Page 378 of Safe With You

She didn’t interrupt.

“I built it. Not by myself—I have people here who are a huge part of why it works—but it started with something I wanted. And now I get to walk in every day and see what it became.”

“What does that feel like?”

I smiled.

“Pretty damn good.”

She laughed.

“Can I print that?”

“You know what? Yeah.”

“Good.”

I laughed with her and settled farther into my chair.

She asked me a few more questions after that. About what I wanted to do next. Whether I saw Chapter & Charm expanding. What events I wanted to keep growing.

I didn’t have an answer for everything.

But I didn’t feel like I needed one.

By the time she turned off the recorder, almost forty minutes had passed.

“That was painless, right?”

“Ask me when I read the article.”

She laughed as she gathered her notes.

“You did great.”

“Thank you.”

And I meant it without immediately thinking of something I should’ve said differently.

The interview might’ve been over, but apparently my part wasn’t.

“Where do you spend most of your time?” the photographer asked.

I looked around the store.

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Behind that counter.”

She laughed. “Then let’s start there.”

That sounded easy enough until I was standing behind the register with a camera pointed at me and suddenly couldn’t remember what I normally did with my hands.

“What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Whatever you normally do.”