DYSFUNCTIONAL • [ D. BOSTICK ]

| 21. | huevos

"Okay, so we need-"

"Hangers, air freshener, thumbtacks for your decade old Three Days Grace poster, and eggs." Devon says, cutting her off.

"Plus sheet masks."

"Oh, can we get the bubbly one instead so I draw a dick on your face?" He asks, sounding somewhat excited.

"Fine."

As they walk around, Devon being the one to push the cart, they accumulated their items. They ended up towards the produce and food side of the store, getting to the eggs practically last.

"Are these seriously fruit punch pickles?" Devon says and Nora instantly grimaced.

"That's disgusting." She says softly and walks further down and away from that aisle, wondering away from Devon who was having an internal debate on buying the pickles or not.

As Nora was looking around for the eggs, someone bumped into her. "Oh I'm so sorry." She instantly says, only glancing at the guy before walking away again.

"Nora?"

She turned, her eyebrow slightly furrowed. "Hey." She smiles at him. "Alex, right?" She says as his name comes back to her.

"Yeah, yeah. I helped you move your couch and stuff?" He says, sounding like he still thought that she didn't really remember him.

"Yeah, you did. Thanks again for that, by the way. I don't know how we would've moved anything without your help." She says, giving him a soft smile.

"It's no problem." He says, giving her a smile back. "How have you been? How's the apartment?"

"It's good, everything's good right now. How are you?" She asked back.

"I'm good." He said, small ghost of a smile on his lips.

It then got kind of quiet and maybe a little awkward as he scratched the back of his neck and Nora was glad she saw Devon coming towards them. She had no idea what to say to the guy in front of her. They had hardly spoke after Devon introduced them, they were both just exhausted and sweaty from moving furniture to the point where not many words were exchanged.

"Okay, I know this might be weird but are you by any chance free Saturday-"

"Alex? Hey, man." Devon says, finally speaking up after being behind him for a second. "What brings you to Walmart on this fine evening?"

"Uh, donut sticks?" Alex says, shaking the box of donut sticks in his hand.

"Oh, are those good? I've been curious, they look kind of like sour cream donuts in stick form."

"That's exactly what they are." He said, giving Devon a tight lipped smile. Devon hummed before shrugging.

"Did you get the eggs?" Devon then asked Nora, giving her a forced smile.

She could tell that he was jealous. Did she know why? Yes, but there wasn't a reason for him to be. Either way, it was nice seeing him jealous. Maybe it meant that he thought of them as romantically involved rather than friends who occasionally have sex.

"I was on my way to get them, I'm going to go do that since we have other stuff to do when we get home." She said, walking off before she finished her sentence and spoke over her shoulder.

Was Alex going to ask her out? It was obvious he was but why? She was average at best, she was literally wearing pajamas and that was the first real conversation she had with the guy.