Page 59 of The Christmas Fix
“I’m not—”
“The store is empty. No one will see their city manager acting a fool. You can’t be worried about my opinion of you because I already think you’re a stuffed shirt with an attitude problem. And, I double dog dare you.”
Feeling like an idiot, Noah swung a leg into the cart. “Is this even going to hold me?” he muttered.
“Quit stalling.” Cat shoved the cookies and chips out of his way and crossed her arms over her chest.
He clamored the rest of the way in and sat, his knees hiked up to his chin. “Yay. This is so much fun I can barely contain myself,” he grumbled.
She grinned. “You look ridiculous.”
“I know I look ridiculous. I fail to see how this is teaching me anything valuable about lightening up.”
“Hang on to your frowny face,” Cat announced. She grabbed the cart handle and pushed off into a dead run.
Noah gripped the sides of the cart as they careened down the aisle. “Wheeeeeeee!” Cat hopped onto the bar that was meant to hold twelve-packs of soda and sent them sailing. The cart, its wheels squealing in protest under its load, lumbered to the side heading for an end cap display of salsas.
Noah was a split second away from jumping from the cart to save himself when Cat hopped off the back and dragged them to a stop. The front of the cart halted two inches from salsa destruction.
“You’re insane,” Noah growled.
“I had fun once. It was awful,” Cat mimicked.
“Can I get out now?”
“Nope! On to the beer and ice cream.” Cat took off at a jog again and Noah crashed back against the cart basket.
He felt her hop on behind him, heard her laugh as the cart wobbled its way across the back of the store. Noah twisted around to see her. She had her hands planted on the handle and was leaning forward, enjoying the apparent wind in her face. Cat made acting like an idiot look like a lot of fun.
She slowed them to a dignified crawl when the cooler section came into view.
“How come you can act like this without embarrassment, yet when someone congratulates you on your school, you look like you want the ground under you to open up?” Noah asked as they perused the ice cream selection.
“That’s easy. I don’t have anything tied to driving like a mad woman around a grocery store. Nothing’s riding on that. The school? That’s my future and hopefully the future of hundreds of women. I was lucky. I grew up in a family that didn’t care whether you had a vagina or a penis. You helped out in the family business. I had the opportunity and the expectation to learn.”
“Are your parents involved in the business?” Noah asked.
Cat shook her head and handed him a pint of mint chocolate chip. He handed it back. “No bowls. Try something handheld.”
She put the ice cream back and pushed him down another cooler. “My mom worked in the office off and on. But my dad’s the academic in the family. He taught high school history at a private school in Brooklyn—if you ever see a hammer in that man’s hand, run the opposite way. My mom stayed home with us and helped Nonni with the books occasionally. It was my pop and nonni who were eyeing Gannon and me up to be the heirs apparent.”
“How did you go from a family construction company to TV?”
Cat grinned, dumping a box of frozen Snickers into the cart. “That was my brilliant idea. When Pop died, the company was already barely scraping by. The economy sucked. No one was building or buying, and we were within months of closing the doors for good. It would have crushed Nonni. Everything they’d worked for, only to lose Pop and the business in the same year?” She shook her head.
“What did you do?”
“I got this crazy idea in the middle of the night—none of us were sleeping back then. The next morning, I took a video camera to the job site and shot some footage of Gannon arguing with me, some demo. And I sent it off to the network. Two months later we got a call, and here we are.”
“You seem like you’re cut out for the work.” Noah pointed at the popsicles, and Cat tossed him a box.
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
“That’s how I meant it. You’re very comfortable in front of the camera and very competent behind it.”
“Well aren’t you just full of compliments today?” Cat mused.
“I feel like I may have misjudged you. Slightly,” Noah admitted.
