Chapter 56

• Asher walked down the aisle again. She hadn’t mentioned marshmallows, but hot chocolate was always better with those, in his opinion. He hadn’t drunk much of it in the last ten years. He took the box of the instant mix out of the handheld basket and read it again. Dropping it, he walked with long strides to the dairy section and grabbed some milk. His Nan always made it with milk when he was a kid, and it never tasted watered down. The room didn’t have a hotplate, but it did have a tiny microwave, so he’d figure out how to heat it up.
• As he turned to go to the chip section, he spotted marshmallows on a bottom shelf and grabbed one. He wasn’t sure what kind of cheezies she liked. Was it the soft ones or the crunchy sticks? Scowling at them, he put each bag into the basket and then a bag of Doritos.
• By the time he reached the cash, he’d added chocolate bars and some kind of gummy candies. He didn’t know what she might want to try, but at least now she had options. The clerk looked like he’d rather be a home sleeping, and Asher didn’t blame him there. It was the middle of the night. With a cordial smile and a slight nod of his head, he picked up the bag and went outside.