Page 112 of Not Until Her
But as soon as they step away, I get the weirdest feeling. Like I’m being watched. I look around the small store, not spotting any other customers. I usually have a sixth sense that tells me when someone walks in without having to see or hear them, but nothing activated it while I was helping the previous person.
Weird.
I grab the shirts I’d pulled from the fitting room off the back counter, and find a couple of hangers to put them on. Paige should be back from her lunch in a few minutes, and then I finally get to leave for the day. I am exhausted. Over it. Sick of putting on my best smile, and ready to be a grump at home on my couch.
Or I could be a grump in someone else’s home, on someone else’s couch.
My sixth sense perks up, and I know someone’s walked in without any indicators.
“Hello, welcome in!” I call the words over my shoulder without looking, as I put a shirt back in its normal spot.
If I’m lucky, this is the last customer I’ll have today. Things have really slowed down, so I can probably get the store all tidied up before I head out.
“Can I speak to the manager?” a voice whispers in my ear, and I scream. I jump so hard that my shoulder slams into the chin of the voice’s owner.
I turn, ready to be blabbering apologies, offering a discount, sacrificing my second born, until I lock eyes with the culprit.
Kara’s hand is covering her mouth, and I’m not sure if it’s to hide a smile, or as a reaction to a bitten tongue thatI justcaused. She did cause me to cause it though, so with that thought, the guilt eases slightly.
“Are you okay?”
She nods, and then I notice how alight her eyes are with amusement.
“I got you so good,” she says.
Oh my God, she’s so pleased with herself.
I push her shoulder in playful punishment.
“That was so bad! I could’ve hurt you!” Placing a hand over my racing heart, I close my eyes and hang my head dramatically. “I thought you were a customer that was seconds away from suing me.”
“I really hope you don’t have customers whispering in your ear.”
“Not until today,” I say on an exhale. “You will be a customer by the way. Seeing your face is nice and all, but I can’t let you mess with my conversion.”
“Conversion? What are you converting me to? This sounds like a cult.” She emphasizes looking in a circle around the store, taking it all in. “Actually, that checks out. This place seems kind of culty.”
I can’t argue there.
Kara pushes through hangers on the rack closest to her, feigning interest in the t-shirts with band logos from the eighties.
She’s a modern rock girl anyway.
“I know what you need,” I say as I get an idea. I walk over to the display window in the front of the store, where a mannequin is wearing the very last of a very specific shirt.
An oversized version of the one with the yellow flowers. She shakes her head instantly.
“Absolutely not.”
My mouth opens in surprise.
“But… you love this shirt.”
A smile appears on her face, one of the sweetest she’s ever given me, before she looks behind us. She must have been checking if the coast was clear, because the next thing I know she’s grabbing my hand and lacing our fingers together.
“I love that shirt because it’s yours. I wouldn’t like it nearly as much if you didn’t sleep in it a few nights a week.”
“I sleep in lots of shirts. You always mention this one.”