I do anyway.
“Fine,” I say. “Practical. Tomorrow morning. Six.”
“Six?”
“Bakery opens at six thirty. If you’re working, you come before the customers.”
“That is early.”
“You live in a drain tunnel and patrol rooftops. Do not act like dawn offends you.”
His expression closes, but not all the way. “Al told you?”
“No. I guessed the tunnel part. You smell like rain, concrete, and the kind of masculine sadness that does not have a lease.”
He stares.
I wince. “That was too much.”
“It was specific.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” He looks away. “Accurate.”
The truth of it lands heavy between us. He has nowhere proper to go. I suspected it, but hearing confirmation in that one word makes my throat tighten. I want to offer him something impossible and immediate. A room. A bed. A door that locks. A place at the counter that is not temporary. But if I push now, he will bolt emotionally even if his body remains still.
So I only say, “Then come for coffee before work.”
He nods once. “I will come.”
The walk back to Sweet Tooth is quiet. Not empty quiet. Full quiet. We keep to the better-lit streets, though I suspect nothing in Halo would be foolish enough to approach us tonight with Kauss walking beside me. He angles himself on the street side without comment, placing his massive body between me and traffic, alleys, doorways, strangers. When we pass a darkened storefront and two men step out laughing, Kauss’s head turns slightly. They see him and abruptly remember another direction.
I glance up at him. “Does that happen everywhere you go?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
“Lonely.”
The word comes out before either of us is ready for it.
My heart twists. I do not make a joke. Not this time.
We reach the bakery just after nine. The blue tooth sign is off because I shut it down to save power and because half the bracket is still damaged from the attack. The boarded window looks ugly under the streetlamp. The door brace gleams new and strong. Darlene opens the rear door before I knock, shock baton in one hand and cigarette in the other.
She looks at Kauss first. “You alive?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody else alive who shouldn’t be?”
“Yes.”
“Good enough.” She steps aside. “Get in before the rain rusts whatever parts of you aren’t scales.”
Kauss hesitates on the threshold.
