His mistaken Identity

Chapter 14

The hum of shoppers pushing trolleys around and the soft music shops insisted on playing made for soothing background noise. There weren’t that many people around, and the few that filled the shop aisles minded their own business as far as he could see.

“You know when you said I should meet you at the shopping mall to buy baby products… I thought it was a metaphor or a joke. Not actual baby stuff for a real actual baby. A little human being that does nothing but cry and drinks milk all day and night.” Thomas lifted a large tin of formula baby milk from the trolley and narrowed his eyes as he read the writings on the tin.

“So she is actually in your house, huh?” Thomas said it like he still couldn’t believe it. Christopher had said so on the phone when they spoke earlier, but Thomas couldn’t believe the woman and child had materialized after a month of just being strangers in a photograph left with a suspicious letter.

“I thought that was what I said,” Christopher answered, a little irritated and focusing on the shelves of items he never thought he would be shopping for at this point in his life. Not that he never saw kids in his future. The circumstances were just strange.

They were at one of the largest shopping malls located within the capital city. Manda Hill catered to both local shoppers and tourists. It was one of the very first shopping malls to have been built in the country and hence it had a good reputation. Of course, from its first opening to date, the place had had tremendous renovations and transformations. But it was still the best bet to find everything they needed in one location.

Christopher and Thomas walked through Shoprite, one of the largest supermarkets in the mall. The yellow and red theme that characterized the store was beginning to give Christopher a headache. It wasn’t his first time visiting the supermarket, but unlike his previous shopping, when everything had seemed to easily meet his requirements, this time, Christopher felt as though he had walked into a zoo. He realized he had never taken an interest in the baby products aisle. He hadn’t had a reason to until today, after all. But now that he did, it was all Chinese to him.

Now he stood and stared at several brands of diapers, baby wipes, baby foods, lotions, and soaps; the list was endless. It all gave him a massive headache. The throbbing at his temples increased with every passing second. He looked down at the small piece of paper where Jane had written down what she needed for her son.

“The woman only wrote ‘diapers’… How am I supposed to know which diapers she meant?” Honestly, would it have killed her to be more specific? He thought in frustration.

Thomas returned the tin of formula to the trolley and then swept his eyes over the various options in front of them. “Does it matter? Don’t they all do the same thing? Keep the pee and poop from going everywhere?”

That was not an answer that helped Christopher. He turned his head and frowned at his friend. “Do you just buy any bottle of alcohol? After all… it all does the same thing, right?”

“Point taken.” Thomas gave a nod and picked one of the brands off the shelf. For the next thirty seconds, he attempted to make sense of the words written on the packet. But after a moment, the furrow between his brows deepened. “What do Kgs have to do with diapers?”

Christopher gave up. They were going to be stuck there the whole day if they didn’t do something fast. And he couldn’t afford to waste time. He remembered he had left Jane trying to calm a very hungry and angry baby in his house.

They had two options the way he saw it. It was either he got a pack of everything on the shelf, or he found some help. Christopher decided to try the latter option first.

There was no mother-like shopper nearby, but thankfully, he spotted one of the shop attendants halfway down the aisle behind them and quickly got their attention. After a few awkward questions about the age of the child and preferences, the shop attendant had them on the move and they collected everything Jane had written down without any further problems or delays. It was a relief.

Barely half an hour later, Christopher and Thomas walked out of the supermarket with two full trollies.

“Who knew babies need so much?” Thomas commented almost to himself with a hard stare at the trolley he was pushing.

“Just goes to show you how much responsibility is involved.”

Thomas hummed and continued walking, only to stop abruptly when Christopher stopped at a clothing store and went inside without warning.

“What now?” he cried like a man who had had enough already.

“I just want to get them some things to wear.” Christopher threw over his shoulder.

Thomas narrowed his eyes and looked at his friend. “Aren’t you going a little too far there, my friend?”

“What?”

Thomas watched in bafflement as his friend parked his full trolley next to the security officer, collected another trolley, and almost immediately began to fill it with an assortment of clothing items, both for a baby and a woman. After a moment, he just shook his head, chuckled, and parked his full trolley next to Christopher’s before following his friend into the store.

The sound snapped Christopher’s attention away from the two baby rompers he had been considering. He looked up at his friend inquisitively, wondering what the man could possibly be laughing about.

While Christopher and Thomas began a rather strange discussion about the right color for babies, at the entrance of the store a person entered and moved to stand behind a display of shirts on promotion. They had a clear line of sight of Christopher and Thomas, but the two men had no idea they were being watched.

For several minutes, the person watched Christopher pick clothes and fill a trolley before finally heading for the checkout counter. Quietly, the person left the store without being seen and left the mall.

***

Christopher leaned his head against the cool tiles in his shower and closed his eyes. Three days. Jane and Tony had been in his house for three days. He couldn’t believe it. It felt so much longer and more tiring than three days’ worth of stress.

After buying them all they needed and so much more the day after he brought them to his house, they had another big argument. Unsurprising really. Because apparently doing something out of the goodness of his heart was a very big crime in her books. He would have thought the woman would have been glad to get a change of clothes. Nice clothes, for that matter, if he did say so himself. But no, she had told him where to shove the clothes he had bought, and it wasn’t a decent suggestion.

Christopher sighed. He thought back on the several other arguments that had become almost an hourly occurrence. The woman argued over everything and nothing. It was like her default setting was to argue.

He was exhausted physically and mentally. His patience was wearing thin. But he couldn’t send them away. He had finally found out how she had gotten away from the kidnappers and never returned to her apartment for the sake of her safety and that of her son. The short of it was she had nowhere to go, and no money. Christopher wasn’t about to throw them out on the street. Even if the woman got on his nerves every damn time. He could have given her some money and asked her to leave, but that didn’t sit well with him, and he doubted she would accept a coin from him, anyway. Which still brought them back to the same problem. She was stuck in his house until further notice.

He had taken some days off work to try to sort out the problem and probably find a permanent solution. So far, no solution had been found. Only headaches.

They still had no idea who had kidnapped her and Tony. Although Jane still believed Christopher was lying and that he knew exactly who was after them because he was her not-so-dead former boyfriend.

Christopher had given up trying to convince her he was who he said he was. The woman just didn’t listen.

He grabbed the shower gel with a tired sigh and began to wash himself. What I need is to relieve some stress, he thought. With purpose set in mind, his hand traveled down his front until he reached his already half-hard c**k.

It had been weeks since he’d had any action. With the whole relocation after the k********g letter and Natasha leaving him, Christopher hadn’t had time to build a new relationship or simply find himself a warm body to just enjoy and relax.

And he wasn’t going to find one any day soon, that was for sure. Especially if he still had the argumentative woman and her son in his house. And it wasn’t like he could leave them in the house and go out for a one-night stand at a hotel.

His hand and some shower gel were the only options. Sad but doable.

With practiced ease born from his teenage years, he tightened his fingers and gave his hand a twist. Gosh, that felt good. Christopher closed his eyes and worked himself at just the right pace.

The hot water falling over him did a good job of masking any sounds that may have come from what he was doing. Christopher picked up the pace. He was almost there. It had been too long since he had some release. His body was ready to explode. He could already feel the tightening in his balls. He was ready to blow a load and release days of stress.

Just then, when Christopher felt like he was hanging at the very tip, the bathroom door opened and he froze with his hand still around his painfully hard c**k. No. This couldn’t be happening.

Christopher hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes, but now he really didn’t want to open his eyes, even though he knew he had no other choice. And he didn’t need a crystal ball to know who had interrupted his personal time. There was only one person who could have opened the bathroom door. Unless a baby had somehow grown in the space of an hour and learned how to open doors.

As his luck would have it, the shower stall was directly opposite the door. Christopher stood in profile and he had forgotten to close the curtain. He finally opened his eyes and turned his head slightly and looked at the intruder. There she was. Jane stood frozen at the threshold of the bathroom. But her eyes were not on his face. No. They were much, much lower than his face.

Christopher’s hand twitched. He wondered if it would be considered rude if he just continued what he had been doing. He hadn’t lost his erection, and he was still so close.

Shit.