Page 61 of Forever To Me

I grab a cart and start piling in every piece of candy I can get my hands on. Reese’s, M&M’s, Skittles—if it has sugar in it, it’s going in the cart. I'm going to make a candy salad. It's going to be epic.

Maggie eyes my growing stash. “Are you planning on running a black-market candy shop out of Walker’s guest room?”

I shrug, tossing in another bag of gummy worms. “No. But if I was, you’d be my first customer.”

Maggie laughs,but I don’t miss the way she sneaks a pack of Oreos into the cart.

Mack pops up behind me, clutching a can of whipped cream like it’s a treasure map. “This is a necessity.”

I blink. “For what?” I mean, I’m not disagreeing. Whipped cream is always a necessity in my book.

“Midnight whipped cream shots.”

“Put it in the cart,” I motion. “Absolutely.”

“It’s like there are two of you now. Two peas in a pod.” Maggie looks like she’s reconsidering all her life choices. “Why did I bring you both here?”

Mack grins. “Because you love us.”

Maggie mutters something about regrets but doesn’t take the whipped cream out of the cart.

After the sugar apocalypse has been secured, we move on to drinks.

“I’m thinking Dr Pepper and maybe some energy drinks,” I say, scanning the shelves.

Maggie immediately vetoes. “No energy drinks. The last time Mack had one, she tried to bribe the mailman to let her drive the mail truck.”

Mack sighs. “That guy had no sense of fun.”

I hold back a laugh and grab two bottles of soda instead. Mack swaps one out for a neon blue sports drink that looks vaguely radioactive.

Maggie side-eyes it. “That looks like something that would fuel a spaceship, not a human body. Walker’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”

“Probably.” Mack grins.

By the time we make it to the register, our cart looks like it belongs to a group of unsupervised teenagers at a gas station.

The cashier is a high school kid who looks both impressed and mildly concerned as he slowly scans each item.

“Big night?” he asks.

Mack nods seriously. “Sleepover.”

Maggie sighs. “More like a scheduled descent into madness.”

He looks over at Maggie and says, “Sorry to hear about the fire, Maggie.”

She smiles at him. “Thanks, honey.”

I go to swipe my card from my phone and pause while Mack grabs a pack of gum at the last second, and we haul our loot out to the truck, barely fitting all the bags in.

As I shut the door and slide into the passenger seat, I glanceat Maggie, who’s staring at the massive pile of junk food like it personally offended her morals.

“Not one vegetable,” she murmurs, shaking her head.

Mack rips open a bag of Hot Cheetos and pops one in her mouth. “There’s corn in these.”

Maggie laughs andstarts the truck.

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