Read Online Don't Call Me Hero by Eliza Lentzski - Free Book Online Page B

grocery shopping when I was deployed.”
    “This must be like living on a different planet compared to the life in the Army,” Grace sympathized.
    “Marines,” I corrected.
    She made a face. “Sorry. I probably just insulted you.”
    It was a reflex thing. I was proud to be a Marine, and I hated getting mistaken as a beetle cruncher or even a green beanie.
    “No, it’s okay. It’s just a military thing. We don’t like getting mistaken for the other guy, ya know?”
    “Marines. Wow,” she openly admired. “You can, like, kill a person with your bare hands, right?”
    I forced a smile to my lips. If I had a dollar for every wild assumption people made when they found out I’d been in the Marine Corps.
    “I’d be pretty handy on one of those reality shows where they drop you off on a deserted island,” I confirmed, mindful of my words. I would have to be careful what I said around this woman so I didn’t end up on the front page of the newspaper again. “But I feel like I missed out on a lot of things grown-ups are supposed to know how to do.” My gaze slipped down to my grocery cart filled with easy-to-fix meals: frozen pizzas, macaroni and cheese boxes, and TV dinners.
    Grace caught the source of my discomfort. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Lots of people can’t cook, and they don’t have an excuse for it, unlike you.”
    “Well I guess I’d better figure it out, now that I don’t have that excuse anymore.”
    “I love to cook, but I never have a reason to make food for anyone. Why don’t you come over tomorrow night for dinner?”
    “That’s awfully kind, Grace,” I said, fully intending to decline the offer.
    “It’s just Minnesota nice,” she dismissed. “Plus, I feel kind of guilty for printing that story without giving you a heads up.”
    I frowned. “Yeah. That’s another thing about small town life I’ll have to get used to. People already think they know me.”
    “Is that such a bad thing?”
    “I haven’t decided yet,” I shrugged.
    “Let me know when you figure it out, eh?” she laughed pleasantly.
    My eyes continued to roam rather than settling on the pretty face of the newspaper reporter. It was a learned habit from deployment, always scanning, investigating, and on the lookout for something suspicious or out of place. If it weren’t for that habit I might have missed a familiar flash of dark hair and painted red lipstick across the produce section.
    “Shit.”
    Grace’s features clouded with concern. “What’s wrong?”
    The woman from the club, the same woman who had picked up coffee at Stan’s diner and who had showed up at my apartment the previous night, stood in the center of the produce section. My first instinct was to duck behind Grace or her grocery cart. But I had no reason to hide; this wasn’t a war zone, and I had nothing to be embarrassed about. I wasn’t the one who’d shown up unannounced on someone’s doorstep for sex.
    “Nothing. Just remembering something.”
    She stuck out in the small-town grocery store where everyone else wore jeans and T-shirts with no one to impress. Her makeup was flawlessly applied with not a hair on her head out of place. Dark bangs swooped low over her forehead just above twin caramel-colored eyes framed in dark eyeliner and mascara. Her grey pants looked crisp and wrinkle-free, a dark blue top peeked out from the open collar of a short trench coat, and a neat string of pearls gleamed under the fluorescent lighting.
    I watched her carefully inspect a pile of red delicious apples. She picked up each one individually, looking for bruises and other signs of imperfections. The rejected apples were returned to the pile, while those deemed good enough were bagged and placed in her cart. I wondered if given the chance to be under her scrutinizing eye again on which pile I’d end up.
    “What’s her story?”
    Grace’s head whipped around to follow the trajectory of my gaze. I hoped I wasn’t being too obvious,