New Novel
Chapter 11: I Went Shopping. Somehow Got a Girlfriend.

Chapter 11: I Went Shopping. Somehow Got a Girlfriend.

"I wasn’t kidding." He said. "I would actually love to grab dinner with you."

It came out flatter than he meant it to, the words arriving before he’d fully decided how they should sound.

Rose blinked, one bottle in each hand, and took a second longer than felt comfortable deciding whether he was joking. He wasn’t.

"Dinner..." A beat. "Is that a date?"

"Could be."

"Could be." She repeated.

"I don’t get it." She set both cans down on top of the cereal display, arms crossing. "We met two hours ago."

"Closer to one." He responded. She squinted her eyes.

"So why’d you want to grab dinner so quick?" She uncrossed her arms. Recrossed them. "Or have you peaked a pervy interest in me?"

He sighed.

"Why the heck do you take me to be a pervert so seriously." A small shrug, no hesitation in it. "You seem easy to be around. Figured it wouldn’t hurt for us to chat a bit more, with food attached."

She studied him for a second. The same look she’d given the Corolla, giving the sentence a fair chance to reveal itself as a joke. It didn’t.

"Hm." She picked the bottles back up, more to have something in her hands than because she needed them. "Bold of you to think I wouldn’t turn you down, though."

"Never said I did."

She paused for another moment.

"Alright." She said it like she was setting something down carefully, checking it wouldn’t tip. "One condition."

He waited.

"We’re not calling it a date."

"Mm." A beat."You kinda just did."

"I said we’re not calling it that. Past tense doesn’t count."

"That’s not how past tense works."

"Dinner. Nothing else." She started walking toward the register, entirely unbothered. "You bought yourself one dinner, freshman. Don’t overthink it into something bigger."

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

"You’re already dreaming of it." She threw a glance at him. "I can see it on your face."

He said nothing, mostly because she wasn’t wrong, unfortunately. They reached the counter. She set the drinks down, pulling out her card to pay.

The cashier scanned the drinks without looking up, already sliding the receipt across before the card had finished tapping. When...

"Rose?"

Someone said her name from behind them.

She went still. Not fear-still. The warmth from thirty seconds ago folded itself away in less time than it took him to register it happening.

She turned.

Adrian followed her gaze. A guy, maybe early twenties, already walking toward them with the loose, unhurried confidence of someone who didn’t expect to be told no.

Nothing dramatic about him. He looked completely ordinary, like the kind of guy you wouldn’t look twice at in a crowd.

Hmm. He looked back at Rose.

Adrian didn’t step in. Didn’t say a word. Just shifted his weight back half a step, giving her room, angling himself slightly toward the shelves like he suddenly had urgent business with a bag of chips.

"Hey, babe."

Hold up. His ears tingled Babe?

The guy stopped a few feet off, smiling like this was a coincidence and not whatever it actually was. "Didn’t expect to run into you here."

"Don’t call me babe." Level. No warmth riding on the syllable at all.

He didn’t respond to that.

"You look good." Casual, cheap, like a compliment that cost him nothing to hand out. "Been a while."

"Not really."

He laughed. Short, easy, like she’d made a joke instead of correcting him.

Adrian only needed to watch for a moment to realize. Ex. Had to be. Nobody talked over someone like that unless they’d already lost the right to.

Daniel kept talking, unbothered, like the months since whatever happened hadn’t happened at all. Rose didn’t lean in. The distance between them sitting there plainly without either of them needing to raise their voice to name it.

He was more focused on Rose until.

"Been meaning to call you." A small, hopeful shrug, like he was offering her something generous. "Figured we could talk this out about... well you know-"

"No."

Flat. Immediate. Nothing underneath it to work with.

"I get it. You’re still upset." He smiled, placing a palm on his chest. "That’s fair. I’m upset too. But if we actually sat down and talk..."

"I said no."

Same flatness. No volume behind it. Just the same two words, repeated because the first pass apparently hadn’t registered.

It didn’t register this time either. Adrian could see it from where he stood.

Daniel’s expression stayed exactly the same, already rebuilding his next sentence like her answer didn’t matter.

Something shifted in Rose. A slight change in the set of her jaw, her shoulders squaring half an inch. Adrian knew that shift. He’d worn it himself not too long ago.

Daniel didn’t stop. He rarely did.

"Rose, come on. We were together two years. You don’t just.." He gestured vaguely at the air, like he could physically locate the words he wanted. "You don’t just throw that away because things got messy at the end."

"You threw it away." Her voice hadn’t moved an inch.

Adrian kept his eyes on the bag of chips in his hand, reading the nutrition label with the focus of a man who had never cared less about sodium content in his life. He wasn’t going anywhere. He also wasn’t stepping in. Some fights weren’t his to finish.

"I’m just saying." Daniel’s hopeful shrug again, the same one, recycled. "If we sat down. Really talked. You’d..."

"What part of no do you not understand." It wasn’t entirely a question.

"Rose..."

For a second he just looked at her, mouth half-open on whatever line he’d already loaded up next.

That was the moment her eyes found Adrian.

Not a glance. A real look, the kind that lasted a beat too long to be accidental. He met it without meaning to, can of chips still hovering somewhere near the shelf, forgotten.

He didn’t know what she was about to do. Something in her face told him not to move.

So he didn’t.

She closed the distance in three steps, unhurried, like she’d already decided this on her way over. Her hand found his jaw before he’d fully processed the trajectory, and then she kissed him.

Daniel finally shut up. The store went quiet.

Adrian’s brain, for one full second, produced absolutely nothing. No thought, no joke, no dry commentary running underneath. Just static and the fact that Rose’s hand was warm against his jaw and she smelled faintly like the shampoo aisle they’d walked past twenty minutes ago.

Somewhere behind them, the cashier had stopped scanning items entirely.

Daniel’s mouth was still open. No words coming out of it now, though. Just the look of a man watching a script get torn up in real time.

Rose pulled back slow, unbothered, like she did this every day of the week. She didn’t look at Daniel right away. She looked at Adrian first, lips moving around something too quiet to catch. It might have been sorry, or maybe play along, or maybe nothing at all.

Then she turned to face her ex.

Daniel’s expression had finally caught up to the moment. Stunned. Genuinely, for once, without an immediate follow-up sentence ready to go.

"...You’ve already met someone else?"

She didn’t answer straight away. Let the question sit there a second.

Then she slid her hand into Adrian’s.

His fingers closed around hers on instinct before his brain had signed off on the decision. Warm. Steady. He didn’t dare look down at their hands, worried that if he did, some part of him would short-circuit visibly.

"No." Calm. Certain. "I’m moving forward."

Daniel didn’t have anything for that. Neither did Adrian. He didn’t need to. All he had to do was just hold her hand like this was any other Friday night.

Rose didn’t let go of him. She wasn’t looking at Daniel anymore either. Just him.

"Let’s go, babe."

Babe. She didn’t even know his name, and she’d just called him babe to spite a guy who used the word first. He gave a small nod, the kind that didn’t need words attached to it, and let her lead them toward the door.

A totally normal evening. Sure.

~~~

If you’re enjoying the book, please consider adding it to your library and leaving a comment to let me know what you think of the Chapter..

Also...

50 powerstones= 2 bonus Chapters.

100 powerstones= 5 bonus Chapters.

150 powerstones= 8 bonus Chapters.

200 powerstones = 10+ bonus Chapters.

I’ll be hoping to hear from you!

Thank you for your support!