Curious eyes met mine as she extended her hand for a shake. “And you're invited too! You must be Surfer Boy.”
Darla turned red.
“Trevor. Trevor Connor,” I said, leaning forward to shake her hand, then turning her palm so the back of her hand faced me, and I kissed it like I was an actor in an A&E presentation of a Jane Austen film.
Darla turned redder.
“My my my, you picked a polite and gentlemanly one, didn't you? Did you dump the asshole?” Julianne asked Darla, eyes gleaming.
“The asshole?” I inquired as Darla squirmed, suddenly engrossed in her phone.
“Sorry, Julianne, but we're getting baby stuff for Mama. She and little Cal are headed home today, so...”
Julianne didn't take the hint. In fact, the opposite: she rested her hip on the edge of a display and got ready to receive gossip like she was a forty-foot antenna.
“How in the heck did Cathy not know an entire baby was growing in her! You'd have to be a bit touched not to. I mean, she's a big girl – ”
“Ain't we all,” Darla said in a deadly voice, eyeing Julianne up and down like Jeffrey Dahmer measuring a victim in terms of freezer capacity.
Giggling, Julianne made eyes at me as she patted her hips. “Jack always says these are his grip spots, if you know what I mean.” She winked at Darla.
Who said: “Like when he climbs them oil rigs?”
“What? No. I was making a sex joke.”
“Oh. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Darla's cold voice made it clear she wasn't a Julianne fan. “We gotta go. That carseat won't buy itself!”
“You having a baby shower for your mama? Because I sell some really nice candles through my company and – ”
“TAKE CARE JULIANNE!” Darla said, rushing down the frozen food aisle like her ass was on fire.
But Julianne followed.
I had two choices: watch as Darla got more and more upset at Julianne's passive-aggressive hits on Cathy, or do something.
So I did something.
My hand went straight for Darla's ass, an obvious grab designed for Julianne to see. The move made Darla halt, which let me come up behind her, wrap my arms around her waist, and spin her in a half-circle, the sudden kiss making her lips hard at first, then yield as I went in for the biggest public display of passion I possibly could.
Which went from a fake, ostentatious gesture to full-blown lust in a few seconds. My hands filled with her luscious ass, my thigh pressing between hers, her arms by her side, flat and hanging as shock still rendered her frozen.
Then slowly as I probed deeper with my tongue, I felt her fingertips on my waist, palms flat on my spine, one hand traveling up to grip the overgrown hair at the back of my head.
I kissed her hard, walking her back until we were against the glass door of the frozen fruit section, my eyelids fluttering open for a second to see that there was a huge sale on frozen mango.
As if that mattered.
“Jesum smoking hot Hades,” Julianne muttered, which made Darla smile.
And kiss me right back.
Even harder.
Making out in front of an audience of white plastic bags of chilled fruit wasn't how I expected this day to start, but it was far better than anything else I'd experienced so far today.
“I'll, um, let you two finish whatever you're, uh...”
Days of pent up need, intimate frustration, the kind that sex alone doesn't release, made its way into the air between us, our blood trying to squeeze it out through our tongues, our hands, the way she sighed into my mouth. My erection made itself known damn fast and I wondered if there was room in her car for a quickie.
“Ahem.”
The throat clearing was particularly craggy, a gross sound that stopped short what we were doing.
It was Tom.
“Condoms are in Aisle 6.” He peered hard at Darla. “Unless you're finally ready to give poor Cathy a grandchild.”
As he departed, Darla pulled down on the inseams of her pants, something she often did when she was aroused. I never understood it, though, because there wasn't anything there.
Guys have nads. They require adjusting.
What makes a woman need to do that?
I opened my mouth to ask her, but she interrupted my train of thought, which admittedly wasn't particularly linear. Most of my thoughts were centered in the tip of my cock right now.
“What in the hell was that for?”
“It worked, right?”
“Depends on what your goal was.”
“Getting Julianne to leave.”
“I coulda done that.”
“Sure, you could have. But I helped.”
“Yes, you did. Dang, Trevor, I've got blue clit now.”
“Is that why you pull down on the inseams of your pants?”
One eyebrow lift was all I got.
Darla made a sultry, breathy sound, then squared her shoulders and captained the cart in the direction of Aisle 21. As we turned the corner, away from the ice cream section, a grandmotherly woman in a housecoat and sandals stood there, checking items off her list. It was so normal is made me smile.
Then she picked up a plastic squeeze bottle of caramel sauce, opened it, peeled off the safety seal, tipped her head back, and squeezed a long line in her mouth, moaning like a porn star in a money shot clip.
“Darla?” I hissed nudging her to look.
The woman carefully closed the bottle, put it in her cart, checked something off the list, and moved on.
Darla shrugged. “Least it ain't ranch dressing. Saw someone do that once in the toy aisle and – ” She shivered.
We made it past Aisles seven, eight, and all the way past number nine before the inevitable happened.
“DARLA!!”
I groaned. “Can't we just go back to the house with Joe and order this for one-day delivery off Amazon? Ship it to Cathy and Calvin directly?”
“It won't come fast enough.”
“At the rate we're going, we won't leave this Walmart for three days. You know everyone.”
She shrugged, then turned to see who was calling.
“JANE!” Darla screamed, running toward her old friend with the kind of abandon you see in small children who hug their friends. Glowing, Darla and Jane jumped up and down, squealing in front of a display of adult incontinence products.
“I am so happy for you!” Jane said to her. “You got a baby brother finally!”
“Hey, Jane.”
“Hey, Trevor.”
Great. Now I was greeting everyone with 'hey,' too. Being in Ohio was contagious.
“This'll make helping Mama even more complicated for you,” Darla gasped. Jane was Cathy's home health aide, working with her on issues around her diabetes and her missing foot.
“Your mama is pretty close to not needing an aide at all,” Jane replied, making Darla jolt in surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“She was bad when you moved away. Bad. But she slowly got a little better, and then when she and Calvin got together, she changed a lot. You can see for yourself. Quit smoking. Lost a little weight. Gained a little weight,” she added with a chuckle. “But her diabetes is more and more in control. And she got herself a real good prosthetic foot now.”
“She did?” Darla said in an incredulous tone.
“She didn't tell you? Cost a dear penny, but Calvin insisted. I guess his taxidermy business is going well, because they bought it out of pocket. And what a blessing it'll be, carrying around that surprise baby!”