Close your eyes, Tess. Enjoy yourself.”

“I can’t! Jeez. You need to stop!”

He jumped off the cart, but instead of bringing the whole
thing to an end as I had anticipated, he started running again, adding more
speed to the already out-of-hand situation.

“Stop it!” The cart wiggled and the wheels strained to keep
up.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die. Death by shopping cart.

“Close your eyes.”

“Heck no!” I yelled over the pounding of his feet on the
pavement and the squeaking of the wheels. I needed my eyes to be open—
wide,
wide
open.

“Close them.”

“No!” My knuckles whitened.

“Trust me.”

Trust you?
Look what trusting him had gotten me into—careening
down the street in a cart that threatened to collapse at any moment. “No!”

“I’m not stopping until you do.” With that, he jerked the
cart to the right, nearly tumbling the whole thing over as it balanced on two
wheels to take the curve in the road.

A few choice words flew past my lips, words I had never,
ever,
uttered in all my life, but were more than appropriate for this situation.

He laughed. “Seriously, I’ve run marathons—several of them—so
I can do this all day.”

“Okay, okay!”
Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be
thy name...
I squeezed my eyes shut, prayed it would be over soon, and I wouldn’t
have to add a nasty road rash—or worse—to my list of bodily injuries. This was
complete insanity, but being trapped in a metal basket with a crazy man
steering didn’t leave me with a lot of options.

He kept running, and the wind picked up around me, caressing
my cheeks and messing my hair. Several times I felt myself floating, though the
crisscross pattern of the cart never left my backside. The warmth of the sun
bathed my face, and its light danced across my closed lids as we passed
buildings and alleyways. It was almost like flying—almost.