156. Chapter 156
“It’s dangerous, Maggie.”
“Alex, she’s bulletproof, even if the Cadmus folks do happen to attack the store – “
“No, Maggie, I don’t mean it’s dangerous for Kara. I mean… have you seen how much she eats? You really want to let her come grocery shopping with us?”
Maggie laughs, suddenly and hard, and Alex revels in the feeling of giving this woman joy.
Once she gathers herself, she puts her hands on Alex’s shoulders bracingly, jokingly. “It’s okay, babe, Adrian has eaten me nearly out of house and home before and I’ve survived. I’m sure we can get through this together.”
Alex smirks and arches an eyebrow and shakes her head, because Maggie looking up into her eyes with love and amusement in her own is all she thinks she’ll ever need.
“And anyway, I kind of already promised Kara she could come with us,” Maggie splutters out in one quick breath, darting to the door as a familiar musical knock raps through the room.
Alex groans laughingly. “Bet you between the two of them, we spend more than twice what we normally would.”
“You’re on, Danvers. My place if it’s Adrian that tosses more in the cart than Kara.”
Alex pffts. “Well, we’ll be at my place for sure tonight, then.”
Maggie laughs as she tugs open the door, and Adrian spills into her arms immediately.
“Mmmmm, how’s my favorite college boy?” she greets him in their traditional way.
“Freezing, unlike my favorite detective, who seems like she’s been kept extra warm by her girlfriend lately,” Adrian squeezes her, and Kara nudges him in the shoulder.
“Adrian, nooooo, I don’t need to think about my sister keeping Maggie warm. No offense Maggie.”
“None taken, Little Danvers.”
“Well, then I probably shouldn’t tell you what I walked in on last week – “ Adrian starts as he steps past Maggie to hug Alex, who promptly puts a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t you dare,” she warns with a grin, raising her eyebrows to secure his compliance before she removes her hand.
“It was even kinkier than that was,” Adrian splutters as he dodges out of Alex’s reach, and Maggie laughs as Kara furiously adjusts her glasses and Alex groans.
“Okay, troop, the fridge isn’t gonna stock itself,” Maggie announces, because if Alex’s face gets any redder, she might bust a vein. She tosses an arm around Adrian’s neck and pulls him down to her gently, gently, him squirming and laughing and letting her press a kiss to his forehead as they trudge out the door and pile into Adrian’s car.
He’s driving better than Maggie remembers, and she beams from the back seat with Kara as he handles his turns smoothly, and she wonders what else he’s been getting better at in the short months he’s been away at college.
He’s still terrible at parallel parking, though, and Maggie’s proud of Alex for not commenting as he tries once, twice, five times before straightening the car out close enough to the curb.
When Adrian puts it in park, he and Kara spill out of the car in a spurt of energy, and Alex looks back at Maggie with wide eyes.
“Told you this is gonna be dangerous,” she jokes as they follow their kid siblings into the grocery store.
Alex wrangles the shopping cart from Kara, and Kara lets her, because she and Adrian are nudging each other and whispering to each other and pointing at Maggie, pointing at Alex, pointing at random on sale food items and breaking out into laughter that neither Alex nor Maggie can’t quite put a pattern on, but they both smile, and they hold hands as Alex steers through the aisles, because Kara is holding onto Adrian’s arm as she laughs and he’s grabbing a pack of pre-made chocolate pudding from the fridge and tossing it to Kara, who thinks she’s subtle about burying it in the cart underneath the vegetables and fruit that Alex and Maggie are filling it up with.
They’re both scientists, and they don’t want to influence the results of their experiment, their bet, so Alex and Maggie feign ignorance as Kara tries to hide the bulge of four extra bags of frozen potstickers into the cart, as she nudges Adrian and points out the boxes of puff pastry apple turnovers he can’t get enough of and he slips three of them into the cart as Alex pretends to be reading the label of the vegan ice cream in Maggie’s hands.
At the cash register, Alex and Maggie are uncharacteristically quiet, both doing the math in their heads, both calculating how much Kara’s additions of potstickers, pizza pockets, pizza bagels, and donuts are compared with Adrian’s additions of apple turnovers, extra bags of grapes, garlic bread, and chocolate-covered pretzels.
And down to the cent, it’s the same cost.
Alex and Maggie freeze, each knowing by the baffled look on the other’s face that their calculations were correct, because they both made the same one.
It’s only when Adrian tosses a Nutrageous candy bar – “Old school!” he says victoriously when he finds it – onto the pile that Maggie lets out a triumphant laugh.
Alex groans and Kara, already digging into her donuts and holding them out to Adrian, is oblivious.
“I’ll put it all on my card, babe,” Maggie leans up into Alex. "To soften the blow of your very tragic loss.”
“Your place tonight, fine,” Alex concedes, her lips brushing Maggie’s as Adrian whoops behind them and Kara cheers even as she covers her eyes. “Not the most tragic loss I’ve had.”
“Oh no?”
“Nnhnn.”
“You two gonna bang right in the middle of the store or yall gonna come home and dive into all this food with us?” Adrian wants to know, and the cashier laughs as Alex reddens and Maggie fumbles into her wallet with a lopsided smirk on her face.
“You were the one who wanted to bring them both,” Alex reminds her, and Maggie grins.
“Yeah, and I don’t regret it, do you?”
They both glance over at Kara, at the way she’s giggling as Adrian holds his candy bar out for her, pulls it back from her open mouth, and then laughingly lets her have a bite, his silver earring catching the dim lights of the store and shining like his smile, like his laugh, like his happiness.
“No. No, not for a second.”