Page 43 of Safe With You
“Where’s the other one?”
She looked around. “I don’t know.”
We found it beneath the kitchen table beside the crayon that had rolled away earlier.
Mila slipped it on and stood. “See? I knew where it was.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I knew it was in the house.”
I grabbed my keys. “Come on.”
She skipped ahead of me, completely unbothered.
Outside, the morning had settled into the kind of warmth that promised a hot afternoon without making good on it yet. Mila climbed into the back seat while I loaded the camera I’d brought out of habit into the passenger side.
“Where we going?” she asked once I started the truck.
“I thought this was our day.”
“It is.”
“So what do you want to do?”
She went quiet.
I glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “You don’t know?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Take your time.”
She looked out the window as we pulled away from the house. “Can we get something sweet?”
“That covers a lot of ground.”
“A cinnamon roll.”
“Breakfast was twenty minutes ago.”
“That was pancakes.”
“I’m aware.”
“Cinnamon rolls are different.”
I smiled despite myself. “Of course they are.”
We ended up downtown a little after eleven, mostly because the bakery made the kind of cinnamon rolls that had convinced Mila they counted as their own food group. The line stretched halfway to the door, and by the time we reached the counter, she had changed her mind twice before ordering the same thing she always did.
A red velvet cinnamon roll.
Extra icing.
She carried the box carefully to a table near the window while I grabbed another coffee.
Mila pulled the cinnamon roll apart with her fingers instead of using the fork sitting beside the box.
