house for the weekend.”
“Yuck,” William said.
“It was. I hate staying at other people’s houses. Especially when they have weird
rules and give you microwavable pancakes.”
“You can make pancakes in the microwave now?”
“I think they think everything is microwavable.”
They arrived at Kroger, which had been remodeled and felt brand new. Since William
rarely shopped, he had no idea where to find anything.
Casey insisted on sitting in the cart, facing him as he pushed her. The breakfast
aisle was farther back than he remembered. She looked uncomfortable but laughed at
his struggle to steer. Her weight made the cart nearly impossible to turn.
The cart wobbled as he gritted his teeth, narrowly missing an end cap of cereal
boxes. At the breakfast aisle, he left her in the cart and walked off to find
syrup. He grabbed a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s and returned to Casey’s
unimpressed expression.
“Will, we can do a little better than that,” she said, eyeing the bottle. “Let’s
pick something more local. Not the priciest, but maybe the third or fourth most
expensive one.”
He nudged the cart closer so she could inspect the shelf. She pointed at her
choice, and he swapped bottles.
“You sure that’ll do?” he asked. “I don’t want you disappointed with the syrup.”
Casey smirked. “My original plan was to have you tap the sap from the tree in my
backyard and make syrup from scratch. But I didn’t want you working too hard just
for me.”
“Aw, just like my grandma used to do,” William said with a laugh.