Page 57 of Safe With You
“Now you’re getting bossy.”
I laughed and handed her the keys to the supply closet.
“Go.”
She walked away mumbling about hostile work environments, but the idea stayed with me.
Another Open Mic Night.
Until Naomi said it aloud, I hadn’t let myself think beyond Tuesday. The possibility that people might want another one had seemed too optimistic to hold onto.
Now there were photographs proving they had come, and more than that, they had stayed.
When I returned to the front, she was waiting with her purse over one shoulder.
“Monthly,” she said.
I picked up my keys. “Good night, Naomi.”
“Every second Tuesday.”
“Drive safely.”
“We could call it—”
“Go home.”
She laughed as we stepped outside.
The humidity wrapped around me immediately, thick enough that my curls would regret the short walk to my car. I locked the front door and tugged it once, then again when Naomi looked at me.
I waited until her headlights came on before getting into mine. The steering wheel was warm beneath my palms, and the air conditioner took several seconds to do more than push hot air into my face.
By the time I pulled onto the street, Naomi’s idea had already begun arranging itself in my head despite my best efforts to leave work at work.
Monthly Open Mic.
A local author series.
Maybe a children’s story hour on Saturday mornings.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
One thing at a time.
Tuesday had been successful.
That should have been enough.
But somewhere between Ellis’s photographs and Naomi’s impossible ideas, Chapter & Charm suddenly felt smaller than the dreams I’d stopped letting myself have.
My apartment was quiet when I got home. After changing into an oversized T-shirt and my favorite Victoria’s Secret slippers, I reheated the pasta in my refrigerator and settled onto the couch with a glass of sweet tea.
I turned on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, something familiar enough that it wouldn’t matter when I stopped paying attention.
Which happened almost immediately.
I opened Ellis’s email again.
