~~~•••~~~
Clara pushed her cart past the apples, pausing only long enough to pick something she actually wanted to buy.
She reached for a bunch of spinach and felt the plastic bag slip from her fingers.
"Shit," she muttered, already bending.
A pair of sneakers appeared in her line of sight. Then a hand, long-fingered and pale, scooped up most of the spinach before she could.
"Got it," a male voice said.
Clara looked up. The guy was maybe early forties, with just a pair of jeans and a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed to the elbows.
"Thanks," she said, taking the bag from him.
"You look like you're on the serious grocery run," he said. "Need a hand with the heavy stuff?"
"You offer that to every woman who drops their stuff?"
"No. Only the ones who look like they might actually say yes."
Something in the way he said it made her decide not to brush him off. She was thirty-eight, not dead. And the last time anyone had offered to carry anything had been… Tom.
