Page 127 of Safe With You

“Deal. If there is one.”

“If?”

She smiled but didn’t answer.

I signed the receipt.

By the time we stepped outside, the heat had settled properly over downtown, the kind that made every patch of shade worth noticing. Chapter & Charm was only a few blocks away, and there wasn’t really any reason not to head straight back.

We made it half a block.

Then Luna slowed beside the window of a stationery shop.

I took another couple steps before realizing she wasn’t beside me anymore and turned back to find her studying a display of journals arranged behind the glass.

“You coming?”

“In a second.”

I walked back to where she stood, and she pointed through the glass. “That’s cute.”

A brown journal sat near the front of the display, gold lettering stretched across the cover.

One thing at a time.

Luna smiled as she read it.

“What?” I asked.

She pointed at the words. “I say this to myself all the time.”

“One thing at a time?”

“Whenever I feel like I have too much going on.”

I looked at the journal again. “So you’re getting it.”

She laughed. “I don’t need another journal.”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

“I have notebooks at home I’ve never written in.”

“Then what’s one more?”

“Bad financial advice.”

She said it while continuing to stare through the glass at the journal.

I reached for the shop door.

Her head turned. “What are you doing?”

“Going inside.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been staring at that notebook long enough that we’re clearly not leaving until you touch it.”