Chapter 3

CHRISTOPHER

I liked the mall.

People always found that strange. "Christopher Donovan likes the mall." Like it was a personality disorder. Like a man with my kind of money was supposed to have things delivered in black vehicles by people who called him sir and never made eye contact.

I didn't want that.

I wanted to push my own cart. Pick my own groceries. Stand in the cereal aisle for four minutes deciding between two identical boxes like a normal human being. It was the one rule I had given myself when everything else in my life became too large, too loud, and too much.

Stay simple. Shop yourself. And never ever run out of Fluffy Cloud Marshmallows.

They were a specific brand. I was aware that this was irrational. There were seventeen other marshmallow brands on that shelf and I had tried exactly none of them because I didn't need to. Fluffy Cloud was the one. Soft, perfectly sweet, and they melted in hot chocolate in a way that I had never been able to adequately explain to anyone without sounding unhinged.

I spotted the last container from three shelves away.

There was only one left.

"Perfect." I swung the cart around the corner, my hands were already reaching towards....

A hand shot out from my left and grabbed it first.

I spun around.

She spun around.

The universe, apparently, had a very specific sense of humour.

"You again,?" I said.

"You—" she started at the exact same time.

We both stopped.

Tricia ....the woman who had invaded my apartment, drank wine in my apartment and insulted me to my face, was standing in front of me in a yellow jacket, holding my marshmallows, looking just as unreasonably startled as I was.

Then her eyes narrowed.

"Are you stalking me?"

I actually laughed out loud. In the middle of the aisle. "I'm sorry what?"

"This is the second time you've appeared out of nowhere..."

"My apartment," I said slowly, pointing one finger at her, "is not out of nowhere. You walked into it."

"And now you're here..."

"I shop here. I shop here every week."

"So do I!"

"Then you're following me."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. The mental gymnastics happening behind her eyes were genuinely impressive.

"That makes no sense," she said finally.

"Neither did anything you did last night and yet."

She clutched the marshmallow container tighter. I watched her do it. She watched me watch her do it.

"These," she said, lifting the container slightly, "are mine."

"You grabbed them from in front of my hand."

"My hand got there first."

"By approximately one centimetre."

"Centimetres count, Christopher."

She said my name like a verdict. I crossed my arms.

"Put them in my cart, Teesha."

"For the last time it's Tricia and I will absolutely not."

"They're my brand."

"They're my brand."

"That is statistically improbable."

"And yet!" She shook the container at me. "Here we are!"

I looked at her. Standing there in her yellow jacket with her chin lifted and the marshmallows held against her chest like a hostage situation. The absolute audacity. The nerve.

And somewhere, buried under the irritation, something that felt embarrassingly close to amusement.

I uncrossed my arms. "Give me the marshmallows and I'll pretend last night never happened."

"Last night," she said, "was your fault."

"I..." I stopped. Because she wasn't wrong and that was profoundly annoying. "That's irrelevant."

"It is extremely relevant." She took a small step back, the marshmallows still firmly in custody. "And furthermore, you keep calling me Teesha. My name is Tricia."

"I know your name."

"Then use it."

"Give me the marshmallows and I will."

She stared at me.

I stared back.

And then, because I could see her resolve cracking just slightly, the way she glanced at the shelf like she was checking for backup stock and finding none ... I went in for the close.

"You called me a spoilt brat," I said quietly.

Her expression shifted. Just a fraction.

"I—" she started.

"A rich, spoilt brat," I continued. "Those were your exact words."

"You deserved it."

"Did I." It wasn't a question. I kept my voice completely level. "I drove myself here today, Tricia. In a normal car. I pushed that cart for forty minutes. I don't have a chef. I don't have a maid. I do not have a single person on payroll whose job is to make my life easier, because I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to live like a person and not a—"

I stopped.

Because I had not planned on saying any of that. It had just come out. Quietly and without permission, the way true things sometimes do.

She was looking at me differently now. The argument had gone out of her eyes and something softer had taken its place, and I did not like how much I noticed the difference.

"Irrelevant," I told myself firmly. *The marshmallows. Stay focused.*

"So," I said, composing myself. "You can either acknowledge that calling me a spoilt brat was unfair, or you can hand over the..."

She grabbed her cart, tucked the marshmallows under her arm, and ran straight toward the cashier line with the energy of someone fleeing a crime scene.

I stood completely still and amused.

Watched her join the queue. Watched the cashier start scanning her items. Watched her, at the precise moment the marshmallows crossed the scanner ...she turned around and found me across the store.

She smiled broadly.

A full, bright, "I-have-won-and-we-both-know-it" smile that she aimed directly at me like a weapon.

I stood there with my hands in my pockets. Thoroughly, completely, and hist

orically defeated.

I nodded once, slowly.

"Well played," I called across the aisle, just loud enough for her ears. "Well played."

She turned back to the cashier, still smiling.

"Watch your back, Teesha."