INCOGNITO(Completed)

Chapter 18 The Unexpected

Neri

"Are you sure you want to go to the grocery store with me?" I ask Cole as I put on my coat. "What if you get recognized?" "I should be fine and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He says. He puts on his baseball cap as we walk out the door. When Marie and Leda found out I was making chili they invited themselves to dinner. I had to go to the store and get food anyway, so now I get to go and get more. We get in my car and I pull out. "This is a cute car." He says his large frame looks a little cramped in the front seat. That's why we always takes Shawn's car when I go anywhere with him, he's too big for my car. "Says the man who doesn't have enough room to sit comfortably." I say to him. "Thanks, I got a really good deal on it."

"What do you want for your birthday?" He asks me as I pull out of the lot. "Don't ask me that question." I say.

"Why?" "Because you have already given me so much. I would feel greedy asking for anything more from you." I tell him.

"What makes you think that you haven't given me just as much? I'm so grateful to have met you." He says. "Me too." I say.

We pull up to the store. I park where he directs me and he pulls down his baseball cap over his eyes and we go inside. He sticks close to me as we walk down the aisles, picking out the ingredients for what I'll need for the chili tonight, when I decide that we need dessert too. We head to the cake mix aisle when it happens. "OMG! It's Ross!" some woman yells. Everyone starts looking around. I look over and there's an employee waving us over to the entrance to the back of the store. I grab Cole's hand and my basket and walk quickly over to him and into the back of the store. He closes the door behind us. "Thank you so much." I tell him. "No problem. My name is Stan and I'm the assistant manager of this store. We saw you all when you came in and kept an eye out just in case. We didn't want a riot inside the store. Good thing we did, huh."

"Definitely." Cole says. "Again, thank you so much." I look at Stan. "I have everything I need except for the brownie mix. Would you have any of that back here and then I'll be ready to check out. We're parked really close to here, I can go and get the car and bring it around." Stan takes me over to a stack of brownie mixes and I pick one out. I give him my card and he's able to ring up our groceries in the back of the store and run my card. Instead of going out through the store, I go out the back and walk around to get the car and pull it around. Stan and Cole load the groceries in the car and we head back home. "Wow!" I say. "Is it like that all of the time?"

"It really depends on where we're at. Sometimes you get fans like Gabby who are really quiet about it and then you have that woman at the store who just yells it out for everyone to hear. If you haven't noticed, I prefer the ones like Gabby." He says as we pull up to the apartment complex and park. I look around to make sure that no one has followed us and get out of the car. Shawn comes out the door about that time and helps Cole bring the groceries up.

When we walk in the door, I decide to call my mom and check to see if they've made it home yet and to see if everything's okay. My mom picks up on the first ring sounding kind of frazzled. "Hello."

"Hi Mom. Have you all made it home yet?" I ask her.

"Yes. We're here. Your dad is fine, he's just being cranky. The doctor told him to stay in the bed for a couple more days and then he can get up and walk around. He's trying to move around now." She says.

"Could you put him on the phone?" I ask her. "Anything you can do to help, I appreciate it." She says. I hand the phone to Shawn and quickly tell him what she said. Shawn gets on the phone. "Hi dad. Why are you being so difficult?" He listens while dad talks. "I understand that, but mom is really trying and you ignoring the doctor's orders scares her, and she can't take it. She doesn't want you to leave her. I'll be over there tomorrow night and we can play a game or something, okay. I'll be there all weekend and we can go to the track or something and give her a break." He listens as my dad talks again. "Get back in the bed and I'll talk to you later. Give mom back the phone." While he's waiting for mom to get back on the phone, he tells us. "He said that he won't give her a hard time anymore and will do what the doctor says."