They had half an hour to kill before their dinner reservation and the small second-hand shop across the street was still open. It seemed like a good place to wander while they waited.

The teenage boy behind the counter looked up from his phone, sighed and mumbled a greeting before resuming his game. She rolled her eyes at Mark and pulled him into the store.

She plopped a silly hat on his head and giggled. Rolling his eyes, he pulled it off and put it back on the shelf. “Wouldn’t it be better to just go sit at the bar?”

“Easier, but not nearly as much fun,” she said as she wandered past the clothes and over to the jewelry. There were some gigantic brooches and clip on earrings that looked like they came from the Dark Ages. She picked through and moved on to the men’s watches.

Mostly it was a bunch of old digital ones, but in the back there was an old-style stopwatch. She picked it up and after clicking the knobs, she realized it still worked. “Oooh! Look at this!”

Mark came over from the other side of the store with a grouchy look on his face. “Please tell me that you are ready to go.” The smile on her face faded quickly. “Fine. What did you find?” he asked, trying to sound interested.

“It’s just an old stopwatch. My grandpa had one just like it when he coached track and I thought it was cool. Never mind,” she said as she started to put it back. He reached forward and took it from her.

“That is actually really cool,” he said, completely changing his attitude. “I remember seeing it on his dresser when we visited. What would we do with it?”

She looked dubiously at him to see if he was just placating her. Satisfied, she smirked. “Well, I was thinking it would be perfect for game play.”

“Game play?”

“You know, how long you can handle a, um, task or something.” She tilted her head towards the teenager, trying to “say” what she wanted to say while convinced that he was listening and knew exactly what she was talking about. She raised her eyebrows at Mark and smiled.

“Oh. Game play. Right. That’s a really good idea.” She could see that he was more than a little intrigued by the tightening of his pants. She nodded at the watch and pointed towards the register.

“Why don’t you buy it and then we’ll head over to the restaurant? We have just about enough time to get a drink and maybe figure out what we want to do with our new treasure.” She laughed as he headed towards the front of the store with the stopwatch and a quickly reddening face.