Chapter 49: Aren’t you going home now?
They finally reached the front of the line. The young cashier behind the register took one look at the three overflowing, mountain-like carts being pushed by two impeccably dressed, extremely handsome men in suits, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers.
He looked at the mountain of sugar, then at the men, utterly paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the late-night haul.
April, however, was grinning from ear to ear. She stepped up to the counter, tapped her knuckles on the plastic divider, and cut her eyes toward the heir of the Greels empire.
"Alexander," she called smoothly, her voice dripping with sweet, unbothered authority. "Take out your card."
...
They finally got out of the hypermarket, accompanied by a small army of starstruck store personnel who had to help them wheel and carry the mountain of bags out to the luxury vehicle.
Alexander huffed, loosening his silk tie and leaning against the side of the car as the workers finished packing the last few bags. "I swear, I have never done such manual labor in my life. My arms are practically vibrating."
April clapped her hands together, a bright, entirely unsympathetic grin on her face. "Congratulations, rich boy. You just did. Consider it a character-building exercise."
Alexander grimaced; he clearly did not like it.
The moment the store personnel bowed politely and walked back inside, April moved into action. She walked over to the back seat and the trunk, both of which were completely packed to the brim with her chaotic snack haul.
There was absolutely no room left for anyone to sit comfortably, and she certainly wasn’t going to spend a ten-minute drive crushed against family-sized potato chip bags.
It was time to clean up.
Before either of the men could utter a word of protest, April issued a silent inner command to her Level 2 spatial dimension: Intake.
And then Fwip.
Instantly, every single plastic bag, box, and loose item occupying the back seat vanished into thin air, leaving the leather seats pristine and untouched.
She walked over to the trunk, repeated the mental command, and the remaining mountains of snacks disappeared into her storage space in the blink of an eye.
The two men simultaneously let out a long, exhausted sigh. Alexander rubbed his temples. If only she had done that inside the actual market, then the cashiers and late-night shoppers wouldn’t have spent the last forty-five minutes looking at them like they were escaped lunatics preparing for a sugar-induced apocalypse.
"By the way, Alexander," April said, brushing a non-existent speck of dust off her sleeve as she turned to him. "Aren’t you going home now? The shopping spree is over."
"Well, my home is currently compromised as you well know," Alexander replied, his tone growing a bit more serious as he thought of his corrupt uncle’s spy network. "Xavier Reed graciously offered to let me stay over at his place until my grandfather wakes up. Which, according to the medical team, should be tomorrow."
April clicked her tongue softly, a tiny frown tugging down at her lips. Tomorrow. That meant she and Alexander were still going to be stuck together in the exact same household, though Alexander didn’t have the slightest clue about her current living arrangements yet.
"What about you?" Alexander asked, leaning in curiously. "Aren’t you going home? Where exactly is Samuel dropping you off?"
April shrugged, casually rolling her eyes away from his searching gaze as she opened the rear car door. She slid gracefully into the freshly emptied back seat and leaned into it comfortably.
"Well, that’s exactly where we’re going now," she said, giving him a deeply mysterious, completely unbothered look through the window.
Alexander blinked, utterly bewildered by her response. "What do you mean ’that’s where we’re going’—"
"Just sit down, Alexander," April interrupted smoothly, patting the leather seat beside her. "You’ll know exactly what I mean when we get there."
Alexander muttered something under his breath about cryptic prophets and impossible women, but he finally climbed into the passenger seat, leaving April to enjoy the spacious back row all to herself.
Samuel, ever the silent professional, closed the doors, got behind the wheel, and smoothly steered the luxury sedan out of the hypermarket’s parking lot and back onto the main highway.
The drive was quiet, save for the low hum of the engine and the occasional soft crunch coming from the back seat.
Alexander glanced in the rearview mirror and saw April casually popping open a bag of chips, looking like a queen surveying her kingdom from the comfort of a leather interior.
"Miss April, what time would you like us to start the furniture movement?" Samuel asked, though his eyes stayed glued on the road.
"Hm, I think 12 should be fine." She said, "I have a feeling Alexander’s business will compromise ours."
"Very well," Samuel made a mental note and planned to adjust their schedule based on that.
"You know, Samuel," Alexander said, leaning back and trying to shake off the lingering absurdity of the grocery run. "If she starts hoarding furniture the same way she hoards potato chips, you might want to call in a flatbed truck."
"I am already drafting a list of premium suppliers with immediate delivery fleets, Mr. Greels," Samuel replied smoothly, his eyes fixed on the road. The task-oriented corporate mindset was working wonders to keep his heartbreak at bay. "Though Miss April does not exactly need a moving truck or delivery fleet, if she plans to stay incognito with the papers she possesses, she will need to use one."
Unlike when they went to the warehouses and the managers could not ask a single question regarding the vanished goods, they were going to districts with a lot of people, so she couldn’t just make a sofa that was three times bigger than her disappear.
Alexander immediately realized that this mysterious power of hers could help her make even chairs and beds vanish. It was like watching a kid’s trick but in adult settings.
"Interesting," he chuckled, though there was a genuine note of fascination in his tone.
Alexander stole another glance at the rearview mirror. "So, Miss April, care to give me a hint? Are we dropping you off at some hidden sanctuary? A skyscraper penthouse? A secret underground bunker?"
April swallowed the last bite of her tart, thoroughly satisfied, and elegantly wiped her fingertips with a napkin. "None of the above. Your imaginations run too wild, honestly." She said, licking the powdered sauce from the chips on her finger. "And I told you, I’m going home."
