Page 400 of Safe With You

She held up a magazine.

I knew before I could read the cover.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Naomi repeated. “That’s all you got?”

“Give it to me.”

She turned away and started flipping through the pages.

“Naomi.”

“I’m finding it.”

“You are not reading my article before me.”

“Found it.”

That stopped me.

Naomi turned the magazine around.

A CHAPTER OF HER OWN

The words stretched across the top of the page above a picture of me standing between two shelves.

For a second, I just looked at it.

I remembered when the picture was taken. The photographer had followed me through the store until I stopped noticing her, but I didn’t remember this one specifically. I was holding a book in one hand and looking toward something outside the frame.

Underneath the picture was my name.

Luna Bennett, Owner of Chapter & Charm.

“Girl.”

I took the magazine from Naomi.

“They used that picture?”

“You look good.”

“I look like I’m talking.”

“You probably were.”

I ignored her and looked at the other page. There was another picture of the store beneath the title. Customers near the front. The café in the background. One of the display tables I’d spent entirely too long rearranging that morning.

Then the article started.

I read the first paragraph standing right there at the counter.

Chapter & Charm was described as the kind of bookstore that made people want to stay longer than they planned.

I read the sentence again.

“Well?” Naomi asked.