Hey, Darling.

I blinked fast. I didn’t know what to say.

Finally, I settled on a soft, “Ow,” and biting my lip.

The guy standing in front of me had settled to gazing intently at the egg display behind my head. He looked like he was desperately trying to hold back laughter.

I felt the blush on my cheeks and I knew that my face was a burning red. I averted my eyes to the bread section, hoping to find Mia somewhere.

“I’m serious. You might cause some damage.” He said, trying to nod and look serious but there was a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t good with talking to boys, especially strange ones that my sister had already deemed as attractive. It just wasn’t my thing. I was the quiet one. The shy one. The one that went to homecoming with her best friend. Mia was the one with the dates. She could talk to any boy, attractive or not, and sound as flirty and suave as the women I idol in movies. She had skills.

“I-I-I-,” I attempted to stammer out, my mind going blank. “It was an accident.”

He just smiled at me and bent down to pick up the Earth Balance off of the floor. “I figured that. Unless, y’know, you really have something out for your foot.”

“I don’t,” I said as I took the container from him. “Have something out for my foot, that is. You just startled me.”

“Really,” he said slowly, a contemplative look on your face. “’Cause your sister said that you were waiting for me.”

“Waiting for you?” I questioned, already figuring out Mia’s scheme in my head. I shook my head slightly. “Why the hell does she think I’d be interested in…”

“Yup,” he said, ignoring my mutterings. “She said you had been checking me out since the second we walked in the store and that you were waiting desperately for me to come and talk to you. She also said that you were shy. She did, however, forget to mention that fact that you’re trying to give yourself a dead leg.”

“She’s lying,” I said quickly, “I mean, yeah, I’m shy - that is actually the truth - but I’m not waiting for you to talk to me. And I have not been checking you out. I’m sorry that she caused all of this inconvenience.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone talk as fast as I did. It seemed so surreal - so cliché, even - to be talking to some boy at the grocery story. I always waited for stuff like this to happen to me, but it never did. Why now, in Arizona?

“So you don’t think I’m attractive?” He asked, cocking his left eyebrow up and staring at me.

I squirmed underneath his gaze. He looked so comfortable, his hands in his pockets, his elbows pointed out - I had learned somewhere that positioning the body like that meant a boy wanted you to talk to him - and his stand nonchalant. I was stiff, my hands rigid and my words broken and coming out in stammers. I was counting the seconds.

“I-I- where the hell is my sister?”

I avoided his question and he laughed loudly, shaking his head at the same time.

“What’s your name?” he asked when his laughs faded. He was staring at me, but it felt different. It wasn’t like any of that “and his eyes tore right through my soul” crap but it was different. He just looked really…focused.

“Molly.” There was still a noticeably shakiness in my words but I was trying to calm down as much as I possibly could. I didn’t want him to think I was insane - though I wasn’t going to let myself think about why I cared so much.

“I’m Kennedy, Molly. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

“Well, Molly, I should probably get back. It was very nice to have this intellectual exchange with you. Maybe we can do it again next time. I’d tell you not to be nervous, but you look so damn cute when you blush,” he said, smiling a crooked smile at me and angling his body so he could turn around.

I felt my face erupt in flames all over again and I stared at his back while he walked away.

I spent the next ten minutes staring at blocks of butter, my head somewhere else. Every time I thought about our conversation I blushed. Had that actually just happened, because it sounded kind of stupid. Why had I acted so stupid? I had blushed and stammered like a thirteen-year-old girl, not someone who’s almost eighteen. He probably thought I was crazy. Or socially set back. He had probably only come over because Mia told him to and now he would never talk to me again.

Which, I didn’t care about. Right?

I didn’t want to talk to him. He was a little arrogant and had a cocky smirk and a condescending tone when he talked.

And he probably had a girlfriend. Boys that looked like that - as in tall, skinny, with nice hair and twinkling eyes - had girlfriends. Pretty ones, with loads of great clothes and hair that was tamable and cooperative.

And even though I had totally convinced myself, and I mean totally, that I didn’t want to talk to him or have another ‘intellectual exchange’, I couldn’t help but feel the little rush in my chest when I thought about the fact that he had a girlfriend.

I didn’t think he should have a girlfriend, I thought to myself boldly. Then, leaving my boldness behind, I left my next thought to unsaid.

“So, how’d it go?” Mia was asking me a couple minutes later, retaking her place at my side.

I shook the thoughts from my head.

“How’d what go?” I asked her, glaring pointedly.

“Your conversation with Kennedy?” She asked as me started moving again. I pushed the cart down the aisle and towards one of the checkout lanes.

As we stood in line, I contemplated my answer.

“He was kind of arrogant.” I told her finally, and what I said was true, to some extent. He did seem arrogant, when he was telling me to watch out about my foot and asking me if I thought he was attractive. And then he laughed at me!

The more times I ran the conversation through in my mind, the more I started disliking him.

“He was probably just trying to flirt with you.” She said with a shrug, a smile still on her face.

“That’s a very weird way to go round flirting with a girl. He could have just been nice.” I explained, stepping up so I could put my items on the registry belt.

The girl at the register started ringing up our items when Mia announced, “Well, maybe he’ll be nicer next time.”

“Next time?” I questioned, my brain half focusing on her and half focusing on my total, which was slowly edging closer and closer to fifty dollars.

By the time the checker announced that I owed $49.12, Mia was saying, “Yeah, ‘cause I gave him your number.”

I had just handed over the fifty when my brain processed what she had just said. “What?” I asked her loudly, turning to look at her with widened eyes.

“Why the hell would you do that?” I asked her, loudly. I was mad now. I didn’t want her giving my number to random boys! Especially arrogant random boys.

The girl behind the register seemed amused at our little disagreement, and I could tell that she was holding back giggles as she gave me my receipt and told me where the change dispensed.

“He thought you were cute!” she exclaimed, already studying my face. I think she was trying to gauge my reaction.

I had just started to push the cart - roughly in her direction, I might add - when she started giggling and took off down the walkway.

“See you!” she called behind her, disappearing right when I had started to contemplate whether I really was going to chuck something at her head after all.

My number. She gave some arrogant band boy my number because he thought I was “cute.” I’m sure he thought puppies were cute too, but that didn’t mean he was going to randomly call them and interrogate them on their socially awkward tendencies.

Hmph. I grumbled to myself as I walked out of the store.

Guess I needed to start screening my calls.