Ditched Cheating Alpha, I Led My Daughter to Life's Peak novel Chapter 12

I shrug, "I don't know. Just ignore them."

"Do you think it's because of Michael?" she asks giving him a knowing look.

When did she get so condescending? "I'm not sure," I say again. "Let's just get our cereal and go."

As Michael's swinging Charlie around, he nearly smacks him into this old man.

I speed up and snatch Charlie from Michael's arms and plant him firmly on the ground. "Hold my hand, buddy." He whines but does as told.

Michael starts whining too and I nearly smack him. His fully grown, nineteen-year-old self needs to fucking act the part. We're about to be killed in this freaking town! What is wrong with these people? I look around again and reach for Megan's hand. Normally she would argue, but today she just takes it.

I check the obvious things that might set us apart. Race is the first, clearly. We're black, so maybe they're racist or really conservative? But that doesn't make sense because this town is extremely diverse. I see a little of everything, so there's definitely no reason to suspect that. The next option is that we're new, but even then...

"Captain Crunch and Trix, right?" Michael asks grabbing them off the shelf.

"Yeah. Just hurry, please." I look around again. There's only one other family in the aisle with us. It's a woman and a man with two kids. The woman stands in front of her children protectively and the man stands in front of her. They stare at the shelves in front of them, but I can see they're still looking.

"Is it just me, or-" Michael starts to blurt out.

I give him a look to shut up.

He looks around, peaks out of the aisle, does a full scan of the area and mouths the word, fuck.

"Mom said no curse words!" Megan announces again quite loudly in her commander voice.

"Forget this cereal, they're about to lynch our..." he whisper-screams through clenched teeth.

"What does-" Charlie starts.

"Don't worry about it," I hush him, rubbing circles on the back of his hand. "And that's not true Michael, a lot of them are... they're not all... Well, it doesn't matter. We're not leaving the cereal. Let's just hurry up, like I said."

"Yeah, yeah," he picks Charlie up and gestures for me to walk in front of him. "Come on then."

I nod and tug Megan along with me.

"Are we in immediate danger?" she asks me.

I shake my head. "Of course not. We're just going to go home, that's all."

She nods. Her grip on my hand tightens.

We go to stand in the line at self-checkout which, for some reason beyond my comprehension, is insanely long. Michael taps his foot and readjusts the two cereal boxes under his right arm.

"Legos!" Charlie cries from his left side. "We forgot the legos!"

"We'll get them next time buddy," Michael says and rocks him a little. Charlie's crying adds looks to the already present stares from the crowd.

"I knew you wouldn't get them. You said so." Tears start welling up in Charlie's little brown eyes.

Michael looks at me for support. I don't know how to give it to him.

"I could go get them?" I offer.

He looks at me like I'm crazy. "Alone?"