Page 128 of Safe With You

“I was appreciating it.”

“You can appreciate it closer.”

“I have to get back to work.”

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “You’ve been gone forty-eight minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because clocks exist.”

She glanced down the block in the direction of Chapter & Charm before looking through the window again. The decision lasted maybe three seconds.

“Five minutes.”

I opened the door for her. “Of course.”

Luna walked past me, and I followed her inside.

She found the journal almost immediately, picking it up from the display and running her thumb across the gold lettering on the cover.

“See?” she said, holding it toward me. “Cute.”

“So get it.”

She opened it, flipped through a few of the blank pages, then closed it again. “I told you. I don’t need another journal.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from holding it for the last two minutes.”

“I’m practicing restraint.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

She gave me a look before setting the journal back on the display. “One thing at a time, remember?”

I smiled. “Convenient.”

“Very.”

She wandered toward a table of pens near the back, and I followed, realizing somewhere between brunch and a notebook neither of us needed that we’d managed to extend the morning again.

I wasn’t complaining.

Five minutes turned into twelve.

Luna bought two pens she insisted she actually needed and left the journal exactly where she’d found it.

“See?” she said as we stepped back onto the sidewalk. “Restraint.”

“You bought two pens.”

“Pens are useful.”

“So are journals.”

“Not when you already have six.”

“You counted?”