My lunch break ran forty minutes long, and I spent it driving to the only bookstore within twenty miles.
I found the paperback she mentioned six months ago. The one she said she'd loved in college. It was rain-warped on the windowsill, marked down to three dollars.
I brought it home balanced on the passenger seat, next to my work bag and a half-empty bottle of orange juice from the break room.
She came in from her shift at the casino, tired and quiet.
I held up the book and said, 'To us.' And then I raised my orange juice carton like a toast.
She laughed so hard she had to sit down. 'You're toasting with breakfast juice,' she said.
We drank that orange juice out of coffee cups, clinking them together, while the rain warped the window screen.
It wasn't champagne. It wasn't a big moment. But it was ours.
That warped paperback is on our nightstand now, and I think it'll stay there forever.