Bradley's was quiet on Saturday nights. It was at 7:00 p.m. and only a few people loitered around the store, grabbing groceries and various items of junk food. Lily Henderson was one of those people. She had just walked down the pop aisle, on a mission to pick up Coca-Cola and other snacks for her little brother and his friends, Lucas and Mike, that were hanging out at their house that night, when she heard footsteps walking towards her.

Casually, Lily glanced to the side and saw an older male in a dark jacket and worn baseball cap looking at the other side of the aisle. He was looking at something on the shelve and so she grabbed a case of coke and headed out of the aisle, moving towards the candy section. The older male slowly moved as well, following her at a distance, he briefly looked at items before placing them into the basket he was carrying.

A feeling of paranoia started to creep into her limbs, she decided it would be best to quickly find the requested junk food and book it home instead of finding out if this guy was following her around the store.

Finding the PEZ candies and pringles, she shoved a bunch into her basket and started making her way to the tills, a shadow trailed slowly behind her. The guy was definitely following her, and she saw him place his full basket down in the aisle she was just in. Her hands clammed up and started to tremble, she was getting scared.

Was he planning to follow her out of the store? Her mother had warned her not to go out at night when it was dark, but she never took it seriously. She never thought there could be anyone bad in their town.

Lily decided to walk down another aisle instead, hoping that maybe if she waited long enough that he would get bored and leave her alone. She looked at the shelves and pretended to contemplate what kind of cereal to get. Another pair of footsteps had followed her into the aisle and was relieved when she saw out of the corner of her eye that someone else had entered the aisle too. No longer alone with the stranger man she turned her attention back to the box and she flipped it over, still pretending to contemplate, when the other person in the aisle approached her.

"Hey, there you are! I was wondering where you had wandered off to." A male voice said, surprising her. Lily whipped her head to the side, standing to her left was a boy with curled shaggy deep brown hair wearing a leather jacket adorned with a denim vest. He gave her a smile and tilted his head slightly as his eyes glanced behind her quickly.

"Oh, uh hey... I was um just looking at cereal." Lily was very confused at why this stranger was talking to her, unsure of how to reply. His smile widened.

"I think you were all out of honeycomb" he mentioned casually, he had moved closer to her, grabbing a box of honeycomb cereal and placing it into Lily's basket before continuing "but we should probably start heading back now before your mom gets worried." Lily turned towards him; brows furrowed still confused as to what was going on. But the boy just winked at her and turned around, slowly walking in the direction of the cashier and out of the aisle they shared with the lingering stranger.

Realization dawned on Lily as she hurried in the same direction of the boy, yelling "wait up!". She followed him up to the till where he took the basket from her and started putting items onto the belt.

They were quiet as the cashier rung in and bagged their items; Lily handed over a ten-dollar bill before reaching for the bags. The boy grinned at her and threw his arm over her shoulders, steering her towards the exit, leaning down towards her ear.

"An old creep was following you through the store, do you want me to walk you home?" He whispered his breath was warm on her ear, Lily turned to look at him with wide eyes, she nodded slightly and the smile on his face widened as he pulled her with him into the chilled September air.

"Uh thank you… f-for helping me, uh I live close by, so you uh you don't have to walk me home if you don't want to." Lily said, glancing at her feet as the walked into the parking lot, his arm still over her shoulders.

"Don't worry about it, I couldn't leave a damsel in distress all by herself! Now, where is this damsel's castle? This knight shall get you home safely." The boy said his smile growing, showing his straight teeth briefly. He removed his arm from her shoulders making a grand gesture of bowing to her before he straightened and placed his hands in his pockets, matching his pace with hers.

"Uh it's- "Lily started before cutting off to look back at Bradley's Big Buy, the chime of the sliding doors distracting her. The older man that was following her had walked into the dark parking lot.

She lowered her voice, almost whispering. "O-okay, it's just 2886 Piney Wood Drive."

"Sweet, it's not far at all. I'm Eddie by the way, Eddie Munson but you can just call me your knight in shining armour." Eddie replied with a wink and grabbed one of the bags from her hands before looping his left arm through hers, gently guiding her to the sidewalk. His head turning to glance back occasionally to look behind them, a weariness seeping into his eyes.

Recognition lit up in Lily's eyes as she realized she was in the same grade as him.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you, you're a senior too, right? Uh, my name is Lily." Lily exclaimed and Eddie nodded his eyes brightening. She smiled at him gently, silence falling between them, both of them feeling awkward and unsure of what to say next.

As they walked up to the crosswalk, they noticed that the strange man from earlier had disappeared, and a sigh of relief left Lily's lips as the arm looped through Eddie's relaxed slightly. Eddie glanced at her, seeing the worry disappearing from her face, and grinned to himself.