The campus coffee shop was one of the few places that never closed, which meant the lights were always too bright. Bright was good. Bright left fewer places for intent to hide.
The air carried scorched espresso and syrup burned down to sugar glue. Nothing dangerous in it. Just tired.
Students crowded the counter in loose clusters, shoulders brushing. A small group argued about deadlines.
The line shifted forward, and Law moved with it. No one in there registered him beyond a passing glance.
Phones lit most of their faces from below. He’d once been told that glow meant productivity.
Millennials.
No. These were Gen Z.
Same as the man standing beside him.
His attention flicked sideways—curl of blond hair, hoodie half-zipped, energy barely contained—closer than necessary. Not pressed. Just inside the margin.
Sage. The fluorescent lights brightened his hair to white-blond, refusing to let him blend the way everyone else did. Law registered it automatically. Light mattered. Visibility mattered. Some people drew it without trying.
He shifted, hypervigilant because this wasn’t normal—having Sage with him on a job.
It changed the hand of the deck. Not in a bad way, but it made him reassess everything and everyone who stepped into their orbit.
Sage being here couldn’t be helped. They needed intel, and the kind of predator they were tracking never showed up on screens.
“Next,” the barista called.
The sound pulled his focus back to the counter, and he handed over his card.
“Black extra roast,” he said.
“I’ll have a mocha cappuccino, extra syrup.” Sage didn’t hesitate, leaning in just enough to be heard over the noise.
The barista rang them up and called out the order before waving them down the counter toward the pickup area.
Law took his receipt without looking at it, already stepping aside as the next customer moved in behind them.
Within minutes, another barista slid their cups over the counter.
Steam curled up from the lids, heat carrying the bitter edge of coffee and sugar.
Sage leaned in a fraction; voice pitched just for him. “You’re really ordered that?”
“Yes.”
Law smirked at the extra dark coffee in the cup. Some people would think it was sludge, but he thought it tasted just right.
Sage, on the other hand, had gone for the sweet drink without hesitation.
“That’s not coffee,” Sage said, making a face. “That’s hot dirt pretending it has morals.”
Law huffed a quiet laugh, eyeing Sage’s cup, then met his gaze—clear green, steady, always watching more than he let on. “And that’s basically a candy bomb.”
“Hey—at least mine has color,” Sage defended.
“Mine has caffeine.”
“More like battery acid,” Sage replied, glancing at a nearby display, then nudging his cup an inch to the left. Then another half inch, aligning it neatly with the counter’s edge.
