Storytime!

The fruits of my labors!

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While bending over to heft a ten pound bag of sugar into her grocery cart, Sarah had a wardrobe malfunction. Her beautiful, wonderful, perfect right breast squeezed out of her bra and out of the top of her shirt. She dropped the sugar and it exploded over the floor.

“Oh shit,” she said.

She blushed terribly as she tried, frantically, to stuff herself back into her shirt before anyone saw. Goddamn sugar for goddamn holiday cookies for the goddamn holidays. Why the hell was it on the bottom shelf, anyway?

“Hello there.”

Goddamnit. Sarah yanked the edges of her neckline together. Sugar ground into the skin of her hands and into the cashmere. Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit. She looked up, briefly. She froze.

Whoever he was, he was cute.

“You look like you need a hand,” he said.

Sarah stared at him. Whoever he was, he was cute, a twist on the tall, dark and handsome. He had bright green eyes, dark hair, and a seasonal sweater, very Fair Isles.

“Aww crap, that came out wrong. Sorry,” he said.

His mouth twisted into a smile. He had dimples, she noted. Dimples in his square, classically handsome face. This was so bad.

“Can I offer you my coat and a walk to the restroom?”

He held up the coat in question. It was long and large and probably and excellent cover for her mishap.
Sarah nodded and tried to force the lump in her throat back with a smile of her own. It didn’t go so well, judging from the concern suddenly visible on his face. She concentrated on not crying. He draped the coat over her shoulders and she sniffled. When he placed his basket into her cart and then made to steer the cart, Sarah’s eyes watered.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “Let’s get you to the restroom, yeah?”

And suddenly, everything was simultaneously so much worse and better than it had been. Sarah and Dimples crunched through the sugar in formation. She stuck it out as everyone within eyesight stared at them, no doubt due to her cart being the loudest, squeakiest cart in the entire store. She put up with it, still red with embarrassment. Dimples was the nicest man on the planet. He was superhumanly nice…and he’d seen her beautiful, beautiful goddamn breast in the baking aisle. Sarah wanted to kill whoever had made her scoop-neck sweater. She vowed never to wear it again as they approached the customer service desk.

“I’ll wait here for you,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after your cart.”

Sarah fled to the bathroom. She locked herself into a stall and slid, reluctantly, out of his coat. His cologne made her mouth water and the rest of her feel warm. She fixed her bra and sweater and, all too late, realized she was feeling warmth that had nothing to do with either the burning of embarrassment or the scent of his cologne. She unlocked the stall and looked in the mirror. And then she looked down at the coat in her hands.

“No, no, no,” she said. “This can’t be happening.”

She wetted down a paper towel and wiped ineffectually at the hives raising on her skin. The cool water felt nice, but it wasn’t doing a damn thing to bring down the swellings. She was allergic to wool and that coat that Dimples had offered was a hundred percent boiled wool. At least it wasn’t going to kill her…but it was really the icing on the cake.

“Well hell,” she said, and began to cry. Sarah bawled and drew great heaving breaths that shuddered into more sobs. Her face got all red and her nose dripped and she felt horrible. She bit the inside of her cheek and, slowly, calmed down. She washed her face with cold water and patted dry with more paper towels. She blew her nose.

Sarah steeled herself and left the bathroom at a forced march. She pasted a smile onto her face and greeted Dimples.

“Thank you for the coat,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

She handed the coat back and noted that her palms were getting itchy now too.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Are you all right? You looked…different before.”

Sarah flushed as he looked her over. No doubt the hives were looking worse. Oh crap. Before for him was sugar-bag before. Crap crap crappity crap crap crap.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’d like my cart back now, please, so I can pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I am so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…it’s just…”

Dimples looked uncomfortable. Good. Sarah was so beyond uncomfortable right now. She took the handle of the cart and tried to pull it away, but he was still holding onto it.

He stuck out his hand. Sarah stared at it like it was roadkill.

“My name is Scott,” he said. “Scott Garland.”

“Seriously?” she said. “Garland?”

Sarah’s brain felt like it was going to explode and she itched at her hives without thinking. Scott dropped his hand to his side.

“Yeah,” he said. A little wrinkle formed between his eyebrows.

“It’s so…festive,” Sarah said.

“You mean awful,” he said. “Or unfortunate?”

“That too,” said Sarah. “Well, uh, I’m Sarah.”

She held out her hand, which was currently red and itchy as all get out. Scott blinked at her and the corners of his mouth lifted.

“Sarah,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

He shook her hand.

“I’m allergic to wool,” she blurted. “But really it was so nice of you and I didn’t notice at first.”

Comprehension took over his expression. And then he threw back his head and laughed.
“I am so, so sorry,” he said. “I really was trying to help.”

“It’s okay,” Sarah said.

And, suddenly, it was, despite the itchiness and mortal embarrassment and the sugar that crunched in the tread of her shoes.

“This whole thing, it’s just been unbelievable,” she said.

Scott nodded.

“Not how I imagined my grocery shopping would go,” he said.

Sarah snorted.

“Me either.”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s not every day I find a damsel in distress in with the flour.”

And then he froze and looked at her before feigning nonchalance. Sarah blushed again, but it wasn’t so bad.

“Believe me, I’d rather have skipped that part and gone straight to introducing myself,” she said. “Or maybe I would have just given you the eye if we happened to bump into each other.”

Scott laughed again, and Sarah fell a little bit in love with his nice, white, even teeth and the way his neck came out of the collar of his sweater.

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” she said. “Cookies to bake and all that. But thank you again.”

Scott let go of the cart.

“Take care,” he said.

“You too.”

And with that, Sarah wheeled away from the nicest guy in the world, hoping she would never see him again, even if he was handsome and funny to boot.

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I thought this was both funny and slightly painful...but mostly funny. I know there's probably no man on earth this considerate, but that's the good part about fiction. I swear I was going to write more and have even more stuff go wrong for Sarah, but I'm just too darn tired.

~Later