The grocery store was practically empty. The only people I had seen in there all night were a few teenagers restocking the produce section, an old woman with a cart full of discounted cuts of meat, a cashier, and some young guy stocking shelves. Even though the supermarket was large enough for me to have navigated without seeing any of these people more than once, the employee stocking shelves kept showing up everywhere I went. I grabbed a box in the cereal aisle, and he was right there next to me, reaching up to restock the fruit loops. In the baking section, I threw a bag of sugar into my cart and noticed him crouched beside me, sliding boxes of cornstarch onto the shelf. We made momentary eye contact and he smiled. I looked away quickly. I won't lie, I enjoyed having him as my companion while I shopped. He was short, but fairly muscular, and while his company-issued polo shirt was too large, his pants were tight and hugged his ass nicely. After a long day at work, it was pleasant to have something pretty to look at.
I kept shopping, and he kept showing up right beside me or at least in the next aisle over, with his cart full of boxes in tow. I couldn't help but notice how he was staring at me when he wasn't stocking the shelves. It was like we were playing a game, where I would stare at him as he refilled the shelves, and he would stare at me as I looked for the products I wanted to buy, and sometimes our eyes would meet and we'd share a quick smile, then look away. We continued this for a while, until I finally couldn't help but approach him. "Hey, uh," he turned to face me and I glanced at his nametag, "Jeffrey."
He smiled, breaking down an empty cardboard box and tucking it amongst the others on his cart, "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah, I was looking for this specific kind of beans. They're like, little pink kidney beans in the bag." He nodded,