Page 172 of Safe With You

For the next hour, we worked our way through her list.

Once I figured out what she had in mind, we didn’t have to talk much about where everything went. She started on the chairs while I brought the rest of the donation boxes from the back. When I came out with the last one, she’d already cleared a place for it near the tables.

I set it down.

“Thank you.”

I nodded and headed back for the freestanding display.

She thanked me when I moved that too. Again when I carried over another stack of chairs. Again when she asked me to reach a bin she’d stored high enough that I wasn’t sure how she got it up there in the first place.

By the fourth or fifth time, I started noticing. It wasn’t that she was being overly polite. It was that she said it every time I did something for her.

“Thank you.”

I set the bin on the table and looked at her.

“You know you don’t have to thank me every time I touch something, right?”

Luna looked up from the box she was unpacking.

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I have manners.”

“You thanked me for moving a chair.”

“You moved it for me.”

“Three feet.”

“It was an important three feet.”

I smiled, but she was already looking back down, sorting the books in front of her into two stacks.

Maybe that should’ve been the end of it.

Instead, I leaned against the edge of the table.

“You do that a lot.”

Her hands slowed.

“Do what?”

“Make sure people know you appreciate whatever they do for you.”

She picked up another book.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“Then what are you saying?”

I thought about it.