The world has a sick sense of humor.
Two days post client meeting, I was having my best "rulebook existence." Grocery store run, functional sneakers, earbuds in, no distractions. The cart was stocked with spinach, whole grain bread, and a quart of oat milk to trick myself into believing that I was on top of the world.
And then I swerved into the cereal aisle.
Naturally, he was there.
Ethan leaning against his cart, staring down the rows as though choosing Frosted Flakes or Cheerios was a matter of national import.
I came to a dead stop in my step. If I backed away slowly, he probably wouldn't
"Tessa," he said without even looking up. "You're a Cheerios type."
Caught redhanded.
I jiggled my cart handle, heart racing. "Excuse me?"
He looked up at me, that smile already spreading. "Plain, no-frills, healthy-ish. Not too flashy."
I raised an eyebrow. "And what are you?"
"Lucky Charms." He winked. "Surprising, perhaps unhealthy, but worth it."
I almost sucked air. "Wow. Humble, too."
He smiled, pushed a box of Frosted Flakes into his cart and picked up one more. "So. Do we always run into each other, or was this fate?"
"Fate?" I laughed. "This is a supermarket. Not a romantic comedy.".
"Could've fooled me," he said, steering his cart next to mine as if the most natural thing in the world. "The sidewalk last time. Then the office. Now the cereal aisle. That's a pattern."
I clenched the handle of my cart in my hand. "Patterns are how stalkers start."
He grinned even broader. "Well, good thing I'm not one. Unless following you into the produce aisle counts."
"Ethan" I began, ready to close out whatever game he was playing.
But then, as if by signal, Jenna's voice thundered behind me.
"Well, well, well."
I closed my eyes. Of course she was here. Of course she was watching.
"Look at you two," she said, sidling up with her own basket of wine and chips.
"Can't even shop for groceries without the sparks flying."
"There are no sparks," I hissed.
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Speak for yourself."
I nearly threw a box of bran flakes at his head.
"Anyway," he said, steering his cart into the checkout line, "see you at the office, Tessa. Don't try to evade me too much."
With that, he strode off, leaving me scowling at his back and Jenna near squealing alongside me.
"I hate the universe," I grumbled.
No, Jenna said, hooking her arm around mine. "You don't like that you like him."
I brushed it off. It was just groceries. Just flirting. Just another bad guy in the wrong aisle at the wrong time.
By the time I'd trundled through self-checkout, I'd convinced myself it was nothing. Totally normal. No frissons. No chemistry.
Until I went outside.
And heard the roar of an engine.
I turned around and of course there he was. Ethan, pulling a helmet off his head as if he hadn't just been the biggest distraction of my shopping trip. His motorcycle glared in the streetlamp light, black and glossy, as if it had been rented to use as a prop in a movie.
"You've got to be kidding me," I growled.
He spotted me immediately, grin stretching like he'd expected I'd be there to begin with. "Tessa. Stalking me again?"
"Stalking you?" I snarled. "This is my grocery store."
"Mine too," he said with a grin. "Guess we have a lot in common."
"Yeah," I said, shoving my grocery bags higher up my arms. "Like a shared necessity for groceries. Groundbreaking."
He chuckled and headed in my direction, helmet held against his arm. "Ride with me?"
I almost spilled my oat milk. "Excuse me?"
"Home," he shrugged, as if it was the most sensible thing to say. "I mean, your arms are going to fall off or something."
"They won't," I snarled through gritted teeth, staggering under the weight of three shopping bags.
He tilted his head, smirk still in place. "Rulebook won't permit it?"
That flummoxed me. "What?"
"Your rulebook," he said, eyes glinting. "I can practically see the invisible checklist running through your head."
I swallowed hard. "You don't know anything about my head."
His smile softened, almost but not quite sincere. "Maybe not. But I'd like to."
For a second, the world tilted. Motorcycle. Wrong shoes. Wrong man. All of it screamed disaster.
And then a bag of spinach fell out of my arm and onto the sidewalk, green leaves going in all directions.
Ethan leaned over, gathered it up, and handed it back to me in silence. For once, he did not smile. He just stared at me.
Which was worse in a way.
"Goodnight, Tessa," he said at last, replacing his helmet.
And then he was gone, engine roaring down the street into darkness as I stood there embracing my groceries foolishly, trying to remember when I ever thought that I was better than that.
I lugged my groceries up the stairs to my apartment with a pain in my arms like they'd been through boot camp. I plopped everything out onto the counter and leaned against it, gasping for breath.
Silence.
Aside from the fact that it wasn't really quiet. Because in my head, Ethan's motorcycle growl lingered, looping like an unchosen soundtrack.
I left it behind and started to unload groceries. Spinach. Oat milk. Cereal that was definitely not Lucky Charms. Mundane, dependable stuff for a mundane, dependable woman.
And yet my hands shook.
I reminded myself it was from the grocery bags. That it had nothing to do with the way he'd looked at me when he handed me that fallen spinach, his expression blank for once. That it had nothing to do with the way he'd said my name as if it were his.
Rulebook, I told myself, clattering the oat milk into the fridge. The rulebook is in place for a reason.
No motorcycles.
No smirks.
No men who remind you of the use of fundamental breathing apparatus.
I sat down in the kitchen chair, staring at the small book where I'd jotted my list of rules.
And for the first time, instead of comfort, it felt fragile. Like a paper umbrella to the hurricane.
My phone vibrated. Jenna, of course.
JENNA: Grocery date with motorcycle guy? ???? Spill.
ME: It wasn't a date. It was groceries.
JENNA: Uh-huh. And my Pilates instructor isn't married.
I dropped my head into my hands, groaning.
The universe wasn't playing a joke on me. It was staging a full-blown ambush.
And secretly, beneath all the denial and oat milk, I had the terrible sense this was only the tip of the iceberg.