Teaser Tuesday Vampire's Trill

TRILL TEASER

Here is a little shopping experience for Sabrina. She gets more than the frozen pizza and ice cream she craves to get over her heartache. Is the tall, handsome Bill Gannon stalking her?

I returned to my shopping and angled straight for the frozen section. I mulled over the choices in the ice cream shelves. There were so many to choose from. Why does a person need so many kinds of ice cream, really? All we want is the sugar factor, the melt-in-your-mouth-I-need-to-get-over-him thing. I found mint chocolate chip—my personal favorite. But a Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey was calling my name. I grabbed that, plus a plastic spoon from the deli so I could plow into that as soon as I got out to my car. My mouth was already starting to water thinking about it.

My hand was freezing as I carried the ice cream to the pizza aisle. Again, a huge selection. I went with barbecue chicken, and grabbed a second one that had spinach and portabella mushrooms and five cheeses. Healthy. Right?

I balanced the pizzas on top of the large container of ice cream, sat the smaller pint on top of that and did a balancing act toward the milk section. Grabbing a half gallon carton using my pinky, I now had my hands full. The one carrying the ice cream was frozen by the time I went down the cereal aisle—I was sick of eggs and bacon, or eggs and ham for breakfast. I was gaining some weight and knew if I didn't quit eating like a sumo wrestler I would gain five pounds of winter fat before winter started.

Scanning the shelves filled with—again—a million choices of cereals, trying to find one that wouldn't give me gas, yet sounded like something I'd actually enjoy with cold milk in the morning. I opted for flakes, instead of granola. I was down to a blueberry crunch thing that boasted it could make me lose five pounds in two weeks—yeah, if that's all I ate—when I decided to switch hands because the one holding the ice cream was numb—even though I had my gloves on, the cold seeped through and began to numb my fingers. Wish I could numb my emotions like my hand.

I set the milk down on the floor, and had to shift everything frozen into my left hand. Spying the box of cereal I wanted on the very top shelf (naturally, the one I wanted would be out of reach), I went up on tip-toes and stretched my right hand. Fingertips touching the box, I tried to knock it over, to bring it within my grasp.

That's when another hand snagged it easily.

Startled, I gasped as I turned to the owner of the large, male hand. I stared into cool green eyes. As recognition hit me, I found myself unable to utter anything intelligent for a full twenty seconds while he brought the box down, placed it into his cart, and then took the frozen things out of my hand and put these things, plus the milk in a corner of his cart as well, while I was still trying to form monosyllables, like “hi”.

“You do know that this store offers carts and baskets for the shopper's use for free, don't you?”

“B-Bill?” I said, my mouth trying to work. It was as though I'd been holding the ice cream and pizza in my mouth instead. It took me a second or two to get his joke, and I found myself smiling. “Yeah, I-I, um, I didn't think about getting one.” Lame, Sabrina. Lame.

He stood there staring back at me. “By the way, you're welcome.”

“Oh,” I looked down and saw all my things were in the cart with his stuff. He had a rotisserie chicken, some frozen vegetables, a container of salt—kosher, I noticed—bag of sugar and flour and some chocolate chip morsels. I was still suffering from a brain-to-mouth malfunction. “Uh, thanks.”

“Are you alright?”

“Sure. I'm fine.” Will be after I snarf down the Chunky Monkey.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Didn't I seem sure? Maybe it was my hair, and unflattering jeans. Oh, and the damned sunglasses.

I caught him gleaming, unblinking at me. He had the nerve to stand there and steal my breath away. The nerve. Plus, he was the antitheses to me; hair laying perfectly back from that highbrow; god-like, close-shaven face; pants pressed to a razor's edge, and his sweater was brown, fading to ecru at the bottom. I thought I picked up that Mrs. Bench had knitted it for him.

“Are you ready to check out?” he asked. My feet seemed stuck in cement as I watched him push his cart around me and avoided a head-on with a lady on her cell phone.

“Uh, yeah.” I dodged the woman on her cell phone talking to her husband—he wanted some cereal, but he couldn't remember what kind—God, get a life!

“Banana Nut Oats,” I said to her. She glared at me. I smiled sinisterly as I heard the man's voice over her phone say exactly that.