“Hi Taryn!” she greeted me. “How are you?”

Like you really care.

“Good, thanks! Deposit please,” I said, sliding the rubber banded stack of cash and my deposit slip toward her.

She took my money below the counter and typed onto her computer. She was still smiling and looking me over and I knew at any moment she was going to ask her burning question.

“Taryn, please tell me. Is it true?” she whispered her plea to me. Her eyes scanned back and forth for eavesdroppers. “Are you really dating Ryan Christensen?”

Wonderful, another freaking nosey fan. A few smart-ass answers ripped through my brain like ‘no, he’s just living with me and having as much sex as one man is humanly capable of without dehydrating,’ but I kept my composure and stared at her blankly.

“Come on!” she urged. “I won’t say anything!”

“That’s good to know.” I leaned into the counter a few inches further, my eyes glanced from side to side to pique her interest, and then I dropped the bomb. “Neither will I.”

Her smile morphed into a frown in an instant, and she shifted her focus to angrily count my deposit. She slid the deposit receipt towards me.

“Have a nice day,” she droned. I could tell she didn’t really mean it.

I decided to drive out of Seaport and into the next town to do my grocery shopping. Why? I didn’t know. Something about putting distance between me and the zombies perhaps?

I drove past one of the large hardware store chains and another thought dawned on me. I turned around and parked in the large lot. I wanted to get copies of my keys made so I could give Ryan his own set. I hoped he’d get a better understanding of just how much I wanted him with me.

I was just on my way into the Super CostMart when Ryan called.

“Hey you! What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m on a top secret mission,” I joked with him as I set my purse in an empty wire cart. I stopped for a moment; it felt like I had something stuck to my shoe. I crossed my foot up on my knee to take a closer look. That’s when I noticed the older Plymouth drive slowly past me. It almost stopped right next to where I stood.

“Oh my God,” I breathed out, ripping the gum off my heel. I dashed with the cart towards the doors.

“What?” He panicked with me.

It looked like the curly-haired, gap-toothed girl but I wasn’t absolutely sure. Who ever it was had large sunglasses on. There was no sense in making him worry unnecessarily.

“I had some gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe.”

“Oh, you scared me for a minute!” he admitted. “Hey, do they sell socks in the grocery store? I just ripped another pair.”

“I don’t know about the grocery store, but I’m walking into the Super CostMart right now. Can I buy them here or do famous movie stars require expensive designer socks?” I teased him.

“Let me ask Cal,” he joked. “Just get me some plain white crew socks, preferably ones without holes in them. You know the kind that I wear.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Duct tape and a shovel?” he requested.

I sighed. I could only imagine the hell Suzanne was putting him through on set. “How bad is she today?”

“She’s being difficult,” he muttered. “Taryn, you know I’m making this movie, right? So please don’t be jealous when I tell you this, but we had to do a kissing scene this morning and she complained that I had coffee breath and she made a big freaking ordeal about it. It was embarrassing.”

I knew how he felt about her; jealousy was low on my list of emotions. “Ryan, I know it’s pretend. She’s nothing for me to be jealous over. I’m more worried about your relationship with the director. Did you get it filmed?”

“Yeah. We had to do several takes until the playback looked good enough to be believable. Kenneth was happy with the fourth take. If you remember, pick up a bunch of spearmint gum too. Then I have something to take the bad taste of her out of my mouth.”

I had to banish the thoughts of them kissing. “How long are you going to be on set today?”

“The call sheet says till seven for me but you never know. We shot two scenes already. I was just going over my lines for the next one, which is coming up in about fifteen minutes.” He yawned. “Fortunately she’s not in that scene. I should be there close to seven, eight at the latest.”

“I’ll leave the back door unlocked for you; hopefully there won’t be too many hairy leeches back there waiting.”

“Did you smile for the cameras this morning yourself?” he uttered amusingly.

“Wasn’t too bad. I made sure to smile when I retrieved today’s selection of love notes off my car though. I kept them in a nice pile in case you need bathroom reading later.”

“I was hoping for softer toilet paper than that!” he laughed out.

By this time, I had walked through the store and was staring at a wide variety of men’s socks. I tossed three packs of socks into the cart. “I’m getting you three bags, all of your holy socks are going in the garbage tonight.”

“Hey, pick up a bag of nacho chips and some salsa. I’ve been hungry for some Mexican food lately.”

“You want tacos for dinner tonight?” I figured that sounded good too.

“Promise? Don’t toy with my emotions, Ms. Mitchell!”

“You’re bad! I’ll see you tonight. I have to go pick out some manly scented stuff for my boyfriend now.” It warmed my insides to say that word again - out loud.

“Okay, Peaches!” He laughed.

I snapped my phone shut and turned the corner into the soap aisle. Our conversation had me smiling. I found the men’s body soap section and started opening and sniffing all the bottles. I smirked to myself, taking the mental picture of Ryan naked, wet, and all soapy into my mind. It was one hell of a private thought.

He asked for new razors so I wheeled my cart down the next aisle to check that item off the list. I was looking over the different brands of men’s shaving cream when I saw her out of the corner of my eye – the curly-haired, gap-toothed girl. She was at the end of the same aisle pretending to be looking at some product on the shelf while watching what I was doing. I felt a jolt of terror sting into my spine. It was her I saw in the parking lot!

Don’t panic, we’re in a public place. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

I selected the rest of Ryan’s toiletries and hurried away to the shampoo aisle. I was on a mission to get what I came for and then go hide in another part of the store.